Part 52 (1/2)

Did ever his countenance change? Did ever a moment supreme Illumine his face with a strange ineffably beautiful dream?

Before he was caught in the breach--in the pits of iniquity grim, Did ever the Deity reach the hand of a Father to him?

Behold, it is folly to say the evil was born in the blood; The rose that is cankered to-day was once an immaculate bud!

There might have been blossom and fruit--a harvest exceedingly fair, Instead of the venomous root, and flowers that startle and scare.

The burden--the burden is their's who, watching this garden about, a.s.sisted the thistle and tares, and stamped the divinity out!

A growth like the larrikin Ned--a brutal unqualified clod, Is what ye are helping who'd tread on the necks of the prophets of G.o.d.

No more than a d.a.m.nable weed ye water and foster, ye fools, Whose aim is to banish indeed the beautiful Christ from the schools.

The merciful, wonderful light of the seraph Religion behold These evil ones shut from the sight of the children who weep in the cold!

But verily trouble shall fall on such, and their portion shall be A harvest of hyssop and gall, and sorrow as wild as the sea.

For the rose of a radiant star is over the hills of the East, And the fathers are heartened for war-- the prophet, the Saint, and the priest.

For a spirit of Deity makes the holy heirophants strong; And a morning of majesty breaks, and blossoms in colour and song.

Yea, now, by the altars august the elders are s.h.i.+ning supreme; And brittle and barren as dust is the spiritless secular dream.

It's life as a vapour shall end as a fog in the fall of the year; For the Lord is a Father and Friend, and the day of His coming is near.

_In Memoriam_--Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse

Shall he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus, Turned gracious eyes and countenance of s.h.i.+ne, Be left to lie without a wreath from us, To sleep without a flower upon his shrine?

Shall he, the son of that resplendent Muse, Who gleams, high priestess of sweet scholars.h.i.+p, Still slumber on, and every bard refuse To touch a harp or move a tuneful lip?

No! let us speak, though feeble be our speech, And let us sing, though faltering be our strain, And haply echoes of the song may reach And please the soul we cannot see again.

We sing the beautiful, the radiant life That shone amongst us like the quiet moon, A fine exception in this sphere of strife, Whose time went by us like a hallowed tune.

Yon tomb, whereon the moonlit gra.s.ses sigh, Hides from our view the sh.e.l.l of one whose days Were set throughout to that grand harmony Which fills all minor spirits with amaze.

This was the man whose dear, lost face appears To rise betimes like some sweet evening dream, And holy memories of faultless years, And touching hours of quietness supreme.

He, having learned in full the golden rule, Which guides great lives, stood fairly by the same, Unruffled as the Oriental pool, Before the bright, disturbing angel came.

In Learning's halls he walked--a leading lord, He trod the sacred temple's inner floors; But kindness beamed in every look and word He gave the humblest Levite at the doors.

When scholars poor and bowed beneath the ban, Which clings as fire, were like to faint and fall, This was the gentle, good Samaritan, Who stopped and held a helping hand to all.

No term that savoured of unfriendliness, No censure through those pure lips ever pa.s.sed; He saw the erring spirit's keen distress, And hoped for it, long-suffering to the last.

Moreover, in these days when Faith grows faint, And Heaven seems blurred by speculation wild, He, blameless as a mediaeval saint, Had all the trust which sanctifies a child.

But now he sleeps, and as the years go by, We'll often pause above his sacred dust, And think how grand a thing it is to die The n.o.ble death which deifies the just.

Rizpah