The hand of dawn is on the door
That seals the dolorous arch
of night;
Dim gardens and hushed groves once more
Dream of the half-forgotten
light;
Yet all the ancient fires are cold
On altars battered and forlorn,
And men grope still for gauds of gold,
Oblivious of the imminent
morn.
When comes the dawn? Its unseen dew
Distils on folded swath and
mound,
Where grass is deep or sods are new,
And branches shake without
a sound;
Where, numberless and low and grey,
The furrows lessen to the
sky;
There sleep the sons of England, they
Who died that England should
not die.
Better—ah, better for us all,
For them who sleep and us
who wake,
That never bird at dawn should call
Nor golden foam of morning
break;
That on one high cairn of the dead
The ultimate light should
be unsealed,
Than that the world should live unled,
Unchanged, unpurified, unhealed.
Life and all things that make it fair
Men gave that better lives
might be;
They went exulting and aware
Forth to the great discovery;
But who will prize life over-much
Or deem that death comes over-soon
If hands of fools and barterers touch
The architrave of Hope half-hewn!
Under a brave new baldachin,
New robes drooped o’er
their crimson feet,
The old unaltered twain begin
Their ride along the embannered
street;
With golden charms for men to kiss
A-swing from wrist and bridle-rein,
The brethren Pride and Avarice,
The monarchs of the world
again.
If this thing be and no new world
Rise from the old dead world
beneath,
Then morning’s chaplet seven-pearled
Is made the bauble-crest of
death;
All dreams belied, all vows made void,
Pale Hope a wingless fugitive,
And man a stumbling anthropoid—
Can these things be if England
live?
If England live, the anarch tide
Shall lose itself among her
waves,
And the grey earth be glorified
By the young blossom on her
graves;
And by her grace no power shall part;
Fulfilment from the dreams
that were,
If still the music of her heart
Be theirs who lived and died
for her.
D.M.S.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE DOVE AT SEA.
BIRD OF PEACE. “EXCUSE ME, BUT IS THIS THE ARK?”
MAN OF WAR. “DUNNO NOTHIN’ ABOUT
NO ARK; BUT WE’RE FOR ARK-ANGEL, IF
THAT’S ANY USE TO YOU.”]
* * * * *
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
[Illustration: Sultan Addison (his mind on the house famine). “TELL ME THE STORY OF THE PALACE BUILT IN A SINGLE NIGHT.”]