* * * * *

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three,
And Teddy would run to the rainbow’s foot
Because he was five and a man;
And that’s how it all began, my dears,
And that’s how it all began.

* * * * *

’If I have taken the common clay
  And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
  The greater honour to me.’ 
’If thou hast taken the common clay,
  And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
  The greater shame to thee.’

* * * * *

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
Where the smoke of the cooking hung grey: 
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey. 
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away,
And he turned from his meal in the villager’s close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.

* * * * *

The lark will make her hymn to God,
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.

Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter’s horn
That once I used to blow.

* * * * *

There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they went south and east and north—­
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.

There were three friends that spoke of the dead—­
The strong man fights but the sick man dies—­
‘And would he were here with us now,’ they said,
‘The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes.’

* * * * *

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave. 
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho’ the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!

GALLIO’S SONG

(And Gallio cared for none of these things.—­ACTS xviii. 17)

All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew—­
All day long at their ruler’s feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew. 
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia’s Deputy spoke—­

’Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man ascend upon high,
Whether this maker of tents be Jove
Or a younger deity—­
I will be no judge between your gods
And your godless bickerings. 
Lictor, drive them hence with rods—­
I care for none of these things!