O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link;
  For how could friendship be
If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink
  The dregs come not to me?

Dividing much, thou makest little thine
  Except the gain of loss;
Yet haply Christ’s true peer hath better sign
  Than coronet—­the Cross.

ST. GEORGE-IN-THE-EAST

’Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd,
          Gently proud,
Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge,
          Great Saint George,
Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight
          Speared with light—­
Hell is harried by the holy anger poured
          From his sword.

Where the sweated toilers of the river slum
          Shiver dumb,
Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod
          Knight of God;
Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags
          Paving flags,
Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries
          Piteous-wise.

* * * * *

VIOLA MEYNELL

THE RUIN

I led thy thoughts, having them for my own,
  To where my God His head to thee did bend. 
I bore thee in my bosom to His throne. 
  O, the blest labour, and the treasured end!

Now like a ruined aqueduct I go
  Unburdened; thou by more fleet ways hast been
With Him.  Since thou thine own swift road dost know,
  Thou canst not brook such slow and devious mean.

THE DREAM

I slept, and thought a letter came from you—­
  You did not love me any more, it said. 
What breathless grief!—­my love not true, not true ... 
  I was afraid of people, and afraid
Of things inanimate—­the wind that blew,
  The clock, the wooden chair; and so I strayed
From home, but could not stray from grief, I knew. 
  And then at dawn I woke, and wept, and prayed,
And knew my blessed love was still the same;—­
  And yet I sit and moan upon the bed
For that dream-creature’s loss.  For when I came
  (I came, perhaps, to comfort her) she fled. 
I would be with her where she wanders now,
Fleeing the earth, with pain upon her brow.

THE WANDERER

All night my thoughts have rested in God’s fold;
  They lay beside me here upon the bed. 
At dawn I woke:  the air beat sad and cold. 
  I told them o’er—­Ah, God, one thought had fled.

Into what dark, deep chasm this wayward one
  Has sunk, I scarcely know; I will not chide. 
O Shepherd, leave me!  Seek this lamb alone. 
  The ninety-nine are here.  They will abide.

“NATURE IS THE LIVING MANTLE OF GOD”—­GOETHE

O for the time when some impetuous breeze
Will catch Thy garment, and, like autumn trees,
Toss it and rend it till Thou standest free,
And end Thy long secluded reverie!