VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 288, 29 August 1908, Page 12

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

THE SECEET PEOPLE. Smile at us, pay na, pass us; but do not quite forget. for we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet. There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully, There is many a free French peasant who is rioher and sadder than we. i There are no folk in the whole world so help- ' l«ss or so wise. There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in onr eyes; Yon laugh at ua and love ns, both mugs and eyes are wet : Only' you do not know us, for we have not spoken yet. ■ The fine French Kings came over in a'flutter' of flags and dames. • We liked ■ their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names. The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down; - There 'was nought :but a;naked people -under a naked crown. ' " And; the 'eyes of the' King's Servants turned terribly every way, And the gold ; of the King's Servants Tose higher day by day. . 1 < They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quairit and kind > •' ; Till there was •no bed' in a monk's house, nor food that man- could find. ' ■ • . . The inns of God where no man .paid, that'were' - the wall of the , weak, The King's Servants ate them all. Bat still we did not Bpeak. ■ . , And the face of the King's ' Servants grew greater than the King; , He tricked them, and they' trapped him,-and stood round him in a ring. ' The new grave lords closed round him, they had eaten the abbey's fruits. And the men of the new religion, with their Bibles: in thGir boots; We saw their; shoulders moving, to menace; or discuss. And som&:were pure,, and some were vile; but; none took heed of us. We saw" the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale; And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale. A war- that 'wo understood, not came oyer' the : world and woke '. 1 Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not vthe thing they spoke. '. They talked about rights , and nature, and peace i: and ; the . people's reign; ; And the squires, our. masters, bade us fight; and never "scorned us again. Weak if we be. for'ever, could none contemn us then. ' . .. , Men called ua serfs and drudges; men knew j' that we were men; In : .foam and flamo at Trafalgar, on Albuera -."plains, - ' We did and died like lions, to'keep ourselves ,'in chains, r We lay,in living ruins; firing and fearing not The strange, fierce face of Frenohmen who '.knew'for what they fought, And. the man who seemed to be more than. - man we strained against and broke; Arid, we broke pur own rights with.him. And. -still we never spoke. Our. patch! of glory ended; we never heard

guns again. But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain. ' He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched : -a cringing Jew,- . He; was "strioken i it may be, after all, he was ; stricken at Waterloo. ' Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, ;whose- spoil is in his house, ; 1 Come hack in shining shapes at last to spoil r.hislsat-carbnse. We' only know the last sad squires ride slowly -towards the sea, Aod : a'new people takea the land; and still it is not we .. They have given us into the hands of the new, unhappy, lords— • ; . !t' .... , . Lords W"b°ut anger' and honour, who dare not' carry'their swordsi They live by shuffling papers; they hare. bright, dead 'alien eyes; ' . : They look at our labour aid laughter as a tired'man looks at flieg. And of their loveless pity is,worse tharijjhe anoient wrongs; Their csors axe shut in the evening,' son^aj®_ «■' We hear: men speaking for ns\of ;• new .'.".laws'. strong and sweet, ' j, .' ; j Yet is there no man speaketh aa we speak in the street;'; It may be we shall ris6 .at last as Frenchmenrose 'at first, ' T Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our | wrath be the worst If may be we are meant to' mark with onr : riot and our rest < God's scorn for $11, men's governing; it may'bo beer is best. • ; . . ■ But we. are the people of England; and we. have'not spoken yet. 'i Bmile at us, pay us, pass us. • But do. not quite forget. /■;'■'; , v HB. K.' Chesterton.- in "-The Neolith."--. .- A PLAIN MAN'S ELEGY. Just-a week ago and-he was living In a world'where .came no thought of fame, J Did his plain day's work-beside'his brothers;-' Noteless he 'amid- 60 many 0ther5....... Yet soine impulse bids me in his name Baise thanksgiving.. Raise thanksgiving for the armies undespairing, , They who toil in Hlehca'-iU'day" long,' Fronting fate with never, faltering spirit, Simple folk who know not their own merit, Never dreaming work is worth a song, Little caring. Into depths of'time' beyond man's record, Far beyond the faint sound of these tears, Stretch the dark battalions of the nameless, Faith the only star to light them fameless, Toil the. only solace through their years. Grey, tmchequered. Once the road they trod led upward; on-' ■ ward, ■ . ; - One bleak wilderness of stone and thorn— • Wind aind hail beat down and strove to blind them; When they passed the lands they tilled behind them, . : .... " Field and upland rippled fair'-with-corn Bending -sunward. '' •'

Where the moor had been, uptowered Builded with their,sweat and ungrudged pain,' Strong memorials of their patient labour; Known'of none save of their toiling neighbour Till cried from wearied heart and brain, "Nunc dimittis!" vt: Through the wars of Iringß they moved uhsworded, Not for them the clash' of smiting steel; Overseas men songht tho bright, adventure, They but kept the faith to their indenture, Served their own'and'served the commonweal, Tree, unlorded, Therefore laud and song to suoh as these -are/ They who sought not, won not, any crown, Marched with no brave banner flying o'er them; • Did the .common deed that came before them; Lived no ahnal'd story, then lay doivri, Quiet as Caesar. Raise then in their honour load thanksgiving, Sons of earth and kindred with the sod, Patient man and still more patient woman; Ihey whose doom and joy was to bo human, Proved them gallant men and'sons of God Just by living. —Robert Bain, in the "Glasgow Herald." COMPANIONSHIP. Men laughed in ancient Egypt long • ago, And laughed beside the Lake of Galilee; And my glad heart rejoices more to know, "When it leaps up in exultation too, That, though tho laughter and the laugh '.' ,bo-new, ' ■ The joy-ii old as is the ancient sea. Men wept in r noble Athens, so they say, And in great Babylon of many towers, For the same sorrows that we feel to-day; So, stranded high upon Time's latest peak, l ean with* Babylonian and with Greek Claim kinship, through this common grief of ours. The same fair moon I look upon to-night. This shining,'golden moon above the' sea, Imparts a richer and more sweet delight For all the eyes it did rejoice of old, For all the'-hearts, long centuries grown cold, ... That shared this joy which now it gives to me. Whate'er I feel I cannot feel alone; When I am happiest or most forlorn,' Uncounted friends whom I have never known . ' Rejoicing stand, or weeping at my side— These nameless, faceless friends of mine 'who died A thousand years or more ere I was born. —E.M., in 'The Nation."