THE KAISER IN 1890--A PORTRAIT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2288, 23 October 1914, Page 6

THE KAISER IN 1890--A PORTRAIT

<■ Several American journals reprint a- striking poem by tbe late Professor Harry Minturn Peck, entitled "Unter Den :Lihden," and published in 1890. Wo quoto the verses in which special reference is made to the- Kaiser: — A bugle sounds, and in reply Rolls forth a distant storm of drums; Then down, the Linden runs the cry: The Kaiser comes! The Kaiser comes 1 . Cold eyes, set lips,'a restless glance ■ . That wanders in uneasy quest, With looks that like a living lance Blaze from 'beneath the helmet-crest. . ■ ■. Upon that face as on a page Has Nature stamped with cruel truth The hpaitlessness of cynic age, , • The reckless insolence of youth. , What morbid motive half denned, ' , What oestrus thought that stings and stays, Goads on his restless, brooding mind— This sceptred Sphinx of modern, days? ■' .- Is it ambition's poisoned wine— "" ■ The throb, perchance,'of ceaseless pain, The spark of genius half-divine— ■The burning of a madman's brain ? 'And this is he whose sword and pen 'All Europe eyes with bated breath, ■ Whose word can arm a million men, Whose nod can hurl them on to death. A nation's life, a nation's ease, i . , The honour of a nation's name, The awful fates of : war and peace ' . . All centred.in a single frame. , A type of all the dreadful past, . , When birth made brutes the lords of brain! When Hope stood. naked to the blast, , ' And cowering Freedom clanked the chain! .' Thou art the last of all that line Of them that set with lordly beck The ruthless heel of right - divine Forever on a nation's neck. ■