THE POET’S CORNER.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9123, 16 April 1908, Page 6

THE POET’S CORNER.

WHERE THE BEATEN LEGIONS BIVOUAC. They march beside us everywhere, We meet them day by day; The beaten legions of the world. Their souls all clad in gray. They carry failure’s banner O’er the battlefields of life. The hosts who never had a chance To conquer in the strife. God wrote upon their souls at birth; “Go forth, thou cumberer of the earth.” They bivouac in the city’s slum; To them nor God nor gold will come; Their hearts, their hopes, their brains are dumb. Why prats to there of life They bivouac with the lost tonight. We meet them where the forests roll, Where mountains guard the plains, Far from the beaten tracks of men, 1 The curse cold in their veins. Etched in by fate the curse must; cliug Through life’s allotted span; The writing was upon the wall Ere each frail life began. God’s finger marks each human chart With laurel wreath or broken heart; They bivouac where the shadows fall; They sup on hyssop mised|with gall; For them hope lifts no eager call. Grown weary of the bootless fight, They bivouac with the lost to-night. They tread beyond the beaten ways; They sail in unknown seas ; They sweat amidst the alien broods, That you may take your ease. They open up the pathless bush, They mingle blood with tears. In life they’re branded outcast scum, When dead they’re pioneers. God gave them nothing in this life But toil and tears and bitter strife, They bivouac where dead hopes are found, Where vain regrets alone abound, And stifled sobs the only sound. To them the dawn brings no delight— They bivouac with the lost to-night. —A. G. HALES. j in the Throne.