"John of Douay shall effect my plan, Set me on horseback here aloft, "In the very square I have crossed so oft: That men may admire, when future suns Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, "While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze 204 207 Admire and say, 'When he was alive 210 "And it shall go hard but I contrive To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb 213 So! While these wait the trump of doom, Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder Only they see not God, I know, The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upward each to his point of bliss- this. 216 219 222 225 I hear you reproach, " But delay was best, For their end was a crime."-Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test, As a virtue golden through and through, And prove its worth at a moment's view! Must a game be played for the sake of pelf? The true has no value beyond the sham: Stake your counter as boldly every whit, 228 231 234 237 Do your best, whether winning or losing it, 240 If you choose to play!-is my principle. For his life's set prize, be it what it will! 243 The counter our lovers staked was lost And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 246 Is the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Robert Browning. 250 THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS OR, THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA Last night, among his fellow roughs, To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, And type of all her race. Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, A heart, with English instinct fraught, Ay, tear his body limb from limb, Bring cord or axe or flame: He only knows that not through him Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed, 16 Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed. 1860. The smoke above his father's door Must he then watch it rise no more, 24 Yes, honour calls!-with strength like steel Let dusky Indians whine and kneel, An English lad must die. And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed, So let his name through Europe ring,— Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, Because his soul was great. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle. 32 40 RAMON (REFUGIO MINE, NORTHERN MEXICO) DRUNK and senseless in his place, Prone and sprawling on his face, More like brute than any man Alive or dead,~ · By his great pump out of gear, Waking only just to hear, Angry tones that called his name, Oaths and cries of bitter blame,— Woke to hear all this, and waking, turned and fled! "To the man who 'll bring to me," Cried Intendant Harry Lee, Harry Lee, the English foreman of the mine, "Bring the sot alive or dead, I will give to him," he said, Deserves the man whose deed, Stops the pumps that give us breath,— mine!" No one answered, for a cry From the shaft rose up on high; And shuffling, scrambling, tumbling from Came the miners each, the bolder 25 |