A shepherdess of sheep;

Her flocks are thoughts, she keeps them white,

She guards them from the steep;

She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep;
Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks the lady of my delight -
A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap;
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.

She walks the lady of my delight A shepherdess of sheep.

T. STURGE MOORE

KINDNESS

Or the beauty of kindness I speak,
Of a smile, of a charm

On the face it is pleasure to meet,
That gives no alarm!

Of the soul that absorbeth itself

In discovering good,

Of that power which outlasts health,
As the spell of a wood

Outlasts the sad fall of the leaves,

And in winter is fine,

And from snow and from frost receives A garment divine.

Oh! well may the lark sing of this,

As through rents of huge cloud

It breaks on blue gulfs that are bliss, For they make its heart proud

If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there,

And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there,

The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him

When the great ships go by.

THE ADVENTURERS

OVER the downs in sunlight clear

Forth we went in the spring of the year:
Plunder of April's gold we sought,
Little of April's anger thought.

Caught in a copse without defence

Low we crouched to the rain-squall dense:
Sure, if misery man can vex,
There it beat on our bended necks.

Yet when again we wander on Suddenly all that gloom is gone: Under and over through the wood, Life is astir, and life is good.

Violets purple, violets white,
Delicate windflowers dancing light,
Primrose, mercury, moscatel,
Shimmer in diamonds round the dell.

Squirrel is climbing swift and lithe, Chiff-chaff whetting his airy scythe, Woodpecker whirrs his rattling rap, Ringdove flies with a sudden clap.

Rook is summoning rook to build, Dunnock his beak with moss has filled, Robin is bowing in coat-tails brown, Tomtit chattering upside down.

Well is it seen that every one
Laughs at the rain and loves the sun;
We too laughed with the wildwood crew,
Laughed till the sky once more was blue.

Homeward over the downs we went
Soaked to the heart with sweet content;
April's anger is swift to fall,
April's wonder is worth it all.

HE FELL AMONG THIEVES

"YE have robb'd," said he, "ye have slaughter'd and made an end,

Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:

What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"

"Blood for our blood," they said.

He laugh'd: "If one may settle the score for five,

I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:

I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."

"You shall die at dawn," said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope, He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;

All night long in a dream untroubled of hope He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills

The ravine where the Yassin river

sullenly flows;

He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,

Or the far Afghan snows.

He saw the April noon on his books aglow, The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;

He heard his father's voice from the terrace below

Calling him down to ride.

He saw the gray little church across the park,

The mounds that hid the loved and

honour'd dead;

The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark, The brasses black and red.

He saw the School Close, sunny and green, The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,

The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,

His own name over all.

Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,

(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?), Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum,

An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth
Hoe.

Call him on the deep sea, call him up the
Sound,

Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'

They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!

VITAI LAMPADA

THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close tonight

Ten to make and the match to win A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. And it's not for the sake of a ribboned

coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his Captain's hand on his shoulder

smote

"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling

Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England,

Could more than seem to dream of it,
Or catch one flying gleam of it,

Above the seas of England that never cease to sing.

By the tenderest hands in England, hard
and blistered hands of England;
And from the restful sighing
Of the sleepers that are lying

With the arms of God around them on the night's contented breast.

There is a song of England that wanders in the wind;

So sad it is and glad it is

eyes are wet and blind,

For the lowlands and the highlands

Of the unforgotten islands,

For the Islands of the Blessèd, and the rest they cannot find

As they grope in dreams to England and the love they left in England; Little feet that danced to meet them, And the lips that used to greet them, And the watcher at the window in the home they left behind.

There is a song of England that thrills the beating blood

With burning cries and yearning Tides of hidden aspiration hardly known or understood;

Aspirations of the creature

Tow'rds the unity of Nature; Sudden chivalries revealing whence the longing is renewed

In the men that live for England, live and love and die for England: By the light of their desire

They shall blindly blunder higher To a wider, grander Kingdom and a deeper, nobler Good.

There is a song of England that only God can hear;

So gloriously victorious,

It soars above the choral stars that sing the Golden Year;

Till even the cloudy shadows That wander o'er her meadows In silent purple harmonies declare His glory there,

blushes to the West:

From cottage doors that nightly
Cast their welcome out so brightly

On the lanes where laughing children are lifted and caressed

hills of England,

While heaven rolls and ranges

Through all the myriad changes

That mirror God in music to the mortal

eye and ear.