Classic Poem

WITH scrip, with sandals worn,
With hickory staff, or thorn,
With stately tread, across our moors came he,
And hills with heather hung,
And heights with boulders strung,
Teaching a lesson from each tarn and tree.

Our hamlets, fountains, fens,
Our fairy-haunted glens,
Our Druid-whispering castles, ivy-twined;
Our crags and cromlechs rare,
Our pastoral daughters fair,
Our skilful workers, young and old, combined.

To please; and blandly stole
O'er the peace-prophet's soul,
The rush of rivers, and the mine's dull roar.
Nor will the picture die,
Before his mental eye,
The children playing by the workman's door.

And once he turn'd aside,
With Charity his guide,
To see a poet, in his Cornish cot.
This gave the crooner joy,
His wife and little boy:
They read and chatted, which true pleasure brought.

He won't forget, I ween,
One dainty, darling scene, —
The generous sage, his sanctum in the grove:
The birds which flutter'd down,
From the green pine-tree's crown,
Picking the crumbs, and twittering their love.

Nor, this I mention last,
The timely, rich repast,
Within the home of beauty, roof'd with flowers:
While lake, and lawn, and stream,
Like some Arabian dream,
Swell'd on his vision with triumphant powers.

Then, at the close of day,
Too soon he walk'd away,
Our parting-place was 'mid the green grass glades.
O, may the Prince Divine
Prosper his work benign,
Till battle-shields are beaten into spades!

A triumph waits him yet,
Ere life's full sun is set;
Behold, the horizon now is streak'd with light,
Which shall increase and glow,
Till peace prevail below,
And War lies rotting in his cave of night!