war

‘By-and-bye, ’ the maiden sighed – ‘by-and-bye
He will claim me for his bride,
Hope is strong and time is fleet;
Youth is fair, and love is sweet,
Clouds will pass that fleck my sky,
He will come back by-and-bye.’

‘By-and-bye, ’ the soldier said – ‘by-and-bye,
After I have fought and bled,
I shall go home from the wars,
Crowned with glory, seamed with scars,
Joy will flash from some one’s eye
When she greets me by-and-bye- by-and-bye.’

‘By-and-bye, ’ the mother cried – ‘by-and-bye,

O rivers rolling to the sea
From lands that bear the maple-tree,
How swell your voices with the strain
Of loyalty and liberty!

A holy music, heard in vain
By coward heart and sordid brain,
To whom this strenuous being seems
Naught but a greedy race for gain.

O unsung streams--not splendid themes
Ye lack to fire your patriot dreams!
Annals of glory gild your waves,
Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!

St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves
The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves!

This piece, as many more of Ossian's compositions, is addressed to one of the first Christian missionaries. The story of the poem is handed down by tradition thus:- In the country of the Britons, between the walls, two chiefs lived in the days of Fingal, Dunthalmo, Lord of Teutha, supposed to be the Tweed; and Rathmor, who dwelt at Clutha, well known to be the river Clyde. Rathmor was not more renowned for his generosity and hospitality, than Dunthalmo was infamous for his cruelty and ambition.

It is winter in California, and outside
Is like the interior of a florist shop:
A chilled and moisture-laden crop
Of pink camellias lines the path; and what
Rare roses for a banquet or a bride,
So multitudinous that they seem a glut!

A line of snails crosses the golf-green lawn
From the rosebushes to the ivy bed;
An arsenic compound is distributed
For them. The gardener will rake up the shells
And leave in a corner of the patio
The little mound of empty shells, like skulls.

1

Meandering abroad in the Lincolnshire meadows day
Day and day a month perhaps, lying at night lonely,
The early September evening administering a mystery,
The moon executing its wavering sleight of hand, I sense the
Advent of the extraordinary event, the calamiterror,
Turn and encounter the mountain descending upon me
The moment of terror flashes like dead powder
Revealing the features of the mass as mine.

2

Time like a mountain made of my own shadow
Collapsing on me, buries me in my life.

". . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge." District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.


Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
Stand up like the thrones of Kings --

Ramparts of slaughter and peril --
Blazing, amazing, aglow --
'Twixt the sky-line's belting beryl
And the wine-dark flats below.

Royal the pageant closes,
Lit by the last of the sun --
Opal and ash-of-roses,

"Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns


TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HOLLAND,
THIS TALE IS INSCRIBED,
WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD AND RESPECT,
BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED AND SINCERE FRIEND,

BYRON.



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS



CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

Know ye the land where cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,

O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
   Come, naked Virtue's only tire,
The reaped harvest of the light
   Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.
   Love calls to war:
   Sighs his alarms,
   Lips his swords are,
   The field his arms.

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
   On glorious Day's outfacing face;
And all thy crowned flames command
   For torches to our nuptial grace.
   Love calls to war:
   Sighs his alarms,
   Lips his swords are,
   The field his arms.

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!’
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God’s blank heart grown kind,

Oh, big was the bosom of brave ALUM BEY,
And also the region that under it lay,
In safety and peril remarkably cool,
And he dwelt on the banks of the river Stamboul.

Each morning he went to his garden, to cull
A bunch of zenana or sprig of bul-bul,
And offered the bouquet, in exquisite bloom,
To BACKSHEESH, the daughter of RAHAT LAKOUM.

No maiden like BACKSHEESH could tastily cook
A kettle of kismet or joint of tchibouk,
As ALUM, brave fellow! sat pensively by,
With a bright sympathetic ka-bob in his eye.