When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: 'Twas on a tree they slew Him-last,

When out of the woods He came.

SIDNEY LANIER

REQUIEM

UNDER the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave

for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Songs of Service

SOUND, SOUND THE CLARION

SOUND, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

VITAÏ LAMPADA

THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night

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!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red

Red with the wreck of a square that broke— The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England's far, and Honor a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks: 'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

HENRY NEWBOLT

THE CONQUERED

WE who are so eager started on life's race,
And breathless ran, nor stinted any whit
For aching muscles, or the parching grit
Of dust upon the lips; who set the face
Only more desperately toward the place

Where the goal's altar smoked, if runners knit
With stronger limbs outran us; we who sit
Beaten at last;-for us what gift or grace?

Though we have been outstripped, yet known have we

The joy of contest; we have felt hot life
Throb in our veins, a tingling ecstasy.

The prize is not the wreath with envy rife,
But to have been all our souls might be.
Our guerdon is the passion of that strife!
ARLO BATES

THE CARVER AND THE CALIPH

(WE lay our story in the East.

Because 'tis Eastern?-nor the least
We place it there because we fear
To bring its parable too near,

And seem to touch with impious hand
Our dear confiding native land.)

Haroun Alraschid, in the days
He went about his vagrant ways,
And prowled at eve for good or bad
In lanes and alleys of Bagdad,
Once found, at edge of the bazaar,
E'en where the poorest workers are,
A carver.

Fair his work and fine,
With mysteries of inlaced design,
And shapes of shut significance
To aught but an anointed glance,
The dreams and visions that grow plain

In darkened chambers of the brain.

And all day busily he wrought

From dawn to eve, but no one bought; Save when some Jew, with look askant, Or keen-eyed Greek from the Levant Would pause awhile-depreciate,

Then buy a month's work by the weight, Bearing it swiftly over seas

To garnish rich men's treasuries.

And now, for long none bought at all.
So he lay sullen in his stall.

Him thus withdrawn the Caliph found,
And smote his staff upon the ground.
'Ho, there, within! Hast wares to sell?
Or slumber'st, having dined too well?'
'Dined,' quoth the man with sullen eyes,
'How should I dine when no one buys?'
'Nay,' said the other, answering low,
'Nay, I but jested. Is it so?

Take, then, this coin, . . . but take beside
A counsel, friend, thou hast not tried.
This craft of thine, the mart to suit,
Is too refined-remote-minute;
These small conceptions can but fail;
"Twere best to work on larger scale,
And rather choose such themes as wear
More of the earth and less of air,
The fisherman that hauls his net-
The merchants in the market set-
The couriers posting in the street-
The gossips as they pass and greet-