incomplete.
We judge by its effect and action, blind
To its real essence, as to that we meet,
Acting unseen, when wire to wire we bind.
Think of what might be, once this secret known,
Full knowledge of Life's spark, and with the power
To rescue from Death's dark and silent zone
The souls of some great men whose natures tower
Above their fellows and can ill be spared
From some great task far-reaching and benign.
I hear a reader say: "This man has dared
"To claim for us an attribute divine!
"Our times are in God's hands." And I reply:
We do not hesitate to take a life,
The claims of social law to satisfy,
And punish men whose minds with crime are rife.
What then more fitting, given the knowledge there,
To lengthen lives that worthy ends fulfil,
And measure by new standards just and fair
The worth of life as it is good or ill?
Have we exhausted chemistry's domain?
Squeezed dry the elements we say we know?
And does the spinning universe contain
No more our theories to overthrow?
How far does gravitation serve our needs—
The force that keeps each planet in its place,
Resistless, constant, yet with varying speeds,
For ever acting in unbounded space?
Some day perhaps pent man will learn to brave
An alien atmosphere, and, from afar,
Of weight and distance master, not the slave,
Bring us new wisdom from some distant star.

Through the Centuries

While yet the Saxons ruled, a puissant Thane
Made with his unkempt band of mounted spears
A seizin of a hide of forest land
Whereon he built a house of ample size,
With dining-hall and bowers and sleeping-lofts,
And stables shutting in a stone-paved yard:
And round the whole he set a ponderous fence
Of sharpened stakes fast bound with metal bands.
And "Yan, the Wulf," for thus the Thane was known,
Called the place "Wulfden" in his savage tongue.
And here, year after year, he lived at ease,
Oft making sallies for a cattle raid,
Or fighting with some other such as he,
To come back weary at the fall of night,
Driving a herd before him, and his men
Sweating beneath the spoil of plundered foes.
Once as he sat at supper in his hall,
Bemused with mead and satisfied with food,
There came a wandering bedesman to his gate
Craving permission "in Fayre Jesu's name"
To build a church of stone within the shade
Of his protection. And, in generous mood,
The Thane gave gruff assent; and time slipped by.

Then William swept the land, and, to reward
One of his knights, gave him the Wulf's demesne
To hold in fee, and on the Saxon's land
Arose a fortress with embattled walls,
With donjon, keep and moat and tilting-yard,
To hold in thraldom all the country-side.
But still was left the little Saxon church,
Unchanged save that the Norman owner gave
New consecration in his patron's name,
St. Martinus of Tours, a warrior saint
Who guarded through the centuries his race.

Then in the War of Roses came the crash
That brought extinction to the feudal name
And desolation to its crumbling home.
And yet, though scarred by time and gray with age,
The little church of Saxon days remained
The emblem of a never-dying faith.

The years rolled by and then there came a day
Which gave a new possessor to the place,
A nobleman in favour with that queen
Who loved a witty tongue and ready sword
When coupled with good looks and brave attire.
He built a great Elizabethan pile,
The ground-plan shaped to form the royal E,
Conforming to the fashion of the times
When loyalty spoke even from silent stone.
And he, to please his lady's pious whim,
(Though ten years wed, he called her Sweetheart still)
Forbore to raze the chapel to the ground,
But stayed with flying buttress either side,
Repaired the roof and made it to her mind.
And there they lie, both in one marble tomb
On which their effigies with clasping hands
Bear witness to an everlasting love.

And when vacation brings its hours of rest
I sometimes sit within the Saxon church
And muse upon the changes time has brought
Save to the faith that reared the little shrine,
And still builds churches "in Fayre Jesu's name."

Winter

'Tis winter and the darkening skies
Awake regretful memories
Of wooded hill and sunlit plain,
Ringing with anthems to the sun
Until his arching course was run
And nightingales took up the strain.

The trees, then dense with leaves and flowers,
Stood through the long and smiling hours,
Housing an honest little folk,
Throbbing with life by day and night,
Whose voices, vibrant with delight,
Of happy labour ever spoke.

The trees now spread their haggard arms,
Bared of their pristine, leafy charms,
To cold and unresponsive skies
That neither smile nor weep, but chill
With cold indifference, and kill
Hope that all nature underlies.

A dreary moan floats on the wind
From the gaunt oaks, that, ill defined,
Show spectral shapes against the sky
From which the fleeting day has flown
While dead leaves on the earth are strown
To mark the summer's mortuary.

Where are the thousand things of life
That erstwhile made the place all rife
With busy hum and restless wing
And turmoil of a world of love?
The blackbird on her nest above,
Below, the beetle tunnelling.

Gone with the happiness I knew
Because the heavens were always blue,
While the sun shone from day to day
And winter was not. 'Twas as far
And nebulous as yonder star
That throws its cold and sickly ray

Where once a glorious flood of light
Ceased only with the falling night.
Gloom hovers where triumphant joy
Beatified each passing hour,
For Winter now with ruthless power
Fulfils its mission to destroy.

The Voice of Winter.

"I bring not death but rest to flower and tree,
"And nurse the flame divine, Vitality,
"That burns immortal since primeval night
"When the Creator said: 'Let there be light!'
"And loosed the sun upon his blazing way
"To roll for ever through an endless day."

Pain and Death

Amid the fields of Asphodel
Musing one day by chance,
Imperious Jove
Let memory rove
And turned his gaze austere
To where Arcadian shepherds dwell,
The land of song and dance,
Where Death was not
And Time forgot
To send the rolling year:
Where man, untried by trouble's test,
Found the supreme of life in rest.

Immortal man without a care
Rivalled the gods above:
Free, effortless,
In sheer idlesse
Aping divinity.
So he was made by Jove to share
A mortal life and love
By anguish tried
And purified
For Death's cold sanctity.
Thus 'twas ordained that Death and Pain
Should raise man to a nobler plane.

Switzerland

Land of mountain, lake and river,
Waterfalls, and rushing streams
By the wayside where the cattle
Gather with their bells a-ringing,
In the day's departing beams.

Land of glorious dawns and sunsets,
Glowing shades of every