Have ye not heard it, far and nigh,

The voice of France across the dark,
And all the Atlantic with one cry

Beating the shores of Europe?-hark!
Then, if ye will, uplift your word
Of cynic wisdom! Once again
Tell us He came to bring a sword.

Tell us He lived and died in vain.

Say that we dream! Our dreams have woven
Truths that outface the burning sun;

The lightnings, that we dreamed, have cloven
Time, space, and linked all lands in one!
Dreams! But their swift celestial fingers
Have knit the world with threads of steel,
Till no remotest island lingers

Outside the world's great commonweal.

Tell us that custom, sloth and fear

Are strong, then name them " common sense"! Tell us that greed rules everywhere,

Then dub the lie "experience."

Year after year, age after age,

Has handed down, through fool and child,

For earth's divinest heritage

The dreams whereon old wisdom smiled.

Dreams are they? But ye cannot stay them,
Or thrust the dawn back for one hour!
Truth, Love and Justice, if ye slay them,
Return with more than earthly power;

Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains

That send the spring through leaf and spray; Drive back the sun from the eastern mountains, Then-bid this mightier movement stay.

The hour of Peace is come! The nations
From east to west have heard a cry,
"Through all earth's blood-red generations
By hate and slaughter climbed thus high,

Here on this height-still to aspire,

One only path remains untrod,

One path of love and peace climbs higher! Make straight that highway for our God!" Alfred Noyes [1880

THE ONLY SON

O BITTER wind toward the sunset blowing,
What of the dales to-night?

In yonder gray old hall what fires are glowing,
What ring of festal light?

"In the great window as the day was dwindling I saw an old man stand;

His head was proudly held and his eyes kindling, But the list shook in his hand."

O wind of twilight, was there no word uttered, No sound of joy or wail?

"A great fight and a good death,' he muttered; Trust him, he would not fail.""

What of the chamber dark where she was lying For whom all life is done?

"Within her heart she rocks a dead child, crying 'My son, my little son.''

Henry Newbolt [1862

POEMS OF HISTORY

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB

[710 B. C.]

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

THE VISION OF BELSHAZZAR

[538 B. C.]

THE King was on his throne,
The Satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine,-
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless Heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,

And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;—
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood,
Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,

They saw, but knew no more.

A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the King's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view:
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away,
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy, the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

George Gordon Byron [1788–1824]

HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE

[c. 496 B. C.]

LARS PORSENA of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting-day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,

To summon his array.

East and west and south and north

The messengers ride fast,

And tower and town and cottage

Have heard the trumpet's blast.

Shame on the false Etruscan
Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.