"HAVE WE FORGOTTEN GORDON?"
[Lord TENNYSON, under this heading, writes appealing to Englishmen for subscriptions to the funds of the "Gordon Boys' Home" at Woking, which is in want of £40,000. Contributions should be sent to the Treasurer, General Sir DIGHTON PROBYN, V.C., Marlborough House, Pall Mall.]
Are we sleeping? "Have we forgotten?" Like the thrust of an Arab spear
Comes that conscience-piercing-question from the Singer of Haslemere.
Have we indeed forgotten the hero we so be-sang,
When across the far south sand-wastes the news of his murder rang?
Forgotten? So it had seemed to him, as alone afar he lay,
With the Nile to watch for laggard friends, fierce foes to hold at bay;
Though the tired red lines toiled onward up the Cataracts, and we
Dreamed of the shout of the rescuing host his eyes should never see.
When chivalrous BURNABY lay slain, with a smile in the face of death,
And for happy news from the hungry wastes men yearned with bated breath;
When WILSON pushed his eager way past torrent-swirl and crag,
Till they saw o'er GORDON's citadel wave high—the MAHDI's flag.
That shame was surely enough, enough, that sorrow had a sting
Our England should not court again. The Laureate's accents ring
With scorn suppressed, a scorn deserved indeed, if still our part
Is to forget a purpose high that was dear to GORDON's heart.
"This earth has borne no simpler, nobler man." So then sang he
Who sounds a keen reveille now. "Can you help us?" What say we?
Oh, out on words, that come like WOLSELEY's host too late—too late!
Do—do, in the simple silent way that made lost GORDON great.
Surely these Boys that GORDON loved in the Home with GORDON's name
Should speak to every English heart that cares for our England's fame;
And what be forty thousand pounds as an offering made to him
Who held so high that same bright fame some do their worst to dim!
Fit task for patriot poet, this! TYRTÆUS never stood
More worthily for heroic hearts or his home-land's highest good.
Give! give! and with free hands! His spirit's poor, his soul is hard,
Who heeds not our noblest Hero's appeal through the lips of our noblest Bard!
A REMINISCENCE AND A QUOTATION.—It is reported that two Gaiety burlesque-writers are about to re-do Black-Eye'd Susan "up to date," of course, as is now the fashion. As the typical melodramatic tragedian observes, "'Tis now some twenty-five years ago" that FRED DEWAR strutted the first of his five hundred nights or so on the stage as Captain Crosstree, that PATTY OLIVER sang with trilling effect her "Pretty Seeusan," and that DANVERS, as Dame Hatly, danced like a rag-doll in a fantoccini-show. To quote the Poet CRABBE, and to go some way back in doing so,—
"I see no more within our borough's bound
The name of DANVERS!"
Which lines will be found in No. XVII. of the Poet's "Posthumous Tales."