When we lifted him up, he would fain have pursued, but grew dizzy instead.
Break his sword and his spear!
Let his last prayer be said
By the bed
We have made underneath the wet wind in the maple trees moaning so drear:
‘O Lord God, by the red
Sullen end of the year
That is here,
We beseech Thee to guide us and strengthen our swords till his slayers be dead!’
Many of Sherman’s poems have the ‘great out-of-doors’ world in Canada as their theme, and are marked by grave, meditative beauty, disclosing, on his part, intimate communing with and brooding on Nature’s moods. These qualities of Francis Sherman’s mind and art are observed in the following sonnet, quoted from his In Memorabilia Mortis:—