Our tears we shed
In vain, for thou
Dost pace another shore,
Untroubled now.
THE WOMAN’S GAME
Authorship not known
WAS there ever a game we did not share,
Brother of mine?
Or a day when I did not play you fair,
Brother of mine?
“As good as a boy,” you used to say,
And I was as eager for the fray,
And as loath to cheat or to run away,
Brother of mine!
You are playing the game that is straight and true,
Brother of mine,
And I’d give my soul to stand next to you,
Brother of mine.
The spirit, indeed, is still the same;
I would not shrink from the battle’s flame,
Yet here I stay—at the woman’s game,
Brother of mine!
If the last price must needs be paid,
Brother of mine,
You will go forward, unafraid,
Brother of mine.
Death can so small a part destroy,
You will have known the fuller joy—
Ah! would that I had been born a boy,
Brother of mine!
A FLEMISH VILLAGE
H. A.
in London Spectator
GONE is the spire that slept for centuries,
Whose image in the water, calm and low,
Was mingled with the lilies green and snow,
And lost itself in river mysteries.
The church lies broken near the fallen spire;
For here, among these old and human things
Death swept along the street with feet of fire,
And went upon his way with moaning wings.
Above the cluster of these homes forlorn,
Where giant fleeces of the shells are rolled,
O’er pavements by the kneeling herdsmen worn,
The wounded saints look out to see their fold.
And silence follows fast, no evening peace,
But leaden stillness, when the thunder wanes,
Haunting the slender branches of the trees,
And settling low upon the listless plains.