THE QUEEN'S LAST RIDE. (Written on the day of Queen Victoria's funeral ceremonies HE Queen is taking a drive to-day, THE They have hung with purple the carriage-way, They have dressed with purple the royal track Where the Queen goes forth and never comes back. Let no man labour as she goes by Army and Navy shall lead the way For that wonderful coach of the Queen's to-day. Kings and Princes and Lords of the land And over the city and over the world Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled, For the silent lady of royal birth Who is riding away from the Courts of earth; Riding away from the world's unrest To a mystical goal, on a secret quest. Tho' in royal splendour she drives through town, And yet she wears one, for widowed no more, She is crowned with the love that has gone before, Bow low your heads-lift your hearts on highThe Queen in silence is driving by! I AM. KNOW not whence I came, I know not whither I go; But the fact stands clear that I am here Another truth shines plain It is my power each day and hour I know that the earth exists, It is none of my business why; And while I stay I would like, if I may, The trouble, I think, with us all Is the lack of a high conceit. If each man thought he was sent to this spot To make it a bit more sweet, How soon we could gladden the world, How easily right all wrong, If nobody shirked, and each one worked. To help his fellows along. Cease wondering why you came Stop looking for faults and flaws. Rise up to-day in your pride and say, "I am part of the First Great Cause! However full the world, There is room for an earnest man. It had need of me or I would not be I am here to strengthen the plan." WOMAN AND WAR. WE women teach our little sons how wrong WR And how ignoble blows are; school and church Support our precepts, and inoculate The growing minds with thoughts of love and peace. "Let dogs delight to bark and bite," we say; But human beings with immortal souls Must rise above the methods of a brute, And walk with reason and with self-control. And then-dear God! you men, you wise, strong men, Our self-announced superiors in brain, Our peers in judgment, you go forth to war! You leap at one another, mutilate And starve and kill your fellow-men, and ask Telling how many widows you have made, What can we do but sit in silent homes, |