by Andrew Lang

DEEDS OF MEN

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. To Colonel Ian Hamilton. To you, who know the face of war, You, that for England wander far,

You that have seen the Ghazis fly From English lads not sworn to die, You that have lain where, deadly chill, The mist crept o'er the Shameful Hill, You that have conquered, mile by mile, The currents of unfriendly Nile, And cheered the march, and eased the strain When Politics made valour vain, Ian, to you, from banks of Ken, We send our lays of Englishmen!

SEEKERS FOR A CITY.

"Believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set on a hill visible to all the world, I should long ago have journeyed thither. . . But the number and variety of the ways! For you know, THERE IS BUT ONE ROAD THAT LEADS TO CORINTH."

HERMOTIMUS (Mr Pater's Version).

"The Poet says, DEAR CITY OF CECROPS, and wilt thou not say, DEAR CITY OF ZEUS?"

M. ANTONINUS.

"To Corinth leads one road," you say: Is there a Corinth, or a way? Each bland or blatant preacher hath His painful or his primrose path, And not a soul of all of these But knows the city 'twixt the seas, Her fair unnumbered homes and all Her gleaming amethystine wall!

Blind are the guides who know the way, The guides who write, and preach, and pray, I watch their lives, and I divine They differ not from yours and mine!

One man we knew, and only one, Whose seeking for a city's done, For what he greatly sought he found, A city girt with fire around, A city in an

empty land Between the wastes of sky and sand, A city on a river-side, Where by the folk he loved, he died. (1)

Alas! it is not ours to tread That path wherein his life he led, Not ours his heart to dare and feel, Keen as the fragrant Syrian steel; Yet are we not quite city-less, Not wholly left in our distress - Is it not said by One of old, "Sheep have I of another fold?" Ah! faint of heart, and weak of will, For us there is a city still!

"Dear city of Zeus," the Stoic says, (2) The Voice from Rome's imperial days, In Thee meet all things, and disperse, In Thee, for Thee, O Universe! To me all's fruit thy seasons bring, Alike thy summer and thy spring; The winds that wail, the suns that burn, From Thee proceed, to Thee return.

"Dear city of Zeus," shall WE not say, Home to which none can lose the way! Born in that city's flaming bound, We do not find her, but are found. Within her wide and viewless wall The Universe is girdled all. All joys and pains, all wealth and dearth, All things that travail on the earth, God's will they work, if God there be, If not, what is my life to me?

Seek we no further, but abide Within this city great and wide, In her and for her living, we Have no less joy than to be free; Nor death nor grief can quite appal The folk that dwell within her wall, Nor aught but with our will befall!

THE WHITE PACHA.

Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave, He perished with the folk he could not save, And though none surely told us he is dead, And though perchance another in his stead, Another, not less brave, when all was done, Had fled unto the southward and the sun, Had urged a way by force, or won by guile To streams remotest of the secret Nile, Had raised an army of the Desert men, And, waiting for his hour, had turned again And fallen on that False Prophet, yet we know GORDON is dead, and these things are not so! Nay, not for England's cause, nor to restore Her trampled flag - for he loved Honour more - Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or

Victory, Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die. He will not come again, whate'er our need, He will not come, who is happy, being freed From the deathly flesh and perishable things, And lies of statesmen and rewards of kings. Nay, somewhere by the sacred River's shore He sleeps like those who shall return no more, No more return for all the prayers of men - Arthur and Charles - they never come again! They shall not wake, though fair the vision seem: Whate'er sick Hope may whisper, vain the dream!

MIDNIGHT, JANUARY 25, 1886.

To-morrow is a year since Gordon died! A year ago to-night, the Desert still Crouched on the spring, and panted for its fill Of lust and blood. Their old art statesmen plied, And paltered, and evaded, and denied; Guiltless as yet, except for feeble will, And craven heart, and calculated skill In long delays, of their great homicide.

A year ago to-night 'twas not too late. The thought comes through our mirth, again, again; Methinks I hear the halting foot of Fate Approaching and approaching us; and then Comes cackle of the House, and the Debate! Enough; he is forgotten amongst men.

ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA.

On the offer of help from the Australians after the fall of Khartoum. Sons of the giant Ocean isle In sport our friendly foes for long, Well

England loves you, and we smile When you outmatch us many a while, So fleet you are, so keen and strong.

You, like that fairy people set Of old in their enchanted sea Far off from men, might well forget An elder nation's toil and fret, Might heed not aught but game and glee.

But what your fathers were you are In lands the fathers never knew,

'Neath skies of alien sign and star You rally to the English war; Your hearts are English, kind and true.

And now, when first on England falls The shadow of a darkening fate, You hear the Mother ere she calls, You leave your ocean-girdled walls, And face her foemen in the gate.

COLONEL BURNABY.

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

Thou that on every field of earth and sky Didst hunt for Death, who seemed to flee and fear, How great and greatly fallen dost thou lie Slain in the Desert by some wandering spear: 'Not here, alas!' may England say, 'not here Nor in this quarrel was it meet to die, But in that dreadful battle drawing nigh To thunder through the Afghan passes sheer:

Like Aias by the ships shouldst thou have stood, And in some glen have stayed the stream of flight, The bulwark of thy people and their shield, When Indus or when Helmund ran with blood, Till back into the Northland and the Night The smitten Eagles scattered from the field.'

MELVILLE AND COGHILL.

(The place of the little hand.)

Dead, with their eyes to the foe, Dead, with the foe at their feet, Under the sky laid low Truly their slumber is sweet, Though the wind from the Camp of the Slain Men blow, And the rain on the wilderness beat.

Dead, for they chose to die When that wild race was run; Dead, for they would not fly, Deeming their work undone, Nor cared to look on the face of the sky, Nor loved the light of the sun.

Honour we give them and tears, And the flag they died to save, Rent from the rain of the spears, Wet from the war and the wave, Shall waft

men's thoughts through the dust of the years, Back to their lonely grave!

RHODOCLEIA

TO RHODOCLEIA - ON HER MELANCHOLY

SINGING.

(Rhodocleia was beloved by Rufinus, one of the late poets of the Greek Anthology.)

Still, Rhodocleia, brooding on the dead, Still singing of the meads of asphodel, Lands desolate of delight? Say, hast thou dreamed of, or remembered, The shores where shadows dwell, Nor know the sun, nor see the stars of night?

There, 'midst thy music, doth thy spirit gaze As a girl pines for home, Looking along the way that she hath come, Sick to return, and counts the weary days! So wouldst thou flee Back to the multitude whose days are done, Wouldst taste the fruit that lured Persephone, The sacrament of death; and die, and be No more in the wind and sun!

Thou hast not dreamed it, but remembered I know thou hast been there, Hast seen the stately dwellings of the dead Rise in the twilight air, And crossed the shadowy bridge the spirits tread, And climbed the golden stair! Nay, by thy cloudy hair And lips that were so fair, Sad lips now mindful of some ancient smart, And melancholy eyes, the haunt of Care, I know thee who thou art! That Rhodocleia, Glory of the Rose, Of Hellas, ere her close, That Rhodocleia who, when all was done The golden time of

Greece, and fallen her sun, Swayed her last poet's heart.

With roses did he woo thee, and with song, With thine own rose, and with the lily sweet, The dark-eyed violet, Garlands of wind-flowers wet, And fragrant love-lamps that the whole night long Burned till the dawn was burning in the skies, Praising THY GOLDEN EYES, AND FEET

MORE SILVERY THAN THETIS' FEET!

But thou didst die and flit Among the tribes outworn, The unavailing myriads of the past: Oft he beheld thy face in dreams of morn, And, waking, wept for it, Till his own time came at last, And then he sought thee in the dusky land! Wide are the populous places of the dead Where souls on earth once wed May never meet, nor each take other's hand, Each far from the other fled!

So all in vain he sought for thee, but thou Didst never taste of the Lethaean stream, Nor that forgetful fruit, The mystic pom'granate; But from the Mighty Warden fledst; and now, The fugitive of Fate, Thou farest in our life as in a dream, Still wandering with thy lute, Like that sweet paynim lady of old song, Who sang and wandered long, For love of her Aucassin, seeking him! So with thy minstrelsy Thou roamest, dreaming of the country dim, Below the veiled sky!

There doth thy lover dwell, Singing, and seeking still to find thy face In that forgetful place: Thou shalt not meet him here, Not till thy singing clear Through all the murmur of the streams of hell Wins to the Maiden's ear! May she, perchance, have pity on thee and call Thine eager spirit to sit beside her feet, Passing throughout the long unechoing hall Up to the shadowy throne, Where the lost lovers of the ages meet; Till then thou art alone!