Demeter And Other Poems

GEOKGE WARD . - I73 DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA. AT times our Britain cannot rest, At times her steps are swift and rash She moving, at her girdle clash The golden keys of East and West. Not swift or rash, when late she lent The sceptres of her West, her East, To one, that ruling has increased Her greatness and her self-content. 2 TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERlN AND AYA Your rule has made the people love Their ruler. Your viceregal days Have added fulness to the phrase Of Gauntlet in the velvet glove. But since your name will grow with Time, Not all, as honouring your fair fame Of Statesman, have I made the name A golden portal to my rhyme But more, that you and yours may know From nle and mine, how dear a debt We owed you, and are owing yet . To you and yours, and still would owe. TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND A VA 3 For he-your India was his Fate, And drew him over sea to you- He fain had ranged her thro and thro, To serve her myriads and the State,- A soul that, watchd froin earliest youth, And on thro many a brightening year, Had never swerved for craft or fear, By one side-path, from simple truth VIII. Who might have chased and claspt Renown And caught her chaplet here-and there In haunts of jungle-poisond air The flame of life went wavering down 4 TO THE IZIARQUZS OF DUFFERIN AND A YA IX. But ere he left your fatal shore, And lay on that funereal boat, Dying, Unspeakable he wrote Their kindness, and he wrote no more And sacred is the latest word 7 And now The was, the Might-have-been, And those lone rites I have not seen, And one drear sound I have not heard XI. Are dreams that scarce will let me be, Not there to bid my boy farewell, When That within the coffin fell Fell and flashd into the Red Sea, TO THE MARQUZS OF DUFRERIN AND A YA 5 XII. Beneath a hard Arabian moon And alien stars. To question, why The sons before the fathers die, Not mine and I may meet him soon XIII. But while my lifes late eve endures, Nor settles into hueless gray, My memories of his briefer day Will mix with love for you and yours. ON THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. FIFTY times the rose has flowerd and faded, Fifty times the golden harvest fallen, Since our Queen assumed the globe, the sceptre. She beloved for a kindliness Rare in Fable or History, Queen, and Empress of India, Crownd so long with a diadem ON THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA p Never worn by a worthier, Now with prosperous auguries Comes at last to the bounteous Crowning year of her Jubilee. Nothing of the lawless, of the Despot, Nothing of the vulgar, or vainglorious, All is gracious, gentle, great and Queenly. I v. You then joyfully, all of you, Set the mountain aflame to-night, Shoot your stars to the firmament, Deck your houses, illuminate All your towns for a festival, And in each let a multitude --This text refers to the Paperback edition.