The Empire · A Voyage · The Orphanage

The Empire

1902

They said that it had feet of clay,
     That its fall was sure and quick.
In the flames of yesterday
     All the clay was burned to brick.

When they carved our epitaph
     And marked us doomed beyond recall,
"We are," we answered, with a laugh,
     "The Empire that declines to fall."

A Voyage

1909

Breathing the stale and stuffy air
     Of office or consulting room,
Our thoughts will wander back to where
     We heard the low Atlantic boom,

And, creaming underneath our screw,
     We watched the swirling waters break,
Silver filagrees on blue
     Spreading fan-wise in our wake.

Cribbed within the city's fold,
     Fettered to our daily round,
We'll conjure up the haze of gold
     Which ringed the wide horizon round.

And still we'll break the sordid day
     By fleeting visions far and fair,
The silver shield of Vigo Bay,
     The long brown cliff of Finisterre.

Where once the Roman galley sped,
     Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,
By wooded shore, or sunlit head,
     By barren hill or sea-washed vale

We took our way. But we can swear,
     That many countries we have scanned,
But never one that could compare
     With our own island mother-land.

The dream is o'er. No more we view
     The shores of Christian or of Turk,
But turning to our tasks anew,
     We bend us to our wonted work.

But there will come to you and me
     Some glimpse of spacious days gone
       by,
The wide, wide stretches of the sea,
     The mighty curtain of the sky,

The Orphanage

When, ere the tangled web is reft,
     The kid-gloved villain scowls and
       sneers,
And hapless innocence is left
     With no assets save sighs and tears,

'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks
     The hero, watchful of her needs;
He talks, Great heavens how he talks!
     But we forgive him, for his deeds.

Life is the drama here to-day
     And Death the villain of the plot.
It is a realistic play.
     Shall it end well or shall it not?

The hero? Oh, the hero's part
     Is vacant — to be played by you.
Then act it well! An orphan's heart
     May beat the lighter if you do.