RECESSIONAL

A recessional hymn is one that is used after a ceremony-it is the sequel to a processional hymn. Rudyard Kipling, the soldier's poet, has written many an inspiring and inspiriting processional poem, but nothing finer than this poem, hymn, and prayerthis afterthought of a patriot. Surely, while unhappily there is war in the world, every patriot, every soldier, should have an afterthought like his.

GOD of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire!
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Of lesser breeds without the Law

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word-

Thy Mercy on Thy people, Lord!

RUDYARD KIPLING.

THE SCRIBE

This beautiful poem, running through the very small and very large things in creation-small and large equally great ends with the one certain mystery, "Thou, Lord, and I."

WHAT lovely things
Thy hand hath made,
The smooth-plumed bird
In its emerald shade,
The seed of the grass,
The speck of stone

Which the wayfaring ant

Stirs, and hastes on.

Though I should sit

By some tarn in Thy hills,
Using its ink

As the spirit wills

To write of Earth's wonders,
Its live willed things,
Flit would the ages
On soundless wings
Ere unto Z

My pen drew nigh,
Leviathan told,
And the honey-fly;

And still would remain

My wit to try

My worn reeds broken,
The dark tarn dry,

All words forgotten

Thou, Lord, and I.

WALTER De la Mare.

THE LISTENERS

This is the sense of multitude in solitude. The forsaken house to which the traveller returns is so full of memories that it seems to him full of spirits that hear him. The poem is strangely charged with the mystery of things guessed at, not known, and indistinctly feared.

"Is there anybody there?" said the traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller's head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time; "Is there anybody there?

he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the old house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men :
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark
stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely traveller's call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head :-

"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

WALTER DE LA MARE.

THE DONKEY

The poet seems to make the donkey even ugliermore impossible than any child who has looked into his beautiful eyes can have found him. But that is to increase the surprise of the splendid triumph of the verses recalling Our Lord's entry into Jerusalem.

WHEN fishes flew and forests walked,
And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moments when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet :
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON.