260 CLEAR THE WAY. Once the welcome light has broken, What the unimagined glories What the evil that shall perish Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Men of thought and men of action, Lo! a cloud's about to vanish And a brazen wrong to crumble Lo! the Right's about to conquer; With the Right shall many more Enter smiling at the door; Men of thought and men of action, FROM "BABE CHRISTABEL." 261 FROM "BABE CHRISTABEL." GERALD MASSEY. AND thou hast stolen a jewel, Death Through tears it gleams perpetually, To light us o'er the jasper sea. With our best branch in tenderest leaf, We've strewn the way our Lord doth come: And, ready for the harvest home, Our beautiful bird of light hath fled; And white-winged angels nurture her; With heaven's white radiance robed and crowned, And all love's purple glory round, She summers on the hills of myrrh. Through childhood's morning-land, serene While, in a robe of light above, 262 66 FROM BABE CHRISTABEL." Till life's highway broke bleak and wild; Her wave of life hath backward rolled And aye we seek and hunger on : For precious pearls and relics rare, O weep no more! there yet is balm spread Strange glory streams through life's wild rents, To the beloved going hence. God's ichor fills the hearts that bleed; The best fruit loads the broken bough; And in the wounds our sufferings plough, Immortal love sows sovereign seed. THE GRANDMOTHER. 263 THE GRANDMOTHER. VICTOR HUGO. MOTHER of our own dear mother, good old grandam, wake and smile! Commonly, your lips keep moving when you're sleeping all the while; For between your prayer and slumber scarce the difference is known; But to-night you're like the image of Madonna cut in stone, With your lips without a motion or a breath a single one. Why more heavily than usual dost thou bend thy old gray brow? What is it we've done to grieve thee that thou'lt not caress us now? Grandam, see, the lamp is paling, and the fire burns fast away; Speak to us, or fire and lamp-light will not any longer stay, And thy two poor little children, we shall die as well as they. Ah! when thou shalt wake and find us near the lamp that's ceased to burn, Dead, and when thou speakest to us, deaf and silent in our turn 264 THE GRANDMOTHER. Then how great will be thy sorrow! then thou❜lt cry for us in vain, Call upon thy saint and patron for a long, long time, and fain, And a long, long time embrace us ere we come to life again! Only feel how warm our hands are; wake and place thy hands in ours; Wake, and sing us some old ballad of the wandering troubadours. Tell us of those knights whom fairies used to help to love and fame: Knights who brought, instead of posies, spoils and trophies to their dame, And whose war-cry in the battle was a lady's gentle name. Tell us what's the sacred token wicked shapes and sprites to scare! And of Lucifer — who was it saw him flying through the air? What's the gem that's on the forehead of the King of Gnomes displayed? Does Archbishop Turpin's psalter, or Roland's enormous blade, Daunt the great black King of Evil?. makes him most afraid? say, which Or thy large old Bible reach us, with its pictures bright and blue, Heaven all gold, and saints a-kneeling, and the infant Jesus too, |