POETRY.
FORERUNNERS.
(A PREPARATOR Y SCHOOL SONG.) Ws have no high historic roll,
No list of glorious names, Like Harrow on her steepled hill Or Eton by her Thames.
But we are heirs of some whose tale Of simple duty done May rank them high in dignity As Drake or Wellington.
Ours is no carven belfry tower, No cloisters hoar with age, To be of far-off centuries A dream, an heritage.
But on our little chapel wall Are names we mark with pride, Men who for England and for God Have done their work and died.
Two of them in the stress of war Their lives undoubting gave, And one, to bear the words of Christ, Sleeps in a Hausa grave, And one there is whose memory makes His scholars' hearts still burn: Long, long may each the lesson teach Which we, like them, can learn.
As some slight sapling in the shade The forest trees among, We look to mighty schools above, Names great in speech and song.
But what in size or fame we lack Our loyalty supplies : From hand to hand we pass the torch Whose brightness never dies.
Then, whether here at home we stand Or greet a tropic sun, The Past and Present are the school, And they and we are one.
We breathe the freest air of heaven On this bleak Eastern shore, So will we face, by God's good grace, The path that lies before.
J. A.
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