POETRY.

A MOTHER IN SPARTA. THE dawn wakes, and softly, as in sleep, Pale fingers thread the raven hair of night ; Now o'er the tender blue faint blushes creep, And day arises clad in living light.

Westward a hill-top by a cross is crowned, Whereon is borne some helot crucified ; And past him speeds, with eyes that woo the ground, A messenger to say my boy has died.

My boy is dead ! Too weak to minister To Sparta's strength, he yet in his degree Yielded his life as much to succour her As the Three Hundred at Thermopyl.

Shall I not glory'in the cruel fate

That proved him hers ? Dare mother grudge her child When with a smile she yielded up her mate—

To death, by his dear valour, reconciled?

Sparta, I will not : yet where none may know— Soon I too will forget my weak heart bleeds— I do not wrong thee murmuring that 'tis so :

My thoughts are mine so I but render deeds.

We are thy servants with our earliest breath :

Thou scorn'st all ties of husband, mother, child : Thus is our life one ministry to death—

And we die gladly by thy praise beguiled.

Is the State all, and naught the world outside ?

Its sorrows and rejoicings alien things ? Or is the world but Sparta magnified, With only heed for honour's gloryings ?

The undried tear upon my dead babe's cheek, The unheeded victim on you cross upborne, Plead for all sufferers,—the poor, the weak, And every martyr of the strong world's scorn.

Nor the weak only ; for the strong and brave, Whom ravening Pain and Death pass baffled by, Are impotent their dearest ones to save : Thus Anguish stabs them through Love's treachery.

What is Pain's meaning F All the Past is dumb ; The Present asks, forgets its cry,—goes on. Will men find answer in the years to come, And compensation for the ages gone?

My thoughts are shadows, but there, tangible, From you lone cross the question cries again. From earth nor sky no answer comes to tell Hearts do not quiver, heroes bleed, in vain.

A sudden sunlight round the cross is burled, Seeming to lift it from the ground 'mid air ; The dead arms strain as to embrace the world :— Is it the question or the answer there • Silence my eldest-born, with his seven years Of strength, his wooden dagger dinted deep, Has spied me out, and if I had shed tears, Would tell me Spartan mothers should not weep !

W. 0.