POETRY.

THE FALSE BRETHREN.

[" Seamen never forget and seamen never forgive, and they have looked upon their deed not once but a hundred times. . . . In every foreign port the Germans will be marked men—branded to their very souls with the mark of Cain."] YE have shamed the mother that bore ye,

Ye have shamed your mother, the sea; Ah, would ye were dead before ye Had drawn your breath from me!

My kindly laws ye have broken—

The laws my children have known; Ye shall keep the eternal token Of the doom ye must bear alone.

My life is a life of striving; And my winds and my waves have made, Through the storm and the spindrift driving, The men who are ne'er afraid; So quick to rescue a brother In the hour of his utmost need, The call for help from another Is the call they are first to heed.

This is their highest guerdon- Never to shrink from the task, But if life or death be the burden To share it is all they ask. When the gale roars up from the forties, Ere the fog shuts down like a pall, They hear through its furious sorties The souls in peril that call.

But ye! there is no repaying For the evil ye have wrought, And all your whining and praying Shall avail your murderers naught!

Ye have spat on all things human, Ye have hardened your hearts and sworn To spare neither child nor woman, Nor your brethren of woman born.

Oh, the brave ships that I cherished

As they sailed forth gay and free!

Oh, the anguish when they perished—

When you took them away from me!

With the fangs of wolves ye have rent them

And toppled their tall masts down—

Ye have laughed, as under ye sent them, To see the children drown! Children or women—ye left them To cold and hunger and thirst; With sneers and gibes ye bereft them, . And therefore ye are accurst!

For this is the doom ye inherit

As long as my waves endure—

This is the wrath that ye merit, The penalty ye secure: Not in all the years hereafter Shall a hand be stretched to greet, And the seaman's friendly laughter Shall turn to scorn when ye meet; Ye shall sail unheeded, unspoken, Wherever your flag ye show; Its broad black stripe is the token Of the evil deeds ye know !

Shame of my breast, oh never

Shall ye call me mother again! And this is your fate for ever—

To carry the mark of Cain!