POETRY.

THE CHANCE.

WORDS wander like motes

Across your hideous sea Of yelling mouths and straining, hairy throats; O'er fists shaken so threateningly, That make a storm to dumb the voice of me, My frail unheeded message floats.

Flie walked about the town and by the sea, Through hoary years and years aglow with youth; You call my hopes the spawn of wizardry, And all my uttered dreams meet rage and ruth, And no one in the world believes in me.

The need, the.chance, the time . Merge, that peculiar genius may climb Triumphantly abreast Of History's mightiest. '

But when the need, the chance, and the time come, Their prophet lies deep in the-old earth numb.

Oh, not the man is great, but the Time cries And he who struggles first unto her feet She Crowns his forehead and anoints his eyes, Gives him the heart to meet You, 'scoffers with bright smiles, and true and strong

Makes she his voice; upon these lips she sets

The token of her Chosen Ones and song Pours from his soul, poignant, with no regrets.

But many know the prophet's -hungry day And all the prophet's trials and regret, •

Whose sorrow often bids them turn and say.:

"She has net.-called-; our Time has come not yet. SO must our truths retire,

Spurned, from the world of men,

Till some new Moment -strike the thought to fire • .! And folk look down the years and love us then—*. Us who have worked the dark, To whom our ardour gave the lookof fools, Haranguing in the byway and the park US—unknown Wisdom's tools." •

Having not heard my moment calling me, All my desires troop back to Old romance!

So feeble grown am I - That she cced pass me by, My heart's dreamed one, my soul's soft-footed Chance, And ears would never hear, nor eyes not see- - Dulled so with straining forth eternally, So feeble grown am L But when She comes—(ah, will she ever come ?) And whispers in your hearts the things I say, You will cry each to each : "One passed this way And spake just thus; but now his lips are numb, Sealed with the wicked earth ; but bad we known How deeply true his lore, then not alone, Unfriended to the Vast Had the great spirit passed—" And so on—ah, Some-day ! FURNLEY MAURICE.