POETRY.
TO MY GODSON.
THEY shall come, back through heaven's bans When June has filled the earth with joy, And you are seeking playmates, boy, To share your Kingdom of the stars, Or part with you the bracken fronds Where golden-armoured knights may ride, Or learn where baby rabbits hide,
Or dabble in the silver ponds.
0 all the pipes of fairyland
Shall give you royal welcoming, And all the fairy bells shall ring, And you will enter hand in hand. But through the music gay and sweet That fairies teach their chosen ones. Shall sound an echo of the guns And high adventure's drum will beat.
For these who died, lest all that's good And beautiful and brave and free Should sink in hell's obscuritk,— • These claim you in a brotherhood. The lot is fallen, 0 child, to you To finish all they had to leave, And by their sacrifice achieve The manifold desires they knew.
And you will feel their ardour burn Like quickening fires within your heart; In all your life they'll have a part, And all their secrets you shall learn. They would have guided your young feet,— Kind, but so far from boyhood's day, But death has found a surer way Of making comradeship complete.
0 all the pipes of fairyland Shall play for you and play for them, Their flame of radiant life will stem Evil you' scarce could understand.
They'll bid you raise your wandering eyes Till, far above you, you shall see The Beauty that they know might be Calling you from the star-lit skies.
MILDRED IICKLiT.
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