POETRY.
THE MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN.
' Emcee at sunset through the Sussex hills, I fancied, darkening their sky-line o'er, Came hordes of field-grey forms, with all the ills And horrors following on the feet of war; And feigned the breezes whisper in the bents, The flitting linnets' little happy notes, The breath of fresh-turned earth, the wood-smoke scents, All ruined by roar and reek of iron throats.
When, o'er the splendid curve of hill that spanned The flushing sky, came bell-sounds, and a flock Streamed hastening home, a dog on either hand, With, last, their shepherd in his holden smock.
So, through the hollow where the thrush still siege His songs of hope that thrill the heart of me, By mellow lanes alight with chaffinch wings And ruby berries of the bryony, I rode and thought upon—past down and dens, Farmstead and fold by bloodstained feet untrod- The menace of that awful might-have-been, The boon of all that is, still is, thank God !
HAM:ETON TAMAN.
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