21 NOVEMBER 1914, Page 28

POETRY.

MATRI DOLOROSAE.

THEY bore a warrior home upon his shield

To hollow Lacedaemon, long ago; They told how, lion-like, he charged the foe, And fell the hero of a hard-won field.

Then all his house made moan, but tearlessly His mother watched beside her firstborn dead; And when they bade her weep for him, she said-.

" Sparta has many a worthier son than he."

A soul as steadfast looks from your wan face,

0 English Mother, now like her bereft, Yet not, like her, denied a hope divine.

You too have known the sovereign pride of race; You that have said, "Though I be desolate left, Take, England, this my son, for he is thine."

W. M. L. finTonnesose.