24 JULY 1897, Page 17

QUEEN of the home and Empress of the earth Where'er

to-day her fettered lightnings run, Girdling the world more swiftly than the sun, They tell her love, her sympathy, her worth, Through sixty years of mingled dole and mirth, Since that benignant, splendid reign begun, Since the slim girl first heard that first glad gun Which lit the fire upon her sacred hearth.

Not to the Monarch, to the mighty Queen, Whose sceptre sweeps the farthest seas to-day, Whose standard floats where'er a wave is seen, Men kneel in homage ; from all lands they come And bow in reverence to that loftier sway, The Mother Queen, the high ideal of Home.

WILLIAM P. ANDREWS.