POETRY.
THE FAR-OFF INTEREST.
Si.ow through the war-vexed centuries had grown A code that tribal slaughter lacked; Our fathers builded, stone by painful stone, A beacon-tower of Pact.
Aghast we see their edifice down-hurled By treason from its lofty steep—
Hell's loosed Sabaoth masters of the world, Christ and His Saints asleep.
What hope? when nation-troth so hardly reared Dissolves in new, dread happenings; What comfort? 'Mid the ruins has appeared Some seed of beauteous things.
The poppy's groping roots find hidden hues Of scarlet in the rotting mould; From the unlovely swamp and stagnant ooze The kingcups mint their gold.
And in the wasted lands where, choked by vice And •hatred, old endeavours die, Burgeons the lily of self-sacrifice, The rose of loyalty.
They wax, amid surrounding meanness, grand, In gloom and fear and anguish, blithe, And Time the Healer lays a gentle hand Nor always wields the scythe.
Who knows the ways of God? 0 you, who yearn For hope amid the wrath out-poured, Haply through mists of tears you shall discern A garden of the Lord. H. W. B.
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