POETRY.
TO THE DEVON MEN IN TOWN.
(The Twentieth Annual Dinner of Devonians in London, November 29th, 1907.)
MEN of the West, whose hearts still hold
Love for your winding denes and dells Where once hoarse-echoing thunders rolled From Drake's victorious caravels, Search the city, search in vain For a dearer thought or a prouder theme, And after the press of day and its pain • Turn to the West, and dream.
Dream of the waves by Teignmouth shore That swerve and lift to the grey sea-wall, Of Lynton cliffs and the silent moor Where the long moon-shadows softly fall ; Dream of the woman whose heart you won In a brave, bright heather time long past, Of the gossamer net by fairies spun O'er the morning meadows cast.
What sounds shall ravish your sleep to-night When the creeping fog veils London Town ? Songs of the great winds flung from the height, Laughter of foam on ledges brown ; A fugitive streamlet's hasty word, Challenge and crash of crested seas; The shy, sweet note of a bidden bird Chanting love-litanies.
I bear the surge of an evening hymn From the lamp-lit church set high on the hill, I watch once more as the world grows dim From the leaves round my ivied window-sill; 0, memory chides for many a year Since last we stood in that brambled lane, And the call of the home-land rings out clear—.
" Men of the West. come back again!"
WILFRID L. RARDELL
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