POETRY.

HIS CHANCE

ALWAYS cheery and loyal and keen,

And never a slant of luck ; Egypt, Afridiland, Magersfontein,

A wound and a fever, and still in the ruck.

Never a cross for the harlsaved gun, Never a line in a long despatch; He laughed, and told us what others had done, And the ball in the shoulder was " only a scratch."

Then the English sailed for the fields of France, ,Gladly the regiment welcomed him back ;

And we said, Now surely he wilt get his chance, It can't be unending, the run on the black.

They came at our lines in the darkness and rain,

Thousand on thousand against our few,

And the ground in the open was heaped with the slain, But the Mass surged onward, and over, and through.

Sullenly fighting the men gave back, Swamped, not beaten, shooting to kill; Then a waver and writhe in the tortured attack As our guns got the range from the flank of the hill.

"Come along, men, they're breaking, now give them the steel I"

He was first up himself as the mass went about,

And cheering and stabbing they came at his heel, And through the lost trenches they poured with the rout.

He was missing that night, though they searched for him long.

In the morning they found him, a smile in his eyes,

Dead. But for England. If life did him wrong, Death has brought him his guerdon, in Honour he lies.

H. M. D.