POETRY.

CECIL RHODES.

ELSEWHERE, the impartial wings of time

Sad-vestured autumn bring.

Only in Oxford's happy clime Reigns an unfading spring.

Youth with its own immortal gifts, High hopes and splendid dreams, Makes glad her reverend streets, and drifts On her enchanted streams.

There, when his manhood ripened first, The great adventurer, Last of our Empire-builders, nursed His filial love for her.

Thither, when on his heart he knew Death's chilly finger laid, As close the eternal curtains drew, His dying fancies strayed.

Far other sights his prime had seen In those lost solitudes Where yonder swarthy desert Queen On her hid treasure broods.

Not now towards Bethlehem's tiny fold Our modern Magi turn.

Still over Ophir's cradled gold Their chosen planets burn.

Lands by no white man's foot defiled: The cloudless Southern skies : Where in the just-discovered wild The sudden cities rise.

Where in an hour the canvas town Round the new shaft is spread : Life in full torrent roaring down Her lately cloven bed.

There, almost in primeval strength, The full-fed passions bloom, Where giant instincts find at length Free course and ample room. Where gamblers on a single throw Life, honour, fortune lay : The pauper of a while ago A king of men to-day.

So to the arena void and vast Of that unbroken land, He came, the strong man armed, and cast His rivals on the sand.

Yet though of such base conflict doomed The lifelong slave to be, )3eneath the mask his soul assumed

A voiceless poet he •

Still haunted by one mighty thought: Of yon dark gate unsealed; The secret Caesar vainly sought To all men's eyes revealed.

When from Cape Town to Ramleh mouth The iron highways meet, And all the riches of the South Are laid at England's feet.

With such a glorious end to gain No means unlawful seemed, All paths permitted to attain The goal of which he dreamed. For those dark eyes ne'er saw in life Essential good or ill, But blind, material force at strife With his despotic will.

So 'twixt a midnight and a morn Came that ill-omened Raid, Which to her foes' triumphant scorn His country's fame betrayed.

They who God's purposes would serve, But not await His time, From their self-chosen pathway swerve Into unconscious crime.

Still may we praise the intrepid breast, So English and so gay, To whom privation was a jest, And danger, holiday.

In whose impetuous strength we saw A greater yet survive : The reckless soul that brooked no law, The undaunted heart, of Clive.

His labour's heritage is thine, City of Splendid Dreams!

Whose fairy towers of sunset shine Beside the enchanted streams ! Though fate denied him evermore Thy pleasant streets to see; Thou knowest, at last, what love he bore To England and to thee !

So peace and quiet rest to him; Where from aerial flight The questing vulture stoops to skim Alatoppos' lonely height.

There many a weeping night shall shed Her tears of dewy balm, Under the wide star-spaces spread In everlasting calm.

EDWARD SYDNEY TYLEE.