In this rubric, lo, the Past is lettered: Strike the red words out, we strike the glory. Leave the sacred colour on the pages, Pages of the Past that teach the Future. On that scripture Yet shall young souls take the oath of service. God end War! but when brute War is ended, Yet there shall be many a noble soldier, Many a noble battle worth the winning, Many a hopeless battle worth the losing. Life is battle, Life is battle, even to the sunset. Soldiers of the Light shall strive forever, In the wards of pain, the ways of labour, In the stony deserts of the city, In the hives where greed has housed the helpless; Patient, valiant, Fighting with the powers of death and darkness. Make us mingle in that heavenly warfare; Call us through the throats of all brave bugles Blown on fields foregone by lips forgotten; Nerve us with the courage of lost comrades, Gird us, lead us, Thou, O Prince of Peace and God of Battles! THE STORY OF THE “ORIENT” ’Twas a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory, English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door, Florid-faced, the man-o’-war’s-man told his white-head boy the story, Noble story of Aboukir told a hundred times before. “Here, the _Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard_;” as he spoke each name sonorous,-- _Minotaur_, _Defence_, _Majestic_, stanch old comrades of the brine, That against the ships of Brueys made their broadsides roar in chorus,-- Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line. Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might a man left-handed, Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar. While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded, Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutlass-scar. For he served aboard the _Vanguard_, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed. Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding, Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered, flashed, and screamed. Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the _Orient_ stately, Brueys’ flag-ship, she that carried guns a hundred and a score; Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately, Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more. “‘Lower the boats!’ was Nelson’s order,”--But the listening boy beside him, Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye, Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him, Here, with childhood’s crude consistence, broke the tale to question “Why?”