From France they come, and Flanders, From Mons, and Marne and Aisne. From Greece and from Gallipoli They come to her again; From the North Sea’s grey waters, From many a grave unknown, The Gentlemen of Oxford Come back to claim their own. The dark is full of laughter, Boy laughter, glad and young. They tell the old-time stories, The old-time songs are sung; They linger in her cloisters, They throng her dewy meads, Till Isis hears their calling And laughs among her reeds. But, when the east is whitening To greet the rising sun, And slowly, over Carfax, The stars fade, one by one, Then, when the dawn-wind whispers Along the Isis shore, The Gentlemen of Oxford Must seek their graves once more. WITH THE SAME PRIDE THEODOSIA GARRISON IN EVERYBODY’S MAGAZINE Permission to reproduce in this book One star for all she had, And in her heart One wound--yet is she glad For all its smart As they are glad who bear The pangs of birth That a new soul and fair May come to earth, Seeing she, too, was one Who from Death’s strife Granted her first-born son Proudly to Life. Now with that very faith Life justified, She grants a son to Death With the same pride. ACELDAMA DR. GEORGE F. BUTLER IN THE SCOOP, THE CHICAGO PRESS CLUB’S MAGAZINE Still breaks the Holy morn, to soothe the care And labor of the world; hushed is the grove, And overhead the vireo’s note of love Floats like a joyful utterance of prayer. Soft insect murmurs fill the enchanted air. Into a fairer day earth seems to move, And statelier thoughts lift mortal sense above Life’s sin and pain; the sorrow and despair. But hark! where now the noonday beams are shed In sorrowing Europe, trembles a sound Of thunder, and the land with dews of blood Is drenched; while o’er the dying and the dead Fate turns to weep o’er every pleading wound-- Can earth o’ercome the evil with the good? But yesterday two monarchs, held in check Like bloodhounds in the leash, broke forth before The eyes of Christendom, and in the roar Of lurid conflict heard not the wild shriek Of outraged millions--now again the wreck Of crushed humanity must strew death’s shore With ghastly ruin crying evermore, “Shame! Wretch of mortal form and vulture’s beak-- To ask God’s aid and Christ’s! O, hour of woe! Cover, O night of ages, the dread birth Of man’s Imperial hate! Let kings go down That peoples may aspire and live and own A holier stature, and this crimsoned earth Drink the pure light of Freedom’s afterglow!” Sunday in August, 1914 THE LONELY GARDEN EDGAR A. GUEST Copyright, 1918, by Edgar A. Guest. Special permission to reproduce in this book.