When Summer, lingering half-forlorn, On Autumn loves to lean, And fields of slowly yellowing corn Are girt by woods still green; When hazel-nuts wax brown and plump, And apples rosy-red, And the owlet hoots from hollow stump, And the dormouse makes its bed; When crammed are all the granary floors, And the Hunter's moon is bright, And life again is sweet indoors, And logs again alight; Ay, even when the houseless wind Waileth through cleft and chink, And in the twilight maids grow kind, And jugs are filled and clink; When children clasp their hands and pray 'Be done Thy Heavenly will!' Who doth not lift his voice, and say, 'Life is worth living still'? Is life worth living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right, Wail of the weak against the strong, Or tyranny to fight; Long as there lingers gloom to chase, Or streaming tear to dry, One kindred woe, one sorrowing face That smiles as we draw nigh; Long as at tale of anguish swells The heart, and lids grow wet, And at the sound of Christmas bells We pardon and forget; So long as Faith with Freedom reigns, And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will, And men are free to think and act Life is worth living still. Not care to live while English homes Nestle in English trees, And England's Trident-Sceptre roams Her territorial seas! Not live while English songs are sung Wherever blows the wind, And England's laws and England's tongue Enfranchise half mankind! So long as in Pacific main, Or on Atlantic strand, Our kin transmit the parent strain, And love the Mother-land; So long as flashes English steel, And English trumpets shrill, He is dead already who doth not feel Life is worth living still. _Austin._ CXV THEOLOGY IN EXTREMIS Oft in the pleasant summer years, Reading the tales of days bygone, I have mused on the story of human tears, All that man unto man has done, Massacre, torture, and black despair; Reading it all in my easy-chair. Passionate prayer for a minute's life; Tortured crying for death as rest; Husband pleading for child or wife, Pitiless stroke upon tender breast. Was it all real as that I lay there Lazily stretched on my easy-chair? Could I believe in those hard old times, Here in this safe luxurious age? Were the horrors invented to season rhymes, Or truly is man so fierce in his rage? What could I suffer, and what could I dare? I who was bred to that easy-chair. They were my fathers, the men of yore, Little they recked of a cruel death; They would dip their hands in a heretic's gore, They stood and burnt for a rule of faith. What would I burn for, and whom not spare? I, who had faith in an easy-chair.