Strength of the mind and will despising sloth, Seeking the task unfinished, the goal unguessed, Sowing the seed in faith, entrusting the growth To the strength of their children, after their hands have rest: Strength of the maker, serving a distant age, The poet shaping his dream to a deathless rhyme, The doctor fighting disease, the chemist, the sage, Grappling with nature, challenging space and time! So shall we sing as we labour, till faint hearts hear And turn from their sorrow to listen, to cry at length, "Lo, we have put away doubt, and cast off fear; Come, let us fashion the world to the song of our strength!" THE DESERTED GARDEN Now these are gone, these beautiful playfellows, Gone from the green lawns under my balcony, Gone, and the house no more, the orchard Echoes no more to their happy laughter. How oft I watched them playing, the innocent Boy friend and girl friend under the cedar-tree, Till through the soft dusk rose the twinkling Stars, and the lamps in the lane were shining. Fair head to dark head leaning and whispering, Old games and new games, pirates and Indians, Short skirts and bare knees madly racing, Climbing aloft on the cedar branches. Day comes and night comes, summer and holiday, Swift, ah! the bright hours, merry adventurers! Tears now, a first shy kiss at parting, Tears--and a hand at the corner waving.... White through the dawn-mist, careless of yesterday, Life stretches onward, life the attainable White road along dim hills of dreamland; Childhood is dead, and the leaves drift over. Yet here in bleak house slumbers the memory, Here, here in green lawn, orchard and cedar-tree, Fair head and dark head, laughter, laughter, Evening, and voices across the starlight. _G. A. MOSTYN_ (_BALLIOL_) LES MISÉRABLES Lips burning lips in passionate caress, Clasped, slightly swaying, pallid as the moon, Two wretches, cleaving to each other, press Their aching bodies into semi-swoon. All the night through, till the stars droop and fail, The girdle of their arms is not undone, And when the night is finished, flaccid, pale, Two ghosts rise up, and gaze upon the sun, And turning from each other go their ways Drunken with horror, reeling with sick shame, Calling a curse on God for all their days Of ravening, all their fierce nights of flame. And lo! before the coming of the night They meet and greet again in shame's despite. _September, 1919._ _A. S. MOTT_ (_MERTON_) UMBRA