The little bright mare, made of nerves and steel springs, Shot level beside him, shot ahead as with wings. Charles felt his horse quicken, felt the desperate beat Of the blood in his body from his knees to his feet. Three terrible strides brought him up to the mare, Then they rushed to wild shouting through a whirl of blow air; Then Gavotte died to nothing; Soyland came once again Till his muzzle just reached to the knot on his rein. Then a whirl of urged horses thundered up, whipped and blown, Soyland, Peterkinooks, and Red Ember the roan. For an instant they challenged, then they drooped and were done; Then the White Post shot backwards, Right Royal had won. Won a half length from Soyland, Red Ember close third; Fourth, Peterkinooks; fifth, Gavotte harshly spurred; Sixth, Sir Lopez, whose rider said, “Just at the Straight He swerved at the hurdle and twisted a plate.” Then the numbers went up; then John Harding appeared To lead in the Winner while the bookmakers cheered. Then the riders weighed-in, and the meeting was over, And bright Emmy Crowthorne could go with her lover. Charles married his lady, but he rode no more races; He lives on the Downland on the blown grassy places, Where he and Right Royal can canter for hours On the flock-bitten turf full of tiny blue flowers. There the Roman pitcht camp, there the Saxon kept sheep, There he lives out this Living that no man can keep, That is manful but a moment before it must pass, Like the stars sweeping westward, like the wind on the grass. _Selections from_ _ESTHER_ CHORUS. In the troubled dreams a slave has, ere I waken I can see my city shining as of old, Roof and column of the Temple wreathed in gold; And the ramparts proud as erst, before the town was taken, And the well-loved living shapes that now are cold. Then I wake, a slave, and houseless and forsaken, Chained, an outcast, and a chattel, bought and sold. Now, for us, no future, but the corn-mill and the stranger In the foeman’s house for ever. And the cold eyes of a master and the cruel eyes of danger, And the memory of joys returning never. We who once were dainty ones and splendid, Now are slaves who grind the mill beneath a master’s blows; Would that when our fathers ended, we had ended, That we lay in Zion’s soil, at peace with those. ALL. O lamentation, misery, woe, woe! Here, from our prison gate, we see again The never-ending sand, the Persian plain, The long, long road, the stones that we should tread Were we but free, to our beloved dead. And in the Spring the birds fly to the west Over these deserts that the mountains hem, They fly to our dear land; they fly to nest; We cannot go with them.