_Thy face is far from this our war, Our call and counter-cry, I may not find Thee quick and kind, Nor meet Thee till I die._ _Yet may I look with heart unshook On blow brought home or missed-- Yet may I hear with equal ear The clarions down the list; Yet set my lance above mischance And ride the barriere-- Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis, My Lady is not there!_ THE FLOWERS. "To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic, almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress, are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote; the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose, nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April as the English thrush."--_The Athenaeum._ _Buy my English posies-- Kent and Surrey may, Violets of the Undercliff Wet with Channel spray; Cowslips from a Devon combe Midland furze afire-- Buy my English posies, And I'll sell your hearts' desire!_ Buy my English posies!-- You that scorn the may Won't you greet a friend from home Half the world away? Green against the draggled drift, Faint and frail and first-- Buy my Northern blood-root And I'll know where you were nursed! Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me," Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free; All the winds o' Canada call the ploughing-rain. Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! Buy my English posies!-- Here's to match your need. Buy a tuft of royal heath, Buy a bunch of weed White as sand of Muysenberg Spun before the gale-- Buy my heath and lilies And I'll tell you whence you hail! Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie-- Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky-- Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain-- Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! Buy my English posies!-- You that will not turn, Buy my hot-wood clematis, Buy a frond o' fern Gathered where the Erskine leaps Down the road to Lorne-- Buy my Christmas creeper And I'll say where you were born! West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin-- They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn-- Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main-- Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!