SANTA FILOMENA. WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought, Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts, in glad surprise, To higher levels rise. The tidal wave of deeper souls Into our inmost being rolls, And lifts us unawares Out of all meaner cares. Honour to those whose words or deeds Thus help us in our daily needs, And by their overflow Raise us from what is low! Thus thought I, as by night I read Of the great army of the dead, The trenches cold and damp, The starved and frozen camp,— The wounded from the battle-plain, In dreary hospitals of pain, The cheerless corridors, The cold and stony floors. And slow, as in a dream of bliss, The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow, as it falls Upon the darkening walls. As if a door in heaven should be The vision came and went, The light shone and was spent. On England's annals, through the long That light its rays shall cast From portals of the past. A Lady with a Lamp shall stand Heroic womanhood. Nor even shall be wanting here The palm, the lily, and the spear, The symbols that of yore Saint Filomena bore. THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. OTHERE, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Which he held in his brown right hand. P His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery gray Gleamed in his tawny beard. Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the colour of oak; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the King he spoke. And Alfred, King of the Saxons, Had a book upon his knees, And wrote down the wondrous tale Of him who was first to sail Into the Arctic seas. "So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains; "So far I live to the northward, From the harbour of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day, With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would you sail. |