Please write to Ireland, mister, Jist a little, little bit, And ask if Mis' Maloney Is alive, and if she's writ. Say, since the dreadful famine That my heart has been like lead, Say "write to your son Patrick, If it's thrue that you are dead." HOW NICE! How nice it is when men must rave On whom he can his vengeance wreak. A man can't always feel the same; It wouldn't do to use men so; A man might up and fight, you know. Yes, beautiful is nature's plan, Makes ten, not one, of him, you see. Of course we didn't court 'em so; THE PATHOS OF THE PAST. We stand and look the ages in the face, The gaunt, worn ages that will ever be. For us. They for us. For unborn races we. Their past in thick tradition folds was hid, Though in each soul there gleamed one forceful ray, They knew not why it gleamed, nor why it chid Their evil deeds. But we know and see to-day That when He said, they knew not what they did, Forgiven were the people of the past, While time was set to bring the Good at last. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT was born at WILFRID Crabbet Park, Crawley, Sussex, in the year 1840. Educated at Stoneyhurst and St. Mary's College, Oscot, he entered the diplomatic service, and acted as attaché to British embassies at various European courts from 1858 to 1869, in which latter year he married Lady Anne Isabella Noel, daughter of the Earl of Lovelace and grand-daughter of Lord Byron. Leaving the diplomatic service, Mr. Blunt now devoted himself to travel in Spain, Algiers, Egypt, the Holy Land, Mesopotamia, and the Syrian Desert. A result of these travels was Lady Anne Blunt's "Bedouins of the Euphrates." Mr. Blunt then visited Arabia, and published “The Future of Islam," after which he returned to Egypt and championed the cause Arabi Pasha. It was at this time that his name came prominently before the public, and in this connection that he published "The Wind and the Whirlwind." During the Egyptian war he was much abused for want of patriotism, and for love of disorder and vanity. Lord Houghton used to say, "The fellow knows he has a handsome head, and wants it to be seen on Temple Bar." His reputation as the writer of lovesonnets scarcely helped him in this connection. People would not believe that a love poet could be a serious politician. After the war, when Arabi was in prison, and apparently on the eve of execution, Mr. Blunt sent counsel from England to defend him, taking upon himself the whole expense of the defence. Mr. Blunt's early education in a strict Catholic school, and the subsequent reaction, are described in one of his prose works, "Proteus and Amadeus," (1878). His mind regained its faith and reverence while living amongst the Arab tribes of the East, and a feeling of gratitude to them was mixed with his natural sympathy for oppressed nationalities. This same sympathy for a national cause sent him to Ireland, where he took part in a prohibited meeting at Woodford, and did not shrink from the consequences for his defiance of what he believed to be unjust laws. He claims the honor of having been the first Englishman put in prison for the sake of Ireland. He spent two months in Galway and Kilmainham gaols, where most of the "In Vinculis" sonnets were written. Galway was made tolerable by the friendliness of the warders and of the visiting justices, who were won by his personal charm and his cheerful acquiescence in the prison rules. He daily went through his task of picking oakum, and was far from shrinking from the prison dress. Mr. Blunt's contributions to poetic literature are "Sonnets and Songs," (1875); "The Love-Sonnets of Proteus," (1881); "The Wind and the Whirlwind," (1883); "In Vinculis," (1889); "The New Pilgrimage," (1889.) The "Love-Sonnets of Proteus" are dedicated to Lord Lytton, who was the first to tell Mr. Blunt, when they were in the diplomatic service together, that he was a poet. An article by Lord Lytton in the Nineteenth Century, November, 1881, on "A New Love Poet," drew a good deal of attention to Mr. Blunt's work. With reference to the ballad of "Sancho Sanches" in the "New Pilgrimage," it will be interesting to record that a visitor, many years ago, on going to a bullfight at Madrid, was struck by the extraordinary good looks of the matadore awaiting the rush of the bull in the arena, and, on inquiry, was told that he was an amateur bull-fighter, a young man from the English Embassy, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt.. Mr. Blunt has twice contested metropolitan constituencies for Parliament, but without success. In 1885 he stood for North Camberwell as a Conservative Home Ruler, and in 1888, while confined in Kilmainham gaol, he contested Deptford as a Radical candidate. Mr. Blunt makes it his boast that his work belongs rather to the literature of energy that of form. R. L. G. IN THE NIGHT. WHERE art thou, thou lost face, Which, yet a little while, wert making mirth There are three rings upon thy hand to-night, See, I have worn no other ring but this! Oh happiness, how has it slipped away! As though a wild bird suddenly should stay And thou, hast thou forgotten how to love? I have been watching thee to see thee move Of the cold night.—Oh there is room among Thou standest with thy hand upon my heart, Can'st thou not speak? Thy tale was but begun. Is there not room enough beneath the sun AT A FUNERAL. I LOVED her too, this woman who is dead. I loved her too, whom you are burying. I have a right to stand beside her bier, And too, my handful of the dust I fling, That she may hear. I loved her; and it was not for the eyes Which you have shut, nor for her yellow hair, Nor for the face which in your bosom lies,— Let it lie there,— Nor for the wild-bird's music of her voice, It was not for the payment of sweet love, That she had laid her hand upon my heart And that my tongue Had spoken words which might not be unspoken, And so I gave her all, and long ago The treasure of my youth was put in pawn; But I have lived a beggar since that day, That such a loathsome cripple should be found Yet no man stopped to ask how this might be, When I was young. Yet I have loved her. This must be my pay: With all her kisses burning on my cheek, LAUGHTER AND DEATH. THERE is no laughter in the natural world Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout. To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry. Fear, anger, jealousy have found a voice. Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell. Nature has symbols for her nobler joys, Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell That only man, by some sad mockery, Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die. THERE ARE WRONGS DONE IN THE FAIR FACE OF HEAVEN. THERE are wrongs done in the fair face of Heaven Which cry aloud for vengeance, and shall cry; Loves beautiful in strength whose wit has striven Vainly with loss and man's inconstancy; Dead children's faces watched by souls that die; Pure streams defiled; fair forests idly riven; A nation, suppliant in its agony, Calling on justice, and no help is given. All these are pitiful. Yet, after tears, Come rest and sleep and calm forgetfulness, And God's good providence consoles the years. Only the coward heart which did not guess, The dreamer of brave deeds that might have been, Shall cureless ache with wounds forever green. FAREWELL, DARK GAOL. FAREWELL, dark gaol. You hold some better hearts I do not love you nor the fraudulent arts How dark a thing the earth would be and blind But for the light of human charity. I am your debtor thus and for the pang Which touched and chastened, and the nights of thought Which were my years of learning. See, I hang ON THE SHORTNESS OF TIME. IF I could live without the thought of death, I would not ask for other joy than breath; range From blue to yellow and from red to gray, In natural sequence as the season's change; I could afford to wait but for the hurt And staff uplifted, for death stands too near. TO JULIET, EXHORTING HER TO PATIENCE. WHY do we fret at the inconstancy Of our frail hearts, which cannot always love? TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A CONFESSION. OH! leave the Past to bury its own dead. What need of ghosts to grace a festival? I would not, if I could, those days recall, I would not know it. I would know but thee. |