The Washington times., 1903-11-07

sirs. it is bitter beneath the Bear!
I'VE shall go back by boltless doors
To the life unaltered our childhood
To the naked feet on the cool. dark
And the high7ceiled rooms that the
Trade blows through.
ITO the trumpet flowers and the moon
And the tree toad's chorus drowning
And the lisp of the split banana-frond
That talked US 20 sleep when we were
small.
The wayside magic. the threshold
Shall soon undo what the North has
Because of the sights and the sounds
That ran with our youth in the eye Of
the sun"
THE Explorer" is another musical
descriptive and narrative poem, of the
sort in which a mans life is mirrored
seven or eight pages. it Is really q con-
densed biography like THE Mary Clos
ter" II is the story hinted in THE
Song Of the English"-the story of those
who ''yearned beyond the skyline where
the strange roads go down" Scattered
verses Of the story are as follows:
I remember lighting fires; I remember
remember seeing faces. hearing
voices through the smoke;
remember they were fancy-for L threw
a stone 70 try EN-:
Something lost behind the ranges
was the only word they spoke"
| up along the hostile mountains. where
| the huiF-nOie2d anorv-eIf4a eI,fxare-
Down and through the big. rat marshes
that the virgin ore-bed stains.
! Till l heard the mile-wide mutterings of
unimagined rivers.
And beyond the nameless timber saw
llimitable plainsi''
They will md my sites Of townships
not the cities that ! set there.
They will rediscoVer rivers. not my
rivers heard at night.
/ By my own old marks and bearings they
will show me how TO get there
! BY the lonely cairns I builded they viii
guide my feet Alright.
Have l named enc single pyer2 Have
claimed one single acre.
Have kept one singlf nugget
/ (barring samples?) Ne. lot J.
| Because my price was paid s.e ten times
over By by Maker
But you wouldn't understand it. You
go UP and occupy
And there is little simple song Of
| love for the Sussex country, which some
/ English critic abuses as showing patron
izing spirit. Perhaps il does. Here are
! two verses:
We have no waters to delight
! Our broad and brookless yales.
Only the dew pond on the Insight
! Unfeds that never fails,
/ Whereby no tattereG heritage tells
| Which way the season flies
! q
| Like dawn In Paradise
Here through the strong, unhampered
The linking silence thrHls:
On little lost Down churches praise
The Lord who made the hills;
But here the old gods guard their round.
! And, in her secret heart,
The heather Kingdom wiifrid found
/ Dreams. as she dwells apart
II this be patronage make the most
OF it. n poem which is clea-ly the re-
suit OF the authors South African e1--
periences is Bridge Guard IN the
| Karroo,' which runs in part as fol-
lows;
Suddenly the desert changes,
| The raw glare softens and ciinSs,
TIL the aching OudtshOorn ranges
I Stand up like the thrones Of kings
i ..Ramparts Of slaughter and peril
Blazing amazing, aglow.
| ''Tvixt the sky-lines betting berYi
4 And the wine dark flats below
I'VE hear the HOttentOt herders
As the sheep trek past 70 the iold'
And the click of the restless glrdeEs
As the steel contracts IA the cold
Voices OF iackals calling,
And loud n the hush between
A morsel OF dry earth fal1rg
From The TANKS of the Scared rayine
.'(Few. forgotten and lonely
| Where the empty metals SHINE
No, not combatants-only
Details guarding the hne)
There are q dozen other poems in tht
boot as good or better than those
quoted, and dozen, perhaps. that arr
.qnrse Unfortunately, in the advane'
notices of the book most Of the quota
tions were taken from the rag-tag anS
bob-tau OF the collections, and ever
the worst Of Kipling's verses are tn
worse for being chopped into hash
There are all kinds here. and the reade
Is free TO take his choice and base HI
, Judgment on the best or the worst, o
The whole, as ne sees fit New York
. ! Doubleday, Page & Coz