Jesse Edgar Middleton
The evening firelight glanced upon their eyes.
They sat, divining, by the yellow flame,
Seeing long years of joy; a richer prize,
Fair children to perpetuate a name
To the far limits of Eternity.
One sudden blaze of Hell, one roaring blast!
The devil laughter of a coward foe!
Then dreams and love and life itself are past.
What fool can say that God would have it so,
Our God, who made the flowers and the sea?
THE THREE MORE WISE MEN
THREE Sages came from the land of Ur
With a tinkling, sleepy caravan,
Bringing jars of frankincense, nard and myrrh
To honour the infant Son of Man,
For the Star hung low like a heavenly gem
O'er the drowsy stable of Bethlehem.
And the blundering years are fled away,
A score of centuries, dark and grim.
But three more Sages marched in today
With their saddles worn, but their horses trim.
The dew of a world in grief distils
On the sentries pacing the sacred hills.
And one of the Three is good St. George,
A cavalryman of ancient time,
Still hunting dragons through vale and gorge,
In the memory of the Bow Bells chime.
And though he march with a mountain-gun
He wears the Cross of the Virgin s Son.
And here St. Andrew, a sailorman,
Beholds the village he used to know
Before he came to his Highland clan
And saw the heather s unending glow.
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