Frederick George Scott

“ Into the common mud which tyrants love
To smooth into an easy path to power.
Here, youths, I do not flinch, behold my breast,
Shaggy, like front of lion, streaked with grey.
It is your glory to anticipate
Time’s tardy slaughter. Come, which will be great
And first to make himself a name and steep
His weakling hands in Dion’s royal blood?
Pray you be quick, I do not fear the pain,
But would quit life. Here is my naked heart ”

“ When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,
And the stream rolls down in thunder.”
“Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart,
A pang like the pang of dying.”
“Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dart
Up and down, and close and part,{32}
Wheeling round where the black cliffs start,
And the foam at their feet is flying.”
“O mother, a strife like the black clouds’ strife,
And a peace that cometh after.”
“Hush, child, for peace is the end of life,
And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife,
But the sky and the cliffs and the ocean are rife
With the storm and thunder’s laughter.” ”

“ There are no depths in ocean, earth or sky
So deep as Dion’s pride; there is no force
Commensurate with the scorn which curled his lip
In detestation of the fickle world,
Before he plunged forever down death’s gulf.
So proud was he, that he despised success,
His manhood was the crown his spirit wore.{67}
His stern heart felt no pulse of arrogant joy
When charging foremost on the routed ranks
Of Dionysius in precipitous flight;
Nor when, as conqueror, up the city’s hill
The wild mob bore him with their loud acclaims,
And women from the house-roofs hailed him king ”

“ Through death, with calm, irrevocable tread.
Farewell, life’s toilsome warfare. Like a king,
Great gods, receive me into bliss or woe,
Whiche’er your land affordeth; set my throne
Among the company of those who strove
To mount by inner conquest, not by blood;
And who accept and quaff with equal mind
Pleasure or pain, defeat or victory.
I care not to be highest, only peer
Of all the great who are in-gathered there;
If needs my rank be blazoned on my throne,
Inscribe it, “Dion, Tyrant of Himself.”
Ha! ye have found a sword ”

“ Quoth Death to Life: “Behold what strength is mine,
All others perish, yet I do not fail,
Where life aboundeth most, I most prevail,
I mete out all things with my measuring line.”
Then answered Life: “O boastful Death, not thine
The final triumph, what thy hands undo
My busy anvil forgeth out anew,
For one lamp darkened, I bring two to shine.”
Then answered Death: “Thy handiwork is fair,
But a slight breath will crumble it to dust.”
“Nay, Death,” said Life, “for in the vernal air
A sweeter blossom breaks the winter’s crust.”
Then God called down and stopped the foolish strife ”

“ His heart hath drained earth’s pleasures to the lees,
Hath quivered with life’s finest ecstasies;
Yet now some power reveals as in a glass
The soul’s unrest and death’s dark mysteries,
And down the courts the scared slaves watch him pass,
Reiterating, “Omnia Vanitas!”{108}
OUT OF THE STORM.
The huge winds gather on the midnight lake,
Shaggy with rain and loud with foam-white feet,
Then bound through miles of darkness till they meet
The harboured ships and city’s squares, and wake
From steeples, domes and houses sounds that take
A human speech, the storm’s mad course to greet ”

“ The God whom King David has praised in the psalter,
And to whom the whole choir of the ages has sung.
But so big is the heart of our God, the Life-giver,
That in it life’s humour and pathos both meet ”

“ Till sinews crack and eyes are blind with power,
Till struggles, battles mixed with smoke and blood,
Men, nations, life and death, and desolate cries,
Melt in the inner pulses in my ears
And a wild tempest blows the daylight out. ”

“ Then uplift us, great Creator, to communion with Thy will,
Crush our puny heart-rebellions, make our baser cravings still.
Thou whose fingers through the ages wrought with fire the soul of man,
Blend it more and more forever with the purpose of Thy plan.
Speak, O Lord, in voice of thunder, show Thy footsteps on the deep,
Pour Thy sunshine from the heavens on the blinded eyes that weep,
Till the harmonies of nature and exalted human love
Make the universe a mirror of the glorious God above.
{84}
THE STING OF DEATH.
“Is Sin, then, fair?” ”

“ Here am I little worth, there am I king,
For pulsing life still slakes my spirit’s drouth,
And he who yet doth hold the gift of life
Is mightier than the heroes of past strife
Who have been mowed in death’s great harvesting. ”

“ Of one fierce anguish whitherto I tread,
With heart that now forgets, now meditates
Upon the wide fields stretching far away
Where the dead wander past the bounds of day,
Past life, past death, past every pain and dread. ”

“ In each man’s heart a secret temple stands
For rites idolatrous of praise and prayer;
And dusky idols through the incensed air,
On single thrones, or grouped in curious bands,
Gaze at the lamp which swings in memory’s hands,—
Some richly carved, with face of beauty rare,
Some with brute heads and bosoms foul and bare,
Yet crowned with gold and gems from distant lands. ”

“ Here is a faith that will bear thee on waft of omnipotent pinion,
Up to the heaven of victory, there to be known and to know.
Here is the vision of Calvary, crowned with the world’s revelation,
Throned in the grandeur of gloom and the thunders that quicken the dead;
A meteor of hope in the darkness shines forth like a new constellation,
Dividing the night of our sorrow, revealing a path as we tread.{91}
Now are the portals of death by the feet of the Conqueror entered ”

“ Pass shrieking, till the town’s rock-sinews shake.
Howl, winds, around us in this gas-lit room!
Wild lake, with thunders beat thy prison bars!
A brother’s life is ebbing fast away,
And, mounting on your music through the gloom,
A pure soul mingles with the morning stars,
And with them melts into the blaze of day. ”

“ Rolls from the face of the dawn till His rays through the cloud-fissures slope;
Vapours that hid are condensed to the dews of His grace that reveal Him,
And shine with His light on the hills as we mount in the splendour of hope.
{93}
AT LAUDS.
’Tis sweet to wake before the dawn,
When all the cocks are crowing,
And from my window on the lawn,
To watch the veil of night withdrawn,
And feel the fresh wind blowing.
The murmur of the falls I hear,
Its night-long vigil keeping;
And softly now, as if in fear
To rouse their neighbours slumbering near,
The trees wake from their sleeping. ”

“ His finished work and Master’s love attest.
And now he wins, withdrawn from human eye,
A good man’s two-fold immortality,
To live forever near the Master’s throne,
And here, in lives made better by his own. ”

“ By love and peace on life’s rough margin-line;
I wish no wish which is not wholly thine,
I hope no hope but what thyself hast sought.
Thou losest not, my Lady, in the wife,
The golden love-light of our earlier days;
Time dims it not, it mounteth like the sun,
Till earth and sky are radiant. Sweet, my life
Lies at thy feet, and all life’s gifts and praise,
Yet are they nought to what thy knight hath won.
{102}
A CYPRESS WREATH. I.
Death met a little child beside the sea ”

“ With bones that e’en when bleaching face the foe,
Welding soft outskirt nations into iron,
An iron hand to grasp and hold the world.
Now dust, like smoke, from Asia’s central steppes,
Darkens the rigid white of mountain peaks,
And the plains bristle with the Tartar hordes,
Suckled of mares, flat-faced, implacable,{37}
Deadly in war, revengeful, treacherous,
Brown as the craggy glens of Caucasus.
They pass, and nations pass, and like a dream
A throne emerges from the western sea,
The latest empire of a dying world. ”

“ But he so loved his Syracuse that she,
Grown sick of his great heart, let out its red
Upon the pebbles of her streets, and cried,
‘Mine own hands slew him, for he loved too much.’
“Too much, ay, at her piteous call he came
And gripped the tyrant’s heel upon your neck,
And overthrew him, bidding you uprise.
And when your silly fathers feared his strength,
And set their murderous snares around his path,
The sword he drew for her, for her he sheathed,{66}
Disdaining as a warrior to be wroth
At the snake’s use of its recovered power
To sting the breast that warmed it back to life ”

“ The climax of his life who seemed
The king my boyhood dreamed?{51}
“Shall sin and shall not love endure?—
Love grounded in the past and pure,
Man’s love for man, for angels fit,
Could one act shatter it?”
The boy sat upright, pale as death,
A numbness stole away his breath,
The fascination of the eye,
Which moved convulsively.
“I fled at sunrise down the bay
To where a mystic island lay,
Dazed with the cloudless arch of sky
And waves’ monotony.
“And here a convent open stood,
Where monks sought peace in solitude;
I entered with the rest to hide
Within the Crucified. ”

“ God only sees without and in,
Wherefore, my brethren, be ye kind,
That was our Master’s mind.
“For many are crowned as saints by God
Whose graves unheeding feet have trod;
Man judges by the outer life,
God by the inner strife.{60}
“Out there the forest tree-roots creep
Round one sad heart’s forgotten sleep,
A heart which broke in giving all
To save a soul from thrall.”{61}
DION.
A POEM.
ARGUMENT.
Dion, of Syracuse (408-353 B.C.) , philosopher, was a near relative, through his wife Arete, of the tyrant Dionysius the Second, by whom he was banished. ”

“ Dion naturally succeeded to the throne of the deposed monarch, but his reforms and the severity of his manners and rule rendered him unpopular with his fickle fellow-townsmen, and plots were formed for his assassination. He scorned to take precautions against attack, and so fell a victim to his valour. He was surrounded on the day of the festival of the Koreia, in his apartment in the palace, by a band of youths of distinguished muscular strength, who endeavoured to throw and strangle him. ”

“ As soon as their oppression was relieved, the suspicious Syracusans began to fear the power of Dion, although he had nobly refused to make concessions to Dionysius when urged thereto by the passionate appeals of Arete and her son, held captive in Ortygia. On hearing of a plot formed against him among the citizens, by Heracleides, without taking revenge on the thankless city, Dion withdrew to Leontini, but only to be speedily recalled to rescue the people a second time from the ravages of Dionysius, who had charged out upon the town as soon as Dion had withdrawn. ”

“ As she lifted her eyes up to his:
“Nay, love, for a man speaketh oft
In words that are hot as a kiss,
But man’s love may be donned and be doft.”
“Love would have life for its field—
Love would have death for its goal ”

“ He took up his residence at Athens, but on hearing that the tyrant had seized his son and given Arete in marriage to another, with a small and faithful force he returned to Syracuse, captured the place and drove Dionysius into Ortygia, a fortress within the city walls. ”

“ Again Dion returned to Syracuse, and this time succeeded in routing the tyrant from his stronghold and restoring peace. With{62} a magnanimity equal to his valour he pardoned Heracleides and his confreres. On breaking into the deserted fortress at the head of his troops, Dion, after years of separation, found his wife Arete. ”

“ Then in the darkness came a voice which said,
“As thy heart bleedeth, so my heart hath bled,
As I have need of thee,
Thou needest me.”
That night Van Elsen kissed the baby feet,
And kneeling by the narrow winding sheet,
Praised Him with fervent breath
Who conquered death.
{81}
IN MEMORIAM. James William Williams, Lord Bishop of Quebec, Died April 20th, 1892, Aged 66 years.
To those found faithful, oft the call to rest
Comes in the glory of the later noon,
Ere evening falls and with declining day
The mind has darkened and work lost its zest. ”