Out of the west a voice—a shudder of horror and pity;
Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;—
Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city.
Out of the North a cry—lamentation and mourning and woe.

Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover,
Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks;
She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over—
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.

The city of gardens and palaces, stately and tall pavilions,
Roofs flashing back the sunlight, music and gladness and mirth,
Whose streets were full of the hum and roar of the toiling millions,
Whose merchantmen were princes, and the honourable of the earth:

Whose traders came from the islands—from far off summer places,
Bringing spices and pearls, and the furs and skins of beasts.
Men from the frozen North, and men with fierce dark faces,
Full of the desert fire, and the untamed life of the East.

Treasures of gems and gold, of statues and flowers and fountains,
Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent;
Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains,
Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates of the Occident.

Dusk-brown sons of the forest, hunters of deer and of bison,
And the almond-eyed child of the sun met in her busy streets,
With waifs from the banks of the Indus, and the ancient river Pison—
Lands of the date and the palm, and the citron's hoarded sweets.

The surging tide of the prairie rolled its billows of blossom
Against her mighty walls, and beat at her hundred gates;
The riches of all the world were poured into her bosom,
Kings were her mighty men, and lords, and potentates.

She sat in her place by the sea, and the swift-sailing ships
obeyed her.
Full freighted with corn and wheat their purple sails unfurled,
Far-off in the morning land, and the isles beyond the equator;
Out of her heaped-up garners she scattered the bread of the world.

As her pride and her beauty were perfect, so desolation and mourning,
Swift and sudden, and sure her utter destruction came,
The heavens above were dark with the smoke of her awful burning,
And the earth and the sea were lighted with the fierceness
of her flame.

Behold oh, England! oh, Europe! and see is there any sorrow
Like hers who sits in silence among her children slain,
Oh, blackness of woe and ruin! can any future morrow
Bring back to the shrouded city her glory and crown again!

Aye, subtle and wonderful links of human love and pity,
Ye have bridged the sea of ruin, and spanned it with a span!
She shall rise again from her ashes and build a fairer city,
With a larger faith in God, and the Brotherhood of Man,

THE LEGEND OF THE NEW YEAR.

I dreamed, and lo, I saw in my dream a beautiful gateway,
Arched at the top, and crowned with turrets lance-windowed and olden,
And sculptured in arabesque, all knotted and woven and spangled;
A wonderful legend ran, in letters purple and golden
Written in leaves and blossoms, inextricably intertangled,
A legend I could not resolve, crowning the gate so stately.

Like statues carven and niched in the front of some old cathedral,
Four angels stood each in his turret, immovable warders,
The first with reverend locks snow-white, and a silver volume
Of beard that twinkled with frost, and hung to the icicled borders
That fringed his girdle beneath: ancient his look was, and solemn,
Like a wrinkled and bearded saint blessing some worshipping bedral.

As one in a vision wrapped, with his staff he silently pointed
To the golden legend written in glittering star-points under,
Shining in crystal ferns, and translucent berries of holly.
Yet as I pondered the words of ineffable awe and wonder,
A mist of rainbow brightness obscured them, and hid them wholly,
While wrapt in his vision he stood, like a prophet anointed.

Divers, yet lovely the next, a white-armed, golden-haired maiden;
Blue were her eyes and sweet, and her garments were lily-bordered;
Her hands were full of flowers, and her eyes of innocent gladness,
As the ranks of buds and blossoms, of bees and buds she ordered,
Each in their several paths. Mine eyes were heavy with sadness,
For I read not yet the legend with beauty and mystery laden.

Robed and crowned like an empress in some medieval palace,
Stood the third in her place, with glances of sun-lighted splendour;
Stately her height and tall as a queen in some antique story,
With sheaves about her feet, and the tribute which nations render
To her as the lady of Kingdoms, yet underneath the glory
Of that bright legend to hers was like a containing chalice.

Last of the four, in her turret, serene and benignant,
Sat in the midst of her children and maidens, a household mother;
Want, and the sons of penury dwell not among her neighbours;
Full is her heart of love: her hands wipe the tears of another,
Yet brings she the gold and the pearls of her manifold labours,
To add to that shining legend the grace of her name and her signet.

Fast closed were the gates, and mute in their places the wardens;
No voice in my longing ear whispered the mystical sentence,
And my heart was heavy, and chilled with the fruitless endeavour.
On this side lay the snow and the wind, like the wail of repentance,
Moaned in the branches forlorn but through the closed lattices ever
Drifted a stir and a fragrance of springtime over the borders.

Then through the stillness of night struck the clash and the clangor
Of bells that told twelve from the towers of the neighbouring city;
And lo! the great gates were flung wide, and thronged with the
hurrying races—
High and low, rich and poor—and the light of ineffable pity,
And infinite love shone down and illumined their faces,
Faces of dolor some, of hope, of sorrow, and anger.

Loud clanged the bells from the towers in jubilant rudeness,
And like the voice of a multitude rising respondent,
The words of that marvellous legend made vocal the silence—
The voice of all sentient creatures ascended triumphant,
And all the listening forests, and mountains, and islands
Heard it, and sang it, "He crowneth the Year with His goodness!"

Praise Him, O sounding seas, and floods! praise Him, abounding rivers;
Praise Him, ye flowery months, and every fruitful season!
Praise Him, O stormy wind, and ice, and snow, and vapor,
Ye cattle that clothe the hills, and man with marvellous reason;
Who crowneth the year with goodness, who prospereth all thy labour,
Yea, let all flesh bless the Lord, and magnify Him forever!