APPENDIX A XLIX 



"But Death, who has learned to fly, 

 Still matchless when his work is to be done, 



Met thee between the armies and the sun; 

 Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky; 



Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings 

 Drooped through the arc and passed in fire; 



A wreath of smoke, — a breathless exhalation; 

 But ere that came, a vision sealed thine eyes, 



Lulling thy senses with oblivion; 

 And from its sliding station in the skies 



Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared 

 To the sublime and purest radiance whence it sprang." 



Robert Stanley Weir's "Treason" gives vigorous voice to the 

 intense anger at traitors: 



TREASON. 

 To 



Because when your own Mother had sore need; 



Because you knew it well and would not heed; 

 Because, though rufiians from the raging Rhine 



Assailed with roar her very door; 

 You said Her quarrel is not mine. 



Because of this: 



Yours shall forever be a name to hiss! 



***** 



Because not only have you failed to fight. 



At Armageddon 'gainst all Devil's might; 

 But held your brothers back when they would go. 



Blinding their eyes with dastard lies 

 So that they went not up against the foe; 

 Because of this; 

 Yours shall forever be a name to hiss." 



His "Were You Not There ?" is an equally stern arraignment of 

 the slacker. And the true tone rings in Charles Twining, from whose 

 numerous lyHcs of the time we may quote: 



WHO WIN THE FIGHT. 

 Yes, they have peace, as they have peace who wait, — • 



Returning, conquerors, from a distant field, 

 Upon the King, when every brow of state. 



Against their coming, must its homage yield; 

 Or, as a savant, who has studied long 



Framing a rich elixir, of such worth. 

 That, having found it, a triumphant song 



Is his, for he has changed man's lot on earth; 

 Or as a youth, who, bending in the race 



Beyond his fellows, stumbles at the goal; 

 What cares he if he slipped in his last place 



When, winning, he has made his being whole ? 

 And do they trouble that their breath may cease. 



Who win the fight, when only such have peace ?" 



