The Blood of the Nation 



" Cut off from the land that bore us, 



Betrayed by the land we find, 

 When the brightest are gone before us, 



And the dullest are left behind. 

 So stand to your glasses steady, 



Tho' a moment the color flies ; 

 Here's a cup to the dead already 



And huzza for the next that dies ! " 



The stately "Ave Imperatrix " of 

 Oscar Wilde, bright flicker of genius 

 in a wretched life, contains lines that 

 ought not to be forgotten : 



" O thou whose wounds are never healed, 

 Whose weary race is never run, 

 O Cromwell's England, must thou yield 

 For every foot of ground a son ? 



11 What matter if our galleys ride 

 Pine-forest-like on every main ? 

 Ruin and wreck are at our side, 

 Stern warders of the house of pain. 



" Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet, 

 The flower of England's chivalry? 

 Wild grasses are their winding-sheet, 

 And sobbing waves their threnody. 



66 



