24 REPORT OP MEETINGS FOR 1901 



"ON THEl ROMAN WALL." 



Fair, simply -blowing floweret wild, 



Small, short-lived star of earth, 

 Thou, like some gipsy-stolen child, 



Art here of alien birth — 



(Here, where the grassy mound I traoe, 



Green foss and ruin'd wall. 

 That tells me of a conquering race 



And of the conqueror's fall,) 



For, musing here on Hadrian's dyke. 



How far away seems Rome ! 

 And I, to find elsewhere thy like. 



Must seek it there, at home. 



How earnest thou thence ? From that bright land 



March'd legions in array ; 

 But whose the soft and gentle hand 



That brought the flower away ? 



Sick of the time and all its fears 



Did some Italian maid, 

 Watering thee oft with secret tears, 



Nurse thee through sua and shade ? 



Yet — like the daughter of romance, 



Who in despite of fate 

 Raises the song and leads the danoe 



Beside a gipsy mate — 



Thy bloom her scent and honey yields, 

 And thou with spring dost blow — 



A Roman flower in English fields — 

 As bright as long ago ! 



Till, as one dreams, and idly thinks 



On wars and conquests vain, 

 A simple pastoral garland links 



Earth's mightiest nations twain.* 



*" Poems of a Coantry Gentleman," by Sir George B. Douglas, 

 Bart,, p. 44. 



