Reverend sir, forgive this pair of
sinners. Spring winds to-day are
blowing in wild eddies, driving dust
and dead leaves away, and with them
your lessons are all lost.
Do not say, father, that life is a
vanity.
For we have made truce with death
for once, and only for a few fragrant
hours we two have been made immortal.
Even if the king's army came and
fiercely fell upon us we should sadly
shake our heads and say, Brothers,
you are disturbing us. If you must
have this noisy game, go and clatter

None lives for ever, brother, and
nothing lasts for long. Keep that in
mind and rejoice.
Our life is not the one old burden,
our path is not the one long
journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one
aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he
who wears the flower has not to
mourn for it for ever.
Brother, keep that in mind and
rejoice.
There must come a full pause to
weave perfection into music.
Life droops toward its sunset to be
drowned in the golden shadows.

Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,

Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harme
Nor question much
That subtile wreath of haire, which crowns my arme;
The mystery, the signe you must not touch,
For'tis my outward Soule,
Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone,
Will leave this to controule,
And keep these limbes, her Provinces, from dissolution.
For if the sinewie thread my braine lets fall
Through every part,
Can tye those parts, and make mee one of all;
These haires which upward grew, and strength and art
Have from a better braine,

Alas! Prince Henry of Battenberg is dead!
And, I hope, has gone to heaven, its streets to tread,
And to sing with God's saints above,
Where all is joy and peace and love.

'Twas in the year of 1896, and on the 5th of February,
Prince Henry was buried at Whippingham- a solemn sight to see.
As the funeral moved off, it was a very impressive sight-
First came the military, and police, and volunteers from the Isle of Wight.

Then came the carriage party of the Scots Guards;
While the people uncovered their heads as it passed onwards

'Twas in the year of 1888, and on the 19th of November,
Which the friends of the late Ex-Provost Rough will long remember,
Because 'twas on the 19th of November his soul took its flight
To the happy land above, the land of pure delight.

Take him for all in all, he was a very good man,
And during his Provostship he couldn't be equalled in Great Britain,
Which I proclaim to the world without any dread,
Because while Provost he reduced the public-houses to three hundred.

Whereas at the time there were 620 public-houses in the town,

Ye sons of Germany, your noble Emperor William now is dead.
Who oft great armies to battle hath led;
He was a man beloved by his subjects all,
Because he never tried them to enthral.

The people of Germany have cause now to mourn,
The loss of their hero, who to them will ne'er return;
But his soul I hope to Heaven has fled away,
To the realms of endless bliss for ever and aye.

He was much respected throughout Europe by the high and the low,
And all over Germany people's hearts are full of woe;
For in the battlefield he was a hero bold,

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.

With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.

All hail, light of day!
Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
With hues silver-tinged

I1.
Breathers of wisdom won without a quest,
.
Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange;
.
Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change,
.
And wintry grief is a forgotten guest,
.
Sweet murmurers of everlasting rest,
.
For whom glad days have ever yet to run,
.
And moments are as aeons, and the sun
.
But ever sunken half-way toward the west.1.
Often to me who heard you in your day,
.

With close rapt ears, it could not choose but seem
.

Sunt aliquid manes; letum non omnia finit;
Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos.
PROPERTIUS.



To Albion's misty isle across the waves I sped me:
It look'd as if interr'd beneath a leaden sea,
And gathering round our bark the halcyon's music led me,
While all the crew rejoiced in their sweet melody.
The dancing surge, the evening breezes falling,
And through the sails and shrouds those breezes whistling thrill,
And to the watch the active helmsman calling,