(Poet and Reformer.)

With glory of poetic light

The century dawned whose night

Is deepening around us. Joyful rang
The earth when all those morning stars together sang.
Our Ocean-Mother gave to us

One, not least luminous, —

Pringle, the poet of the parched Karoo.
From thraldom of the " glittering eye " his music drew

Coleridge, who loved its magic well ;

E'en Scott beneath it fell,

Forgetful of the Gael and Saxon feud
While listening to that weird romance of solitude.
A fighter thou, with never time

To build the deathless rhyme ;

Thine the flung gauntlet of a righteous hate,
And thine a flower of song to lone ways consecrate.
Thou singest ; we behold the band

Of exiles leave their land :

The fair dear hills of Scotland fade away
For ever ! eyes unused to weeping weep that day.
But hallowed page, and David's Ijnre,

And thine their hearts inspire.
And now they tread the hot and barren shore ;
And now, by floods bereft of all their humble store,

Thy pen it is that wins relief.
But soon they lose their chief —

The conquest of the desert has begun.
And a far fiercer fight must by his blade be won :



A. Vine Hall 151

The battle of the Press. Full sore
The rain of blows he bore !

Fainting with wounds he quits the well-fought field.
But not before the shout telling the foemen yield.
And yet again with gleaming brand,
One of a hero-band.
The world beholds him : on Oppression's grave
His handdoth plant theflag that frees the trembling slave.
