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He's a little dog, with a stubby tail, and a moth-eaten coat of tan,

And his legs are short, of the wabbly sort:

I doubt if they ever ran;

And he howls at night, while in broad daylight he sleeps like a bloomin' log,
And he likes the food of the gutter breed; he's a most irregular dog.

I call him Bum, and in total sum he's all that his name implies,

For he's just a tramp with a highway stamp that culture cannot disguise;
And his friends, I've found, in the streets abound, be they urchins or dogs.

or men;

Yet he sticks to me with a fiendish glee.

It is truly beyond my ken.

I talk to him when I'm lonesome-like, and I'm sure that he understands
When he looks at me so attentively and gently licks my hands:
Then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say nought thereat,
For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that!
W. DAYTON WEDGEFARTH.

Publisher: Sully & Kleinteich Co., New York.

THE SPHINX

Within a sultry desert land,

Where neither flowers nor shadows are,
Hid to the breast in shifting sand
There stands an image secular.
Where Pharaoh's sceptre gave the laws,
The thing that held me captive rests,
Strange compound of a panther's claws
And of a woman's rounded breasts.
O strange beyond the strangest fears
And hopes and ancient questionings,
That I who am so young in years

Have loved the oldest of all things!
O wanderer, stay where life is sweet,
And jubilant earth is glad of May,
Disturb not with incautious feet
The mystery of an elder day.

When we have sighed to fold our hands
And join the Pharaohs in the tomb,

She still shall stare across the sands

And hearken for the crack of doom!

From: "The Haunted House and Other Poems."

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK.

SWINBURNE

Eloquent master, thy melodious rage
Our latter song may not aspire to reach!
Our eyes beheld the magic of thy speech

Conjure the love-queens of a perished age,

Yea, clothe with life their spectral forms, and wage,
When the sight stung thee, war with Heaven for each:
Only the rolling anthem of the beach

Could break the spell and end thy vassalage.

The sea, thy true love, taught thy lyric tongue

The mighty music of her mutiny:

Thy voice as hers the ages shall prolong,

And, praising numbers, men shall ask of thee:

"Is it the sea that thunders in his song,

Or is it his song reverberates in the sea?"

From "The Haunted House."

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK.

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SALUTATION

Beyond the sea a land of heroes lies,
Of fairy heaths and rivers, mountains steep,
O'ergrown with vine-her memory I shall keep
Most dear, her heritage most dearly prize. .
But lo, a lad I left her, and mine eyes

Fell on the sea-girt mistress of the deep
What time my boy's heart heard as in a sleep
The choral walls of rhythmic beauty rise.

O lyric England, thee I call mine own;

With lyre and lute and wreath I come to thee;
The realm is thine of song and of the sea,
And thy mouth's speech is heard from zone to zone:
Turn not in scorn thine ivied brow from me,
Who am a suppliant kneeling at thy throne!

PRAYER

I stood upon the threshold. Musical
Reverberant footsteps ghostlike came and went,
And my lips trembled as magnificent

Before me rose a vision of that hall
Whereof great Milton is the mighty wall,

Shakespeare the dome with incense redolent,
Each latter singer precious ornament,

And Holy Writ the groundwork, bearing all.
"Lord." sobbed I, "take Thy splendid gift of youth
For the one boon that I have craved so long:
Mould Thou my stammering accents and uncouth,
With awful music raise and make me strong,
A living martyr of Thy vocal truth,

A resonant column in the House of Song!"

From "The Haunted House"

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK.

2. SAMUEL, I. 26

God's iron finger wrote the law
Upon an adamantine scroll
That thrilled my life with tender awe
When first I met you soul to soul.

Thence springs the great flame heaven-lit,
Predestined when the world began,

Whereby my heart to yours is knit

As David's was to Jonathan.

From "The Haunted House"

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK.

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Oh, Young New Year-Take not these things from me:

The olden faiths; the shining loyalty

Of friends, the long and searching years have proved-.

The glowing hearthfires and the books I loved;

All wonted kindnesses and welcoming

All safe, hardtrodden paths to which I cling!

Oh blithe New Year, glad with the thrill of Spring

Leave me the ways that were my comforting!

LAURA SIMMONS.

From Life, New York.

BE STRONG

Be strong in faith and courage: ever true
To that still Voice which urges you along.
Press onward! There is nought can hinder you:

Be strong!

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