Page images
PDF
EPUB

CONTENTS OF VOL. XLIX

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

SOME AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS OF EUROPE. By Philip Alexander Bruce
MONARCHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By Sidney Low
MARIA HOLROYD. By Mrs. Margaret L. Woods

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors]

'AUSTRALIA FOR THE WHITE MAN' AGAIN. By Gilbert Parker
KOREA FROM THE JAPANESE STANDPOINT. By H. N. G. Bushby
THE BLUNDER OF MODERN EDUCATION. By Harold E. Gorst
OUR RACE AS PIONEERS By G. F. Watts.

IS LAW FOR THE PEOPLE OR FOR THE LAWYERS? By His Honour Judge

Emden.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY

AND AFTER

No. CCLXXXVII-JANUARY 1901

XX

XIX

This Janiform head, adapted from a Greek coin of Tenedos at the request
of the Editor, by Sir Edward J. Poynter, P.R.A., tells, in a figure, all that
need be said of the alteration made to-day in the title of the Review.

VOL. XLIX-No. 287

B

[ocr errors]
[graphic]

MIDNIGHT-THE 31ST OF DECEMBER 1900

Lo! now on the midnight the soul of the century passing, And on midnight the voice of the Lord!

6

In the years that have been I have made an oblivion for anguish,

And stillness in place of a cry ;

I have lain round the knife as a numbness, on nerves as an

ether,

I am He that hath healed,' saith the Lord.

'I have fallen as a veil upon woe, as a slumber on sorrow, As a blank on the reeling brain.

In the years that have been I have shown me a smoother of

pillows,

A closer of fixed eyes.

In the years that shall be I will come as an healer to cities,
And as dew to a parched land.

In that day shall the Northern City, the country of iron,
Lapse into living green,

And the city of furnaces fade, the city of wheels,
The city of the white faces,

The girding city, the city of gongs and of hammers,
Whose floor is of embers and ashes.

And her in whose soul the iron hath entered, whose bosom Is filled with a fatal milk,

Whose spirit fainteth in greyness of lead, and whose

yearning

Hath died in a phosphorus mist,

I will lead out of hissing and venomous travail and vapour To a city spacious and clear.

And I will abolish utterly smoke and confusion,
On roaring will set my feet;

On the wailing whistle of engines, the tunnelled shrieking,
The groaning labour of steam;

On the houses with windows as eyes that stare, yet see not
The forlorn, the endless vistas.

I will make me a city of gliding and wide wayed silence,
With a highway of glass and of gold,

With life of a coloured peace and a lucid leisure

Of smooth electrical ease;

Of sweet excursion of noiseless and brilliant travel,
With room in your streets for the soul.

And that blistering wind that maketh the heart to withdraw,
And the spirit to flinch from love,

Ye shall change it to balm, and the South-wind shall blow in your houses

The rainy soul of the rose.

And a charm ye shall take from the ebbing and flowing of

ocean

That shall make the night as the day.

And the stored strength of the tides ye shall use for your

labour,

And bind it to tasks and to toil.

Yet forget not the beauty of night in her coming and going, Forget not the sprinkled vault,

Nor eve with her floating bird and her lonely star,

Nor the reddening clouds of the eve;

Forget not the moon of the poet, nor stars of the dreamer, Though ye live like to spirits in ease.

6

In the years that have been I have bound man closer to

man,

And closer woman to woman;

And the stranger hath seen in a stranger his brother at last, And a sister in eyes that were strange.

In the years that shall be I will bind me nation to nation.

And shore unto shore,' saith our God.

« PreviousContinue »