So from under the blanket's rim

I raised and showed him the other,
A snag as ugly and grim

As its ugly brother.

He looked at each jagged wrist;
He looked but he did not speak;

And then he bent down and kissed
Me on either cheek.

You wonder now I don't mind

· I hadn't a hand to offer. . .

They tell me (you know I'm blind)

'T was Grand-père Joffre.

77

HOW OSWALD DINED WITH GOD 1

EDWIN MARKHAM

Over Northumbria's lone, gray lands,

Over the frozen marl,2

Went flying the fogs from the fens and sands,
And the wind with a wolfish snail.

Frosty and stiff by the gray York wall
Stood the rusty grass and the yarrow: 3
Gone wings and songs to the southland, all—
Robin and starling and sparrow.

1. "Oswald, 'the most Christian King of the Northumbrians,' was born about 604 A. D., shortly after the time of King Arthur. The moral power that reached its height in King Alfred had its first dawn in the character of Oswald."-Edwin Markham.

2.

Marl. Earth.

3.

Yarrow. A plant of the aster family.

Weary with weaving the battle-woof,

Came the king and his thanes to the Hall: Feast-fires reddened the beams of the roof, Torch flames waved from the wall.

Bright was the gold that the table bore,
Where platters and beakers shone:
Whining hounds on the sanded floor
Looked hungrily up for a bone.

Laughing, the king took his seat at the board,
With his gold-haired queen at his right:
War-men sitting around them roared
Like a crash of the shields in fight.

Loud rose laughter and lusty cheer,

4

And gleemen sang loud in their throats, Telling of swords and the whistling spear, Till their red beards shook with the notes.

5

Varlets were bringing the smoking boar,

Ladies were pouring the ale,

When the watchman called from the great hall door: "O King, on the wind is a wail.

"Feebly the host of the hungry poor

Lift hands at the gate with a cry:

Grizzled and gaunt they come over the moor,

Blasted by earth and sky."

"Ho!" cried the king to the thanes, "make speedCarry this food to the gates,

Off with the boar and the cask of mead

Leave but a ioaf on the plates."

4. Gleemen. Musicians.

5. Varlets. Attendants.

Still came a cry from the hollow night: "King, this is one day's feast;

But days are coming with famine and blight; Wolf winds howl from the east!"

Hot from the king's heart leaped a deed,
High as his iron crown:

(Noble souls have a deathless need
To stoop to the lowest down.)

"Thanes, I swear by Godde's Bride
This is a cursèd thing—
Hunger for the folk outside,

Gold inside for the king!"

Whirling his war-ax over his head,
He cleft each plate into four.
"Gather them up, O thanes," he said,
"For the work-folk at the door.

"Give them this for the morrow's meat, Then shall we feast in accord:

Our half of the loaf will then be sweetSweet as the bread of the Lord!"

78

HOW THE GREAT GUEST CAME

EDWIN MARKHAM

I

Before the Cathedral in grandeur rose,
At Ingelburg where the Danube goes;
Before its forest of silver spires

Went airily up to the clouds and fires;
Before the oak had ready a beam,
While yet the arch was stone and dream—
There where the altar was later laid,
Conrad the cobbler plied his trade.

II

Doubled all day on his busy bench,
Hard at his cobbling for master and hench,
He pounded away at a brisk rat-tat,
Shearing and shaping with pull and pat,
Hide well hammered and pegs sent home,
Till the shoe was fit for the Prince of Rome.
And he sang as the threads went to and fro:
"Whether 'tis hidden or whether it show,

Let the work be sound, for the Lord will know."

III

Tall was the cobbler, and gray and thin,

And a full moon shone where the hair had been.

His eyes peered out, intent and afar,

As looking beyond the things that are.

He walked as one who is done with fear,
Knowing at last that God is near.

Only the half of him cobbled the shoes:
The rest was away for the heavenly news.
Indeed, so thin was the mystic screen
That parted the Unseen from the Seen,
You could not tell, from the cobbler's theme

If his dream were truth or his truth were dream.

IV

It happened one day at the year's white end,
Two neighbors called on their old-time friend;
And they found the shop, so meager and mean,
Made gay with a hundred boughs of green.
Conrad was stitching with face ashine,

But suddenly stopped as he twitched a twine:
"Old friends, good news! At dawn today,
As the cocks were scaring the night away,
The Lord appeared in a dream to me,
And said, 'I am coming your guest to be!'
So I've been busy with feet astir,
Strewing the floor with branches of fir.
The wall is washed and the shelf is shined,
And over the rafter the holly twined..
He comes today, and the table is spread
With milk and honey and wheaten bread."

V

His friends went home; and his face grew still
As he watched for the shadow across the sill.
He lived all the moments o'er and o'er,
When the Lord should enter the lowly door-
The knock, the call, the latch pulled up,

The lighted face, the offered cup.

He would wash the feet where the spikes had been; He would kiss the hands where the nails went in;