ou'-wester
Rose wildly and strong, to hinder and pester
Their perilous flight; how they foundered and sank
On that treacherous bank,
Lost, lost evermore
On our alien shore.

With their grim freight of death
And the poisonous breath
Of scurvy and pestilence, hunger, despair,
The struggling remainder of galleons bear
Them back to the port of Corunna again,
All, all that is left to the pride of proud Spain.

Courageous and calm, with the valour of men
Elizabeth waited the chances; and then
"My children are fed
And their enemies dead,"
Cried the frivolous Queen.
Majestic of mien
She towered, her wisdom and high inspiration,
The might of a people, the soul of a nation.

L'Envoie

(And even to-day I will wager that no man
Can fathom the mind or the depths of a woman!)

The Death of Queen Elizabeth

Only
So lonely,
Was ever woman quite so lonely?
Clad in a rich bejewelled dress, unchanged
For nigh a week, her stiff ruff disarranged,
Her fierce eyes staring dully at the floor,
Fear on that face, which ne'er knew fear before--
Elizabeth.

Finger on lip she sits. Time has outgrown
That gorgeous England, which was once her own.
Those solemn courtiers pacing to and fro
Outside the palace, neither care nor know
The dying Queen is lonely!

Ha what was that? Plotters within the gate?
And she, contemptuous victim once of hate
And score of plots, plunges her naked sword
Thrice through the arras, which had never stirred--
Afraid!--_Elizabeth?_

Huddled amidst the pillows, gaunt and old,
She shivers, this gay daughter of a gold
Entrancing age. The debonair gallant
Who sang her, now the mocking sycophant.
The ministers she trusted, gone. The throne
She loved with all her passion, left for one
Of stock and seed she loathed. Mere English, she
Shrinks from the new and cold sobriety
Of chill advancing fashion. Only Death
To woo this poor--this great Elizabeth!
Was ever woman quite so lonely?

The Plea of the Antarctic

The best people to judge are those who served under Captain Scott. Had
we been in the same place as the victims we should have wished our
bodies to remain at rest where we had given our best efforts in