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Wayside Weeds

Chapter 31: To R. R. W.[15]
By William Hodgson Ellis
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Poetry

About This Book

A compact anthology of occasional and pastoral verse gathered by friends, offering rustic legends, place‑name poems, botanical sketches, comic character studies, elegies, and light lyrics. Several pieces narrate a dramatic rescue and other ballads, while many smaller poems record whimsical observations of plants, insects, and rural life. Other items take a gently satirical view of academic and social customs or serve as dedicatory and memorial pieces. The sequence balances narrative and descriptive modes with learned allusion, humour, and sentiment to sketch the author’s preoccupations and the local communities that provide its material.

The soldier called from rest or play

To take his post as sentinel,

To guard until the break of day

Some sore-beleaguered citadel,

Springs to his arms with beating heart

To take some war-worn veteran’s place,

Proud to perform a soldier’s part,

Dreading what yet he dares to face.

His comrades’ footsteps on his ears

Ring fainter and fainter. Silence falls

About him. Moments seem like years,

And loneliness his soul appals.

But when the signal rockets flare

He strains his eyes the void to scan;

When sounds of battle fill the air

In face of death he plays the man.

He stays where duty bids him stay,

The boldest when he fears the most;

And Rounds, come whensoe’er they may,

Find him alert and at his post.

Unnumbered now the moments fly

By him whose thoughts are set upon

Each moment’s task. The eastern sky

Brightens with dawn. The night is gone.

And hark, at last he grows aware

Of footsteps his release that tell.

Clear rings his challenge, “Who goes there?”

“Relief!” “Advance, Relief, all’s well!”

1913.

[14]Read at the Dinner given in May, 1913, in honour of Professor van der Smissen, Professor of German in University College, Toronto, on his retirement after forty-eight years’ service in the University and University College.

To R. R. W.[15]

From Scotland’s mists across the sea you bore

The sacred fire, (kindled by him whose name

Has made the century famous with his fame,)

And bid our lamp burn brighter than before.

Upon our Tree, a branch from Scotland’s shore

You grafted, and behold our Tree became

Wanton in leafage; with blossoms all aflame;

Deep rooted; and with boughs to heaven that soar.

We see the better issue from the strife,

And hope the best. In loathsome crawling things

We feel the fluttering of jewelled wings.

In Nature’s score, with seeming discords rife,

We seek to read, with you, the note that brings

To harmony the jarring chords of life.

[15]Read at the Dinner given in honour of Professor R. Ramsay Wright, Professor of Biology and Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Toronto, on his retirement, May, 1912.

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.