A PATRIOTIC PRAYER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 12

A PATRIOTIC PRAYER

• Alfred Noyes continues to do fine work for “Blackwood's Magazine” and other Maga* he has an ode which possesses a. ceimiiiw tone of dignity. The title is "The Sceptre with the Dove.” Hero is one 'specially attractive passage: Through the thunder of the city, through the silence of the ages, , Ere the'hamlet that was London heard 'thy lonely curfew toiled, Thou hast pleaded, thou hast called, across the pasture and the fold. Drawing scattered tribes to worship from the river and the wood, * In a closer-knit brotherhood. From century to century, . . * in ever*widening unity. *Thou hast crowned ub here a people, in the splendour of the sun x Till, around thee waiting, listening stilt the great new oceans rolled. And thy seamen plunging Westward bad* the Golden Gates unfold, And the vision that sustained them deepened onward to this hour. When the crown is yet to set upon the purpose of thy power. And tho mightiest page is yet .to turn of all they golden pages' I lift thy powers to Heaven, for thy work is not vet done! Nations, not ehiros, this day. Bring thee their worlds and say Keen thou thine ancient way, Weld us iii one!