Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

N

THE DEAD MARCH

In Götterdämmerung

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

OT only did I hear

The thundering chords that swept round Siegfried's bier,

But I heard, mysteriously low,

The far and solemn tread

Of the old army of the mighty dead—

They who went marching long and long ago

Toward the great blinding glory of God's place.
I saw each beautiful face,

More beautiful now in death;

I heard their quiet footfalls as they passed,
I saw triumphant banners in the sun

As one by one

They filed before me, happy, happy at last.

I heard faint bugles and far mystic singing,
I heard the echo of a lark's song ringing
Above the hushed solemnity and peace

Of this slow march that sang the Great Release.

They moved before me-the exultant dead!
One came, a glistening helmet on his head,

Then popes and kings in white and purple and red;
And legions from old battles, emperors

And mighty captains from adventurous wars;
High poets, and sad seekers of the Grail
With countenances pale;

Imperial hosts that dazed me with their glory;
Silent, yet eloquent with Death's new story—
A wonder on their lips I could not read,

I who was living indeed.

I saw them pass-sinner and saint and sage,
Sovereign and beggar of an ancient age,

Tatters and pomp one at the final hour-
One, one at last in that vast harmony,
The concentrated utterance of sound
That every falseness drowned

In a wide peace, immortally profound,
Beyond the borders of Immensity.

W

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT

HAROLD S. PAUL

I

E who possess republican institutions have long been accustomed to believe that in the right of choosing public officials we hold in our hands the means of self-government-that is, at least, the means of making our governments representative of our wishes. From which it would follow that evil government among us, wherever it occurs, must owe its existence either to the low character and desires or to the culpable negligence of the electorate suffering from it.

The prevalent feeling has been thus expressed by one of our public men: “We have the government, municipal, State, or national, which we make for ourselves. If it is good, it is because we make it so. If it is bad, we may think it is not what we want, and that we are not responsible for it; but it is none the less just what it is simply because we will not take the trouble necessary to improve it. There is no greater fallacy than the comfortable statement so frequently heard that we owe misgovernment, when it occurs anywhere, to the politicians. If the politicians are bad, and yet have power, it is because we give it to them. They are not a force of nature with which there is no contending; they are of our own creation, and if we disapprove of them and yet leave them power, it is because we do not care to take the trouble, sometimes the excessive trouble, needful to be rid of them. People in this country, as in other countries, and as in all periods of history, have, as a rule, the government they deserve."

Let us briefly consider how far the power of choosing our own officials is capable of securing to us the kind of government we desire. Let us suppose, as the simplest cast, that our only wish is for honest government. How are we now to be sure of our honest man, one who intends to serve, not himself or his friends, but the whole community? Few of the voters can be

« AnteriorContinuar »