THE PEOPLE'S RESPONSE TO HEROISM.

By William Mackay MacKeracher

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.

Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;

We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain

For spiritual food; our souls are dead.

So judged I till the day when news was rife

Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,

And bravely one gave up her own fair life

In saving the most helpless from the flames.

Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer

That broke with sobbing undertones from all

The multitude, and watched them drawing near,

Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall

In grief and exultation, I confest

My judgment erred,— we know and love the best.