A COMMONPLACE SONG.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 53

A COMMONPLACE SONG.

Ebbs and fl .ws the restless river in the city

street ; Where the great nerve-centre 3 quiver, where the poises beat, Where the human waves are driving, dtifts a woman's face, White and worn by constant striving with the Commonplace. Want has written strange inscriptions on the brow and cheek, Pain could weave sonic weird descriptions if the tye could speak. ' • Tori has touched the Hues of beauty aad the •curves of grace ; Comeliness is good, but Daty rules the Common- • place. ThijCk -soled shoes, and shabby bonnet, dingy-cotton cloves, . > . Old turned dress with darns upon it (not what woman loves), Gaunt umbrella,, green with weather : one must self efface To keep home and bairns together in the Commonplace. Late and early never shirking tub and ecrub and broom, Late at night with needle working in the dwelling

room ; Yet when week's receipts are thinner, grocers' bills to face, Sixpence means three children's dinner in the Commonplace. Poets sing their wild iambic3— Love and War and Gods ; Let us sing of humble women fighting fearful odds — Not where steel and bullets rattle and the squadrons race, But the grim unending battlewith the Commonplace. Rogues may win success and glory, Beauty pride of fame, Statesmen share a nation's story, poets deathless name ; But the patient woman toiler — what is hers to win? On the one hand Want, the spoiler : on the other, Siu. Ye who swear and strut and bluster— so-called manly pride— "Whea you answer at the muster on the other ■side. Will the'eouroge you have vaunted stand you in such grace As wealc "Hands that fought undaunted with, the \ ' Commonplace ? ' Noble3t worth works ever humbly — often'st is

unseen ; Half the world is toiling dumbly in the grey routine. Sing, O poet, of the morrow, cheer the weary face Where brave women moil and sorrow in the Commonplace.

— Woman's Signal.

Ethel K. Benjimin, Barrister and Solicitor, Albert Buildings, Princes street, Dunedin (opposite C.P.0.), has trust moneys to lend oa approved security. — Ad vfc