POETRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 142, 16 June 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

POETRY.

A WISH.

The circumstances of Mr Arnold's deat^f give additional pathos to the following' lines, which form part of his poem entitled / "A Wish." The first portion was at any' rate fulfilled :—

Spare me the whispering, crowded room. The friends who come, and gape, and go; The ccremonions air of gloomAll, that makes death a hideous show!

Nor bring to see me cease to live, Some doctor full of phrase and fame, To shake his sapient head, and give The ill he cannot cure a name!

Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll Of the poor sinner bound for death. His brother doctor of the soul To canvass with official breath

The future and its viewless things— That undiscover'd mystery Which one who feels death's winnowing wings Must needs read clearer, sure, than bet

Bring none of these! but let me be, While all around in silence lies, Moved to the window near, and see Once more, before my dying eyes,

Bathed in the sacred dews of mom The wide aerial landscape spread, The world which was ere I Was born. The world which lasts when I am dead;

There let me gaze, till I become In soul, with what I gaze on, wed! To feel the universe my home, To have before my mind—instead

Of the sick room, the mortal strife, The turmoil for a little breath— The pure eternal course of life, Not human combatings. with death,

Thus feelihg, gazing, might I grow Composed, refreah'd, ennobled, clear; Then willing let my spirit go, To work or wait elsewhere or herd