THE SONG-WRITER'S JOY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SONG-WRITER'S JOY.

(By 51. Jliors, care 142, Fitzliei-bert Avenue, Palmerston North ; age 13.)

Early in the year 1820 Franz Dailslcr, an old man of »>8 years, sat in his oldworld garden surrounding his thatched cottage beside the River Danube. The scent of the few last red roses was wafted up to him where he sat on a low bench. His long hair was as white as the snow on yonder mountain, while his aark, expressive eyes held a world of sadness in their depths. They were eyes that compelled attention, though they were in a lined face that had seen many hardships. At his feet lay a bundle of manuscripts, yellowed with age. They had just fallen from his withered hands. What could bo written on those old, worn pages to cause such sorrow in his aged eyes? Ah, what, indeed! Only old Dailsler could tell—aye, he only, for had he not in his youthful days covered those pages with lines of songs? Lines expressing happiness, sadness, wistfulness—lines of description of his boyhood hopes and fears, lines of description, lines that were almost pictures, go vivid were they, but lines that had been thrown aside and jeered at by the everchanging world. There had been days when lie had been filled with joy at the thought of those same songs being published, but alas for false hopes! Soon a.fter these day dreams came despair, followed by poverty and hunger. How his young wife had tried to cheer him with tender hopes. It was only when his little son came that he tried to forget his boyhood dreams, but with his wife's death came the pathos of despair again.

At the age of sixteen—the age when Dailsler had begun writing—Otto, his son, ran away to sea—as his hastilyscrawled note implied. This last blow proved too much. Old Dailsler fell ill, and it was only after a hard struggle that he managed to live, but what was life worth living for? All his beloved cries were gone; he was alone —alone in his thatched cottage, with his garden of memories, the garden where he had courted Elsae. When his friends offered to care for him, the proud old man had said, almost angrily, "Leave me with my memories."

So they left him, and here he was, 20 I years later, when a beautiful saloon car drew up at his wicket gate. A hand- ! some, fair young man alighted and came quickly up the pebbled path. On seeing the old man —a forlorn figure in his sadness —he ran to him. Holding out his arms he eagerly, pleadingly, cried, "Father, oh, father, don't you know me?" t Slowly, as if in a dream, the old man looked up. "Otto! Oh, it can't be! I must be dreaming!" "No, eo, father. It is I—Otto. I've como back. I'm rich, and you must come with me. Your songs—l know of some one who is interested in them." Then, "Father!" he softly said. "My boy!" was all the old man could say, as he folded his son in his arms. "I am happy —so happy—and you say my songis will be—but ah! it cannot be. The people of my clay rejected them. What can the modern world want with them ?" "But—" "Pardon me, but may I look at your songs, H;rr Dailsler?" It waM a tall,' dark, foreign-looking gentlei ian who spoke. On reading them he gesticulated wildly, and cried, "A fortune! These songs arc wonderful, marvellous!" The piled on Dailsler was startling. ' At last —at last!" he murmured, "my efforts have not been in vain. After all these years!" And with a contented sigh he fell back on his bench. "Father!" cried his son. Then, as no response came from the frail figure, he urged frantically, "Speak to me!" But it was of no avail. The gentle, suffering spirit had passed peacefully away into a world where 110 sorrow is known.