VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 November 1907, Page 13

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

CARCASSONNE. . I'm-growing old, I've sixty years, .'l've laboured all iny life in vain; In all tb.it timo of hopes and fears I've failed .my dearest wish to gain; , I see full well that hero below 'Bliss nnalloved thovo is for none, lly prayer will ne'er fulfilment know; I have never seen Carcassonne, I never have scon Carcassonno. Ton see'tho city from tho hill— .It lies beyond the mountains blue, 'And yet to reach it one must still • Fivo long'and weary leagues pursue, 'And to return, as many more! Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown, The grape withheld its yellow store,— I, shall r.ot look on Carcassonne; I shall not-look on Carcassonno.' They toll me every day is there 1 Not more nor, less t» an Sunday gay; ' In shining rotfcs and garments fair ' The people walk;,upon their way. One gazes there' oir castle walls As grand as those of Babylon; ■ ' !A bishop and'two 1 generals! I do not know fair Carcassonno, I do not know fair Carcassonno. The cure's right; ho. says that wo Aro ever wayward, weak and blind; He tolls us in his homily .. Ambition ruins all mankind; • Yet could I thero two days have spent, While s>till tho autumn "sweetly shone, !Ah mo, T might have died content When I had looked on Carcassonne, When I had looked on Carcassonne. Thy pardon,'father, I^beseech,. i In this mv prayer, if I oltend, One, something sees beyond his reaph From childhood to his journey's end. M.v wife, our littlo boy, Aignan, Have travelled even to Narbonne, My grandchild has seen Perpignnn, And I have not seen Carcassonne, And I liavo not seen Carcassonno,' Bo crooned, ono day, closo by Limoux, A peasant, double-bent 'with age. . "Riso up) n»y friend," said I; "with you I'll go upon this pilgrimage." iWe loft rest morning his abode, ■. But, Heaven forgive him, half way. on ' The'/old man died'upon the road; • v lie never gazed on Carcassonne; ~ Each mortal has his Carcassonne. '.f—From the French of Gustavo Nadand. THE OLD FIDDLER. Here by the wayside I sit to show my wares, few stay to look at them and none linger ■ long'.—'' i • , The money in their pockets they are keeping for the fairs, nothing, they have to give for my poor • song.Ilcrc by 'the laneside I. sit. for I.arn tirpd of the crowded coach-road. and its passers-by, from, "morn to night , the pepplo, but never one /who 'desired . ■'' i ' to :look *br have speech with such as I.v Here from the hillside I can look acrosstho ■•bay, '•-'/•• 1 ' watch wave after .wave como swelling from .' the west, ". ; see the mile-long breakers wake white and shining through the day, ' • , 'hear them in the night when all else has rest. Content at my journey's end I sit here alone, my eyes oh the ships as they on the sea. It is with them my heart goes, for with them •my friend has gone, . while here "I rest 1 tili'the dall comes for-me. •' —H. Charlewood Turner in' the "Saturday . : ■ Beviow."