BOOKS AND AUTHORS.
VERSES OLD AND NEW. \ MY OWN COUNTRY. The corn 18 springing tall! , The Clover's good to smell; Over 1119 new oub meadow Com&s the evening belL Herts i 8 ft pleasant country Either in shine or haze! It is not 60 dear as my ewn country ■ In the: old days. Thefe'fl Hot thd gold oil ths wheat) ■There's not the brown on the grass, Was in my owil deaf country, In the old days, alas! ■ Knee-deep were the meadows; 1 The corn one yellow blaze; . Lovely the hills and the hill-Bhadows, In the old days! When I walked with my father, My heart was at rest. .When we were always together, ; The heart sang in my breast. Herts is a pleasant country, ' and wild-wood ways. It is not so dear as my own country, In the old days. I—Katharine Tynan, in the "Westminster .Gazette." TO A DRAGOMAN. I still can see him, lean and languid-eyed; . Beneath his fez his clear-cut features dun With the swart totioh.of the Egyptian sun; 'A trifle stooped, yet with:& hint of pride; I still can hear his soft voice like the tide Of Nile at nightfall when ;th6 stars have won. Their immemorial places,' and begun t : Their march acr6s§' the desert, waste, and Wide. I still can feel, about him the strange_spell That dominates his land, a kindredship With all inscrutable and 1 ancient things., jAnd fancy, if'he would, that he .might tell The secret of the Sphinx's sealed, lip V And of the'pyramids and mummied kings. ; —Clinton Scollard, in "Voices and' Visions." '.I ' CLEOPATRA'S MUMMY. : ! A heap of crumbling bones, 1 -'v BlaCk with old Egypt's dust .and grime; A bit "of shrivelled skin;' 1 And..painted cloth, Brittle from years, • ..'...• And with'-bitumen stained. v.. • Once; were' these crumbling- bones ' Clothed inV a woman's beauty, i More fragrant than the breath of incense Burned wherfe tihkling ; bells, And crystal fountains, Filled with gentle music The whispering groves of fair Dodona, , And the pale-eyed' priestess Breathed the hallowed air. , Here lies the dark-eyed daughter of the Nile, .Who nursed on golden bed, . The Sucking asp.
The lonely shadows deepen, And form the English sunset, Dull and gray as sea-blown mists, Dies the last flickering, beam, And all at length is still. The visitors are gone: The doors are closed: The daughter of great Ptolemy, : In the London-town,' ■ •' Slumbers unconscious of her shame. P. R. Marvin,' in "Poems and Translations." • AT DAWN. Sow 'many years, ! how many generations, Have heard that sign in the dawn, When the dark earth yearns tb the unforgotten nations •}■■ . And i the 'old loves withdrawn, Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and nnnnm- ' bered As waves on the wine-dark sea, 'Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the temples that slumbered In Thessaly? i»-"'When the mists divide with the dawn o'er those glittering waters," Do they gaze o'er unoared seas—. . Naiad and ,nymph and-the woodland's rose- | , ,crdsiM>daughters' .. j .. j • | .' And thib Oceanides! . I ' ' Do they sing together, perchance,, in that 'diamond splendour, '• 1 • That world: of dawn and dew, With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes grown tender, The sweet old songs they knew, The Songs of Greece?. Ah, with harp-strings mute do they falter As the earth like a small star pales? When the heroes launch their ship by tho ' smoking altar Does a memory lure their sails? Far, far away do their hearts resume tho story That never on earth was told, When all those urgent oars on the waste of • ... glory , Cast up its gold? " ■ —Alfred Noyes.
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Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 294, 5 September 1908, Page 12
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593BOOKS AND AUTHORS. Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 294, 5 September 1908, Page 12
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