BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1271, 28 October 1911, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

« -> VERSBS OLD AND NEW. OUR LADY OP THE DUSK. Within my garden hot and dry A tardy guest, with sandalled feet, Has brushed the. drooping roses by, And fiuug to mo their fragrance sweet. JTor trailing gown of misty grey Beneath the trees I've dimly seen: The meadow grasses swiug and sway To show mo where her path has been. With healing touch, each leaf and flower Sho blesses on her silent way. ©ur Ladv of the Twilight Hour Cooling tho footprints of tho Day! r-Muriel G. E. Harris, in the "Westminster Gazette." THE WIND-WILD WOOD. I. With linen very whito and fair , They bound him—and they laid him there Beneath tho rood. Bosido him flamed Tall candles, which the sunset shamed, So red the west did Uare. With ruddy light. It filled the place, Did many a criss-cross shadow trace Upon the sheet close-wrapped to hide The sword-thrust in his hated side, ..And cover fair tho face. Yet where I knelt I saw both plain, I saw tho slow and soaking stain That grew and grew until a thread Across the chequered pavement led ... . And then it seemed again That he and I were in the wood, And blade.'to blade hot-hearted stood; It was as much as I could do To keep a laugh from breaking through, Tho trick had been so good. 2. Tor here knelt I amid the crowd That swum* tho "Dies irae" loud And prayed his soul to peace. God's body! but I used him well To'keep his soul so long from hell! When would their mouthings cease? Then, of a sudden, came a wind, Such as within that wood had thinned The trees of leaves bereft. It swept tho mourners from tho floor, It drove the priests without the door— jßut he and I were left. It rocked the rood, it raised the pall, It flung the tapers from tho Mall, Tho air was thick with cries; And round and round the windows spun With rows of reeling saints a-run To see the dead man rise. He came and took me where I stooS, Ho drew nio to the wind-wild wood, Whero shade to shade we fight. Tall candles flame at head and feet, We lie within ono winding sheet Of linen fair and white. —Marna Poaso, in "The Spectator." A SONG OF SYRINX. Little lady, whom 'tis said •Pan tried very hard to please, I expect before you fled 'Neath the wondering willow-trees, Ran away from his caress In the Doric wildernoss, • That you'd let him on a lot, Said you would, and then would not,— No way that to treat a man, Little lady loved of Pan! I.expect you'd droppod your eyes .(Eyes that held your stream's own hue, Kingfishers and dragon-flies •Sparkling in their ripple blue), And you'd tossed your tresses up, Yellow as tho cool king-cup, And you'd dimpled at his vows Underneath tho willow boughs, Ere you mocked him. ere you ran, Little lady loved of Pan! So they'vo turned yon to a reed, As tho great Olympians could, You've to bow, so they've decreed, •When old Pan comes through the rood, You'vo to curtsey and to gleam ..In tie wind and in tho stream C&hicb are forms, I'vo heard folks say, That the god adopts to-day), And we watch yon hear your ban, Little lady loved of Pan! For in pleasant spots you lie • Where the lazy river is, Where the chasing whispers fiy Through the boas of bulrushes, Where the big.chub, golden-dim, Turns his' sides to catch the sun, Where one listens for'the queer' Voices in tho splashing weir, Where I know that still you can Weave a spell to charm a man, Little lady loved of Pan! —"Punch."

■. THE ELEMENTS. No houso of stone Was built for me; Whan the sun shines— I am a bcß. No sooner comes The rain so warm, ■ I come to light— ' I am a worm. When the winds blow, I do not strip, But set ray sails— I am a ship. When lightning comes, It plays with mo And I with it— I am a tree. When drowned men rise At thunder's word, Sings nightingale— I am a bird. —William H. Davies, in the "Nation."