THE MATCH-SELLER.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 74, 24 September 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MATCH-SELLER.

Weary and faint, yet patient still, she stands Beside the crowded street, Unheeded by the nover-cea3ing throng Who pass with hurrying feet. The shrunken look that tolls of years of care, The timid, trembling- hand, Only the few who feel for others' woe Would note or understand. The child that lies against her aching heart In fitful sleop of pain, Bears, too, the impress on its infant face Of struggles long and vain. For such, alas ! Joy hath no heritage, And Peace no flowery wreath — Sad mother, better it should lie at rest ■ The grass-grown sod beneath ! The sound of music from a violin At some street- comer floats ; A master's hand is on the quivering strings A heart speaks in their notes ! The woman turns — her soul is still awake To Life's diviner things ; She, too, hath heard in youth's departed day An angel's rustlin? wings ! The years roll back, and, under wattle bloom, She stands, a laughing girl, Nor dreams among the quiet purple hills Of a city's ceaseless whirl ! The rose of summer later still she plucks — Horself a rose more fair — And hears, whene'er she bends her shining head, A lover's whisper there ! Again she breathes the wild free mountain air I Her wares drop from her hand, The city's sordidness hath given place To an enchanted land ! Less close she holds the iufant at her breastIt gives a fretful cry !—! — The glory of her Dreamland fades away Beneath a darkened sky ! —Marion Miller, in tho Australasian.