ESSAYS IN VERSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 112, 7 November 1908, Page 13

ESSAYS IN VERSE.

DUNA. When I was a little lad With folly on my lips, Fain was I for journeying All tho sous in ships. But now across the southern swell Every dawn I hear The 1 little streams of Duna Running clear. When I was a young man Before my beard was grayj All to ships and sailormen I gave my heart away. But I'm weary of the sea-wind, I'm weary of the foam, And the little stars of Duna Call me home. — Marjorie L. C. Pickthall. Metropolitan Magazine. AN OLD SUSSEX HAVEN. Here, where the latei Flintrnen stood And viewed the glories of the bay, We moderns come in jaded mood To seek a careless holiday. For one blest moon we'll cut the bridge That links us to this complex life, And lying on tho shiugie ridge Enjoy the old primeval strife. The white-plumed waves still charge the shore, — Their fighting line sways to and fro — The stream still wrestles with the bore, Ev'n as three thousand years ago. Above, the clifE is thatched with grass, Below, with flints the strand is floored; We watch the vessels as thoy pass, And wonder who may be aboard. Just so, beside his village fire, In far-off prehistoric times, Once sat perhaps some skin-clad sire Precisely where I weave these rhymes. Here, as the twilight grew to dark And fresher blew the landward breeze, He marked the first Sidonian bark That ever sailed the narrow seas. Here, too, came Pythoas the bold In bireme of Massilian build; And — doubtless— here; restocked her hold, And from our stream her beakers filled. Hero, when upon its outward way The Thanet fleet, tin-laden, passed, How many a- wreck enriched the bay With shining ca.rgo shoreward cast ! Hero landed Woden's children, filled With _ Northern vigour, swift to strike And seize the lands tho Regni tilled As tithing of a Saxon Ric; From them our Sussex takes her name. And (Juckmere vale and Seaford town ; For since strong-handed Ella came, Saxon hath held the dalo and down. 'Twerc long to trace the saga's thread, For many a theme is yet untried — How Vikings slipped within the Head And harried all the countryside. How tho grim Norman's transports showed Again&t the sea"-line, faint and small; And how our lads to Senlac rode To striko 'for Harold and to— fall. How rolled the Grand Armada by, — Drako's bulldogs yapping at its heels — In that amazing hue and .cry Which spared but fifty battered keels; And how sour William, on his wayi To striko tho Stewart despot down, Sailed past our port towards Torbay, And fixed our Rights, and gained a crown ; How many a cargo here was run On secret signal timely set; How fast and furious waxed the fun When Smuggler and Preventive met. But all too toon the dream is o'er ; I rouso, and mark 'ueath shclfc'ring hand Three tents above the quiot shore, And Nancy sporting on the sand. . — C. E. Snowden. Spectator.