ESSAYS IN VERSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 77, 2 April 1910, Page 13

ESSAYS IN VERSE.

SIXTY TO-DAY.— A RETROSPECT.-, (For T&e Post.) Though glorious gleams fill childhood' s« sky, Yet Age fii^ds earth drawn nearer heaven, This truth my loving wife and I Have found 'mid tors and dales of Devon, Where, in a season mild_ and clear, I closed to-day my sixtieth year. Sixty! And though Youth's *dream3 have fled, I find Reality Is pleasant; No past regret or future dread Throws shadows o'er the placid present, And Retrospect brings purer joy Than Hope, which cheered the eagerboy. Through wondrous Fairylands I strayed, In Boyhood's days of golden dreaming, And gazed and marvelled, half afraid Of all this false world's hollow seeming. Dim memories of a happier sphere Supplied my comfort and my cheer. In forty years of toil and strife, The world and I got well acquainted; The love of sweetheart, child and wife Sustained me, or I else had fainted; And oft, to ease my heart and brain, I dropt into Youth's dreams again. And then, at fifty, I awoke And knew my dreaming all was ended. Hope lured no more; in cloud and smoke Had vanished all my visions splendii Better, I said, to dream, than wake And find Life all a huge mistake ! Vain thought ! For now my rounded life Is full of rich and sober sweetnesa; 'Tis but through Doubt and Care and Strife The soul attains to full completeness. Better than dreams and doubts and fears Is calm content at sixty years ! — J. Liddell Kelly. Torquay, 19tfa February, 1910. OLD WORDS. I love the Anglo-Saxon words, The simple, old words of our tongue That filched the music of the birds, When, ages gone, our race was young. They gem our mirth like drops of dew; j And c'en our anger knows the charm ! Of vowels, moon-like, breaking thro' j The storm-cloud consonants of harm. ! We cannot speak but swaying leaves And cattle under cosy trees Combine with dear old-fashioned eaves To touch our tongues with melodies. We cannot speak but words outflow Like clear, pure water at a spring. So stressed they almost seem to know The rhythmic beat of birds a-wing. And some so dreamily rejoice, Like ear-held shells, they seem to say : "We heard the Ocean's wondrous- voice And stole its mystery away." — E. S. Emerson. Book-lover (Melbourne). • THE AWAKENING. Tbe Soul, of late a lovely sleeping child, Spreads sudden wings and stands in radiant guise, Eyed like the morn and bent upon the skies ; Her the blue gulf dismays not, nor the wild Horizons with the wrecks of thunder piled, Storm has she known, and now its murmur dies Starlike through stainless heavens she would rise And be no more with cloudy dreams* beguiled. Was sleep not sweet? — Sweet, till on sleeping ears <- Earth's voices broke in discord. Now she hears Far, far away, diviner music move; Nor shall her wing ba sated of its flight, Nor shall her eyes bo weary of the night, While round her sweep the singing stars of Love. — Enid Derham. Trident. "PERfLOUS SEAS IN FAERYLANDS FORLORN." Dreamers by Usk and Avalon, Dwellers by Uricon or Dee, The way your forebears might have gone May ye not wend at libe-rty? If briars about the palace bo Where quests allured and armour i shone — If locked ths postern, lost the keyMore fiefs hath Faeryland than one! West from the crown-lands of the Sun Sailed Paul, that prince of heraldry; No purple drops he poured upon Troy's pomp of graves aside the sea, .Lulled by no opie euphony — His rapt eyeS stared as eyes of stone On carven Zeus or Cybeks. More fiefs hath Faeryland than one! , Clear on Troy's beach from Macedon 'Come! Help!" he heard Europa's plea, He sped by forest tracks o'esgrown The red-snn way. of chivalry; White honour, wild knight-errantry, I Altar arid fane and anchorage loneHe willed our sires such birthright free More fiefs bath Faeryland than one! j Seers norland-born, sail south with me ! Now .' For our sands are fleet to run ! i Lome, ride our moors in knightly glee ! More fiefs hath Faeryland than- one ! Westminster Gazette.