ESSAYS IN VERSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 13

ESSAYS IN VERSE.

A BOATING SONG. O'er_ shimmering wave and headland" bold Night's sombre banners fall; Tho spears of sunset, tipt with gold, Far westward, over field and fold, Pierca through the gum-trees tall. Hor lijrhte upon the waters glow Wine-red and umber sheen ; Thro' arching boughs and branches low The flickering 6hadows come and go, With flecks of gold between. Windeped our white boat homing fares Beneath the wan starlight ; Thro' mist-veils that the far hill wears The moon her silver sickle- bears Aoro6s the fields of night. Give us ihe slender oars that cleave The long whit© waterway; The my6tio > webe the night-mists weave, The opal tints the sunsets leave On spume and flying spray. —Annie S. Ray Smith* Australasian. THE PAINTED DESERT. Land of a thousand lures, I see In. memory your face at morn And sense again your mystery — Your lonely plains, of verdure shorn. I ceo again, ia arching sky_ The mirage, like a painting rare; There comes, from distant ranges high, A wine-like perfume in your air. Across tho canyon grim and vast, A traiMoade upward to the crest. And, eyrie of a clan long past. A ruin, clings, like swallows' nest Wide and white are your eands -that driftWhite are your plains whore lizards run — And ne'er shall your spoil on mankind lift, Land of the flaming evening sue Denver Republican. YOU AND MY SOUL". I know not where you aro to-night. Nor how these houre are sped; If now you take and give delight Or bear a weary head. Nay, there is joy when victory's won, When trouble's ended, rest; So should you hold, your task well done, All heaven within your breast. And almost I could wish you glad To have Blain my love bo well ; Yet fear the silence makes you sad And you will never tell — Yet fear some memory may remain, Even as there bides in me An aftereenso of outworn pain, The ebb of misery. I only know the night blows chill Beneath the stars serene; And you and my soul are living still And the wide, dark world between ! — William Macdonald. Harper's Weekly. SLEEP. 'When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away — And in a dream, ao in a fairy bark, Drift on and on through the enchanted dark To purple daybreak — little thought we pay To that sweet bitter world we know by day. We are clean quit of it, as is a lark So high in heaven no human, eye may mark The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray. Till we awake ill fate can do no ill, The resting heart shall not take up again The heavy load that yet must make it bleed ; For thie brief space the loud world's voice ia still, No faintest echo of it brings us pain. How will it be when we shall ,sleep indeed ? — Thomas Bailey Aldrich. ;