ESSAYS IN VERSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1912, Page 15

ESSAYS IN VERSE.

SWEETHEARTS. If you have me for sweetheart and I havo you for dear There's little left for longing and little left to fear; The hungry winds will wander, the hungry seas will cry. But we shall cease from hunger and let sad thoughts go by. The winds must .leave the waters, the stars must leave the night, Ere we be done with loving or put away delight j Tho dawns ehall all be golden, the skies shall all be clear, If you have me for sweetheart and I have you for dear. — Berald Gould. THE SONG OF THE GRASS. (In the Soldiers' Cemetery at Arlington, U.S.A.) Ye are many, ye are mighty, and your feet they trample hard. . Ye have trod the mountains under, and the sea, The sea ye, too, have conquered, but within this quiet yard It is I, the grass, am master; hark to me. Ye have torn me in. your marches, scarred me deep with hoof and heel, And my dewy eward have rolled in dust and blood, When amid the cannon thunder c'en the forest seemed to reel. And your battle shook the hillside where ye stood. Were ye victors? 'Twas not Carthage won by Traiunene's lake, Not the Britons 'mid the wheat at Waterloo, For my creeping, crowding legions from them both the field did take, As I took the heights of Gettysburg from you. But I hate the battle fury as I hate the crawlingjeea, With its wrinkled swinging tides that cannot cease; Sweetar far to me the woodland where the dappled shadows be 1 Or the graveyard with its lilies and its peaoe. Nay, I will be done with mocking. omy masters, naught am I But the" clinging lowly gross about your feet, Growing green and cool around you, tired eyes to satisfy, And weaving, when all's done, your winding sheet. Sleep you well ! _Men bring you roses, but they wither in the sun,— Bring them in the May with music and a sound, As o! old, of timed footsteps; but when 1 all the pomp is done, In the stillness 'tis my roots wrap you round, Fold you close, and ao will keep you till Potomao shall run dry, And the stars go out like camp-fires in the skies, Till the shivering sea ehall perish, and the huddling mountains fly, And the judgment bugle blowing bids you rise. — William Hervey Woods. THE PRICE. ' ("They go straight to the heart.'V— Extract from a letter.) Paid for I Every word of it! Winsome fancy or moving Straight to the heart they went to prove great was her power of loving; You, "vvho were pleased by the turn/of a song, was this the stake she played for? Honey of praise from a curious throng, over the poemß she paid for! ■ Paid for! Writ' with the point of a sword dipped in a warm heart's bleeding. And the babes of her brain came forth to you, tear-washed and pale, and pleading ; jjove — or Fame on the mountain way — which was the crown she prayed for* Every word thai? you read to-day part of her life has paid for. — M. Forreßt. Sydney Mail.SKYLARKS. All day in exquisite air The song clomb an invisible stair, Flight on flight, story on etory, Into the dazzling glory. There was no bird, only a singing Up in the glory climbing and ringing, Like a small golden cloud at even, Trembling 'twirfc earth and heaven. I saw no staircase winding, winding, . Up in the dazzle sapphire and blinding, Yet round by round, in exquisite air, The song went up the stair. --Katharine Tynan. New Age.