ESSAYS IN VERSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 127, 30 May 1914, Page 13

ESSAYS IN VERSE

SLEEPLESS. Here in the silence of my room I hear the dragging wheels of doom. And the long pain of human plight Hums like a taut wire in the night. Inside my breast I feel tho knock, The ticking of the timeless clock, And find beneath my eyelids furled All the dim business of tho world. Somewhere in that dull tumult dies My comrade, neither brave nor wise, Spendthrift, with only dreams to spend— My friend, who might have been my friend. Unhappy, uncompanioned— here, At least, your dear desire is dear, And leaves untroubled by its spark No thin vibration of the dark. I did not know you, but I knew The sweet dubieties of you : Ah, who but I should understand Tentative foot and groping hand?. Into the dusk you take as much As what your daytime could not touch* And mortal twilight folds abovo A twilight of immortal love. Could you but know how close 1 cleave, That faith would make your doubt be« lieve — Make brave your spirit with bright breath Ev'n to the taint and taunt of death. Apart we were, apart we are : Too faint tho message 1 and too far :, Lonely began and lonely ends Tho journey of the friendless friends* Yet in the tangle and the blur My heart's your heart's interpreter!; Unknown, unknowing, you and I Together lived, together die. -Gerald Gould. New Statesman. A BLIND CHILD. Ho roams not in. the summer light, Ho treads not childhood's golden, way, He sees no phantoms of the night, No wonders of the day. Ho joins tho children's noisy throng, And stands to listen while they play, And sings a littlo wordless song, As though his heart were gay. The Spectator.— F.B« A CRADLE SONG. Sing it, Mother I sing it low : * Doom it not an idle lay. In tho heart 'twill ebb and flow. All the life-long way. Sing it, Mother! softly sins', While he slumbers on thy kneo V. All that after-years may bring Shall flow back to theo. Sing it, Mother, Love is strong! When the tears of manhood fall, Echoes of thy cradle-song Shall its peaco recall. Sing it, Mother 1 when his ear Catches first tho Voico Divine, Dying, ho may smile to hear What he deemeth thine. N.Y. Evening Post. —John B. Tabb.