ESSAYS IN VERSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 43, 20 February 1915, Page 11

ESSAYS IN VERSE

THE HIDDEN DEATH. Out whero the swinging, empty seas Lie naked to the rain, And sullenly the white-caps rise To break and sink again, When like a shroud the dark comes down And pale the lightnings leer, Look and look well, O drowsy watch ! The Hidden Death is near ! Mark for your lives the under-shndes That rise and fade and die ! Mark where the scared gulls, ohattering, rise And seek the muttering sky ! Mark for your lives the foaming trails That, snake-like, cross the swell And leap and go and come again I Then, loose the eager shell ! The chattering quick-fires ehriek their dread, The red dart spits and runs From deck to deck, from top to top, And wakes the jibbering guns! In. vain the shivering convoys close And shell tho scornful sea ! Far down a voice has bpoke the word — The Hidden Death is free ! The blind white adder leaps to sting And drives the poifcon home ! Their foolish smoke sinks shuddering down To cloak the spluttering foam, And, mad with panic, lashed with fear, The speared whale rears> and blows Till, seared with bellowing, blood-hued steam, ' The whipped white water 6 close ! When bare the heaving, icy seas Hiss with the lashing rain And, 'hard upon the twilight's heels, The night comes down again, And, far in the watery, grumbling sky. The flickering lightnings flare, Look and look well, O questing lights! The Hidden Death is there ! (From "Cleared for "Action." Poems of the Navy by Harwood Steete Reprinted in the Daily Chronicle by permission of Mr. T. Fisher Unwin.) PLAYING THE GAME. Hour after hour the cards wero fairly shuffled, And fairly dealt; yet still I got no hand. I rose from play, and with a mind unruffled I only said, "I do not understand " Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt. Blind are our efforts to control the forces Which, though unseen, are no less 6trongly felt. I do not like tho way the cards are shuffled, But yet I'm in the gamo and bound to stay; And through the long, Jong night will I, unruffled, Play what I get. until the break of day. T.P.s Weekly