ESSAYS IN VERSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 55, 6 March 1915, Page 11

ESSAYS IN VERSE

THE.NORTH WIND IN 'AUTUMN. Autumn is mourning in, her ashen halls; Rent, her grand raiment in these dales of grief; Scattered and lone her-.wealth of purple flie6 ; Her languid glances v wast& in the dark eves; Her last look dies upon the cold dark west ; The dumb mom sees foor, a blown fugitive, Up the vale disappe.&r, fast from the day. The dying year s first tear-drops fall for her When last she passes Jo'er the troubled seasThe West-Wind, like? a .wan priest, weakening, pale, Rages and wails in his last exhortations, Sweeps thro' the wasted woods and the high vales, Hurrying dark clouids like phantoms thro* the skies, Where the old dtars burn 'with strong, steadfast five— Solemn and bright aJbove the West's fierce path. The pale lands, like a haunt of sleeping spirits, Enchanted in a wilderness of years, tie sad, and answer not to his wild cries : They mourn, bewildered as a sorrowing dreamer Beside abandoned biers of balmy Summer : Whence many a day whose memory was a spirit 'Mid Autumn ravels, flickers from the earth : As the moon's beams fade in the morning heavens Long after she has gone beneath the .waves, *»*♦** Come, thou wild One, that roueest every seed Deep in the young frail Form, whose fierce emotions ■ Soften in, thy new-birth, tho' sick with woes Of Autumn, faint and wrecked by feverous days, And revelling sultry Summer-nights, whose winds, With sad, unfathomable articulations, Over the drowsy hills and streams' breathed slowly — Wearied and dim with faded Earth's aromas ; When myriad dreams danced laughing at the feasts Of essences remote, and uaseen faysHaunters of hoary rock and moss-robed bole— On moonlit mountain and in forestgloOms : Carousal heard in far haunts when faint waters Murmur far down amongst the deepest stones. Uprise. 0, thou tempestuous One, with lightnings : Trample the woods and i meads with loud stern tread : The waning South lingers in the dark hills, Stirring not the high pines or shrunken snows : Spirits greet thee from peaks and vales and waters. , Convulse in foamy fear the thunderous haste Of wintry seae, such a« stirred Vikings' blood In strong days ere the oldest oaks were born. Pour thy great breath upon the black ploughed fields, Fill the low glen with showers and hurtling flood, And the high slopes and hollows cover o'er With a white sleep : let the sick lande lie still. But Thou, speed on i hurl thy great) cries thro' midnight Over the dim land farthest whence thou comesl. ' Scatter the multitudes from the bare grove Of Autumn, once the resting-place of mist* And death-bed of strange winds that piled the leaves From many n, dell and slope : There listen, Thru— Halting the irmies of thine airy onslaught A moment, ti I thou hearest the mystic sorrows Issuing from that temple desolated : A voice of -.vaning sadness until silence, Dying awa^: crying again and again. — W. ELLIOTT. A REPLY TO LISSAUER'S "HATE." The London Spectator published the following reply, by A. M. Mulley, to Lissauer's "Song of Hate : — Sing, Germans, sing yotu? song of frenzied hate ; Your song and you we neither love nor hate: What we despise we neither love nor hate. We held you kin, though somewhat ''less than kind" ; We held you kin, and so to spies were blind. We thought a German kept his plighted troth; We thought a German's word was worth his oath. We smiled serenely at the superman, He seemed an after echo of Sedan. We called you brave ; you still can fight — but brave! Not since your honour's buried in the grave With women, children, age, and wounded braveWhom c'en the sacred Red Cross could not save. We know our foe unworthy of our steel ; Contempt for Germans!— that is what we feel. Sing, Germans, sing your eong of freniied hate ; "The Day" has > dawned, and we with calmness wait ; What we despise we neither love rior hate.