ESSAYS IN VERSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 150, 26 June 1915, Page 20

ESSAYS IN VERSE

TO A FALLEN COMRADE. (For The Post.) Oh, friend of mine, to think that you have crossed Tho great divide From whence none may return; To think that all our plans ar« now no more, That all our fancies and our dreams 'are o'er, Oh, friend, to think that you have gona before — That you have died. Ah, comrade mine, 'tis true that you have passed This fitful strife And left me here alone; That you have died while- honour you defend, 'Tis true that you have won a noble end, And that a lasting peace to us you'll send, Which cost your life. Ah, lad, to think that you have gone ahead Across the bar, To realms of lasting peace ; That just a week or two divides the day, When, like a soldier true, you went your way ; A nation's price for God and Truth to pay, You crossed the bar. But y«t no sadness fills my 6oul frith grief Because you've gone — Yours is a nobler rest; You, who swore to fight Jind acs it through — 'Twas to your country that your all was _ dve — Oh, friend, I cannot bear to grieve for you, Although you've gone. — Donald M 'Donald. "THE FIRST RAIN." Between A the ranks of "thistle, down the road, The phantom flocks of 6unbeams hastily, With gilded feathers of tho butterfly, Disperse away ; anon a. weary load Of grain, wild scented, being freshly mowedj Comes smoking on; as from tho brooding 6ky There fall deliberate, still showers of . sn y> Big raindrops all around. The teamsters goad The 6waying_ oxen, steaming, to a shed For covering. Tho brown and dusty trees *Aro whispering, as eagerly they spread Their branches in the rain, and stand at ea6c, And listen, yonder in the clover bed Tho happy buzzirrg of ten thousand bece ! — C. W. Sfcoddard. San Francisco Monitor. A BROKEN LUTE. I am the thing round which the aureole Of music hung, now like an empty bowl, Reft of the living win© that was its soul ! Lo, I am as the rose that onoe was red, Its fragrance gone, its glowing petals shed. I am tho body with the spirit fled ! And j'cfc about me like an unseen flame That raptured rnystio worshippers acclaim, Hovere a melody that none may name. Impalpable save to anointed ears; Yet he who hath true divination hears Harmonies chorded with tho swinging spheres ; For naught of loveliness can vanish quite, But lingers near us, be it sound or sight, One with tho whole, one with tho infinite ! — Clinton Scollard. Smart Sot. THE ROADWAY OF MY HEART. A big road circles round the world, sure fine it is they say, But the little boreen of my heart runs _ lone and far away, 'Tis winding over weary seas with many a sigh beset, But Oh, of all the roads I know it is the dearest yet. By common ways and common, homes and common graves it goes, But no one knows its beauty like the eoul within me knows; Its dawns are dronched with dews from heaven, its nights aro tearful sweet, And sometimes One long crucified walks there to guide my feet. It leads me down by purple hills 1 where fairies sport o' nights, It shows me many a hawthorn lane, tho scene of dead delights, It clothes again with living fire the faces laid away Beneath tho cold of grass and mould, my road of yesterday. 0 twilit boreen of my heart, the world is vaguo and vast, But you ere holy with the balm of all my hallowed past; You thrill me with the touch of hands my haaids were wont to hold, You lure me with the lilt of dreama I dreamed and lost of old. The big, big road of tho world leads on by many a stately town, But the iittie boreen of my heart keeps ever drifting down By common ways and common graves and common homes, but Oh ! Of all the road in life it is the sweetest road I know. — Teresa Bray ton.