SELECTED POETRY

Evening Star, Issue 16987, 8 March 1919, Page 4

SELECTED POETRY

| THE DAYS. ' A little bit o' sunshine an' a little bit o' storm, An' do days go islippin' along. A little bit o" chilly an' a little bit o' warm, But da year keeps eiugiii' a song: Cheer up, chillun, 'cause we sho'ly -ought to know Every day's a journey foh do pilgrim here below; An' de light will keep a-shinin' on de road we got to go As do days go slippin' along. A little bit o' gladness an' a little bit o' grief, An' do days go slippin' along. It's about de April blossom an' about de autumn leaf Dat de year keeps <?ingin' uo strong: Cheer up, chillun, as you trice to do you part Wif hands dat never falter an' a. stout an' willirt' heart, Wakin* each to-morrow mornin' ready foh another start, As de days go slippin' along. —'Washington Star.'

WINNING THE WAR. The things I do to win the war are things I always did abhor. So give mo credit, I beiioccli, for loyalty that fe a pcaeh. I'd like to mount a foaming steed and charge the foe at frightful t-peed. I'd like to rido an a.c-rcplano above the clouds that send the rain, above the forest and the hill, and drop big bomb; on Kaiser Bill. I'd like to walk a cruiser's deck 'mid seenes of battle and of wreck. But all such things are barred !o me. I may not fight on land or sea., I may not. be a warrior bold, because I'm fat and much too old. And so I'm doing things t hate, that I may keep my reocrd straight. I'm digging soil and sowing seeds, and pruning vines ojid hoeing weeds. I hope, when history is writ, and warriors who did their bit arc loaded villi the benx's' bays, there'll bo some mention of the jays who had to do their stunt at home, and enow things in the fertile loam. I'm (loomed to tend my sparrowgrass while younger men to battle pa.;s; no 1 will do it with a will. I'll hoe my beets with all jiy skill, tui-d rake fn.isli niubarb by the ton. if that's tho way a. war is won,—Walt Mason.

BE CALM. It is not who for us to say, when things begin to come our way: " The foe is on the run; we've hacked hira shino and made him whine: we have, him- safely on our line; it's good-night for the Hun." Far be it fiom an old fat pote to sound a dour, discordant note, when all the joy bells ring. But there are weary days ahead, with talcs of wounded men and dead, defeats, and everything. It is not wise to got too gay. for when reverses come our way we'll feel them all the more. And when the blamed reverses come it is not wis to be too glum, too sick, too sad, too sore. We'll win the war—lbat much is sure; but till it's won wo must endure suspense and grief and pain. Extremes of joy, extremes of woe, don't, help a. friend or hurt a foe; so let's be wise and fane. Let us be calm and do our bit in any niche where we may lit, in counting-house or with tho guns; let's do our duty, full and fair, and when wo have some coin to spare, buy Bond* to smash tli« Huns.—Walt Mason.

j THE CALL. There's an office back in Loudon, and the dusty sunlight falls With its swarms of dancing: motes across tho floor, On (he piles of books and papers and the drab distempered walls And the bowlers on their pegs behind the door. There's an ofiicte stool in London where a follow used to sit (But the chap that used to "sit there's oversea). There's a job they re keeping open till that fellow's done his bit, And the one that job's waiting for is—Me! And it may bo black ingratitude, but oh, good Lord, I know I could n»ver slick the office life again, With the coa's and cuffs and collars and the long hours crawling slow And the quick lunch and the same old morning train; I have looked on Life and Death and seen the. naked soul of man, And (he heart of things is other than it seemed, And the world i* somehow larger than ilie good old office plan, And the ways of earth are wider than I dreamed. There's a chap in the Canadians—a clinking good chap, too — And he hails from back o' nowhere in B. C, And he says it's sure some country, and I wonder it it's true, And I rather fancy that's Ihe place for me. There's a trail I mean to follow and a camp 1 mean to share Out beyond tho survey, up in Cassiar, For there's something wakened in me that I never know was there, And they'll have to find some other ohap to fill that vacant chair When tlfc boys come marching homeward from the war. —(Miss) C. Fox Smith.