VERSES

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 23

VERSES

IN MEMORIAM: JESSIE MACKAY OF NEW ZEALAND. What was it, in thy heart, that made Thee choose the sterner way, When, at thy will, the easy path Had donned for thee array? Was there an iron in thy mould That, though it slew, bade thee. From the sophisticate and slack, First in the battle be ? The powers that shaped in thee thy mood, That bred thee a's the sea In depth and as the rock in will, Full passion gave to thee! Thine was the eagle-feathered ■word, Thine was the clansman’s cry : Heard it the ancient Maori hosts, Heard it the land of lye*. Thou wast in courage ever chief; Thou wast Excalibur; The sharp thrust of thy vision-stroke No lesser thing could blur. * Therefore, high heart, high head, and pride That could not break or shame, The flame, that from thy steel leapt forth, Writes in the sky thy name. And when at last came rest, and thou In peace didst lay thee down, Death brought to thed a coronet, As life its crown. —Mary Gilmore, in ‘ Sydney Morning Herald.’ * The ancient clan-land of the exiles —the Mackays dispossessed by the Duke of Sutherland that sheep might breed and men decay.WHITE GARDEN Yott might pass by my garden in the day; There is no flaunt of flame—not here the bright Calendulas, nor poppies, nor the gay Bluebells! My garden broods in white. Alyssnm is a pallid thing at noon, And the white glories much prefer to dream, But with nocturnal blooming of the moon. One after one, strange story-flowers gleam. I have a world of fragile laces wrought In filigree of alabaster metals, As though from strange far places, blooms were brought ■ That never knew crude shape of leaves or petals; And in the evening my white flowers blow, 'As cool and pure as drifted fields of snow.

—Elizabeth E. Moore, in ‘ Christian Science Monitor.’