SELECTED VERSE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 July 1925, Page 11

SELECTED VERSE

OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OlMORTAL BE PROUD.

Like a swift, fleeing meteor, u last tiding cioncl, / A flash of the lightning, break of the wave, Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of th e oak and the willows shall fade; Be scatter’d around and together be laid; And /the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, ami together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved ; The mother that infant’s attention who proved ; Tlie iiupsband that mother and infant who blessed, Eaeli, all, are away to their dwelling of rest

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triuphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike Mom the minds of the Jiving erased.

The hand of Hie king that the sceptre hath borne; - The brow of th e priest that the mitre hath worn ; The eye of the sage and th e heart of the brave, Are hjdden. and lost in the depth °1 the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just. Have quietly mingled their Tonees in th e dust.

So the multitude goes like the flowers or the weed That withers away to let othor s succeed ; c So the multitude eomos, even those we behold, To repeat every talc that lias olten been told.

For we are the same our .fathers hav« been; We see the same sights our fathers save seen — We drink the same stream and view the same sun, And run the same course our lathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking; our fat he is won Id th ink; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink. To the life we are clinging they aiso would cling; But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

TheylovecL but the story wo cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come, They joyed, but the tongue of thengladness is dumb.

They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now, . Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwelling a transient abode. Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and

. rain; And the .smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tls the draught of a breath. Prom the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud — Oh, why should the spirit of mortal b e proud? —AVil'iiam Ivnox.

BE STILL, MY HEAitT! He still, my heart! We murmur, you and 1. We fret and fret—while precious hours flv by.

Be still! The silent are. the truly best; There is no rapture for a heart distressed.

He still, my heart! The deep, dark night is still, The trees in eraser, the star above the

Be still! The silent are the truly blest; fling: , . The Silent, hear the great archangels sing!

DUSK. The dusk comes down with a rustic th leaves A murmur of wheat and grasses, And out on the top of the western vise There's a dust cloud low on the evening skies, To show where a wool team passed. There’s a soft dull thud on the winding road, And a galloping rider singing, \ ni»ht bird ~calls from the western hill. t And softly comes through the twilight still The sound of a horse bell ringing. , ■ ■ The dusk has beauty for dreaming eyes, The glow of the long day dying. The rustle of birds in the woods asleep. The swamp pool hidden, and cool and deep, A gem in the starlight lying. Out in the blueness, a. red star falls, Slowlv, and curves in falling, Fading' away in the east at last. As night comes .down, for the dusk is past, Hark to the calling. —Agnes A: Evans, in the Sydney Morning Herald.