SELECTED VEERE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 31 July 1926, Page 7

SELECTED VEERE

ENGLAND' FIRST.

(A Slta-ike Pbeim.) Self against Steilf! ami England—w?na.t of herf England, blna.t like a laboring; litia.n. rose Upright, beneath a Load none else could ibear, And shamed the hope of all her envious, loos ? They liqpedi .to .see her broken; to see her fall. She towered to her lull stature through the night; A n,d, on her conquering face, before thenn all, (Ja.nght the iirsit, ilondor ot the world''* new light. Self at blind war with Self, to-day she >sita mils; Ais once her Shakespeare. with hi.s heart on lire. Foretold- her; while those eager alien handsi In the outer dark, prepare her funeral, pyre. Jn, such a war. the very victors lose! Kl.rc'h for defeat; or all for England?— Cl roose. —-Alfred Noyes.

AUSTRALIAN GUMS. Against the skv the tall gums stand, Feathery sprays of green, With here and there a bunch of gold That glitters in between. The silver dews have bathed their feet, The sun has tipped their height, And every laughing face upturned A star has kissed at- night. The soft young wind lias stirred their leave.?. The rain has washed them clean, And deep within each laughing One There "lurks a soul unseen. And now it seems those tall, straight stems. That lean no from the sod. Have raised their heads against the bl ue To meet the eyes of God.