SELECTED VERSE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 18

SELECTED VERSE

FIDDLER’S GREEN. [At a pi ace called Fiddler’s Green, there do all. honest Mariners take thenpleasure after death; and there are Admirals with their- dear Ladies, and Captains of lost voyages with the sweethearts of their youth, and tarryhanded Sailonnen singing in cottage gardens.”| Never again shall we beat out to eea In rain and mist and sleet like bitter tears, And watch the harbour beacons fade, a-lee, And people all the sea-room with our fears. Our toil is done. No more, no more do we . Square the yards and stagger on the sea. No more for us the white and windless day, ~ T'n dimmed, unshadowed, where the weed drifts by, -. And leaden fish pass, rolling, at their play. . And changeless suns slide up a changeless skv. Our watch is done; and never more shall we Whistle the wind across an empty sea Cities we saw —white wall and glinting dome — And paliu-fringed islands dreaming on the blue. To us more fair the kindly sights or home — . , ... The c'imbing street, the window shilling true. Our voyage is done: And never mme shall we . Reef the harsh topsail* on a tossing sea. Wonders we knew, and beauty in far ports; . Laughter and peril ’round the swinging The wrath of God; the pomp of painted courts , , , . . , The rocks sprang black! —And vie awoke from sleep. Our task is done, and never shall we Square the slow yards and stagger on the sea. Here are the hearts we love, the lips we know, , , __ The hands of seafarers who came before. The eyes that wept for me a night ago Are laughing now that we shall part no more. , ~ All grief is done ; and never more shad’ MakTsail at dawning for the luring sea, T. G. Roberts (Canada).

THUS. In the days When the rays Of the sun Shall be slain, I shall smile For awhile In the face Of the rain. Breathing low. I shall go, _ To the sod, Be a lover; I shall pass , And the grass That I trod Be my cover. . . Though it .come (With the hum ' Of the world .Growing still): Shall I shrink At the brink Of the Mystical Will? Of the dim And empyreal deep. What the awe Of the Law Upon waking From sleep?— At the rim Yet —(the light Taking flight And the sense ■Growing vain) — 1 shall smile ■ For awhile In the face Of the rain. —V. F. Meisliug.

TO ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. You never strove as most men do To put away the child in you; But you retained with special jov The.art of being just a boy. It pleases me to peep sometimes Into the garden of your rhymes— At calm of evening just for fun To play with you, friend Stevenson! —Marion Steward in the Christian Science Monitor. PEBBLES TN THE WATER.

Drop a pebble in the water; just a splash and it is gone. But there s half a hundred ripples circles on and on and on. They are spreading, .spreading, spreading, and the ripples rise and fall. While the music of their swelling brings a thought for one and alb And you watch the waves of water as they widen round and round. Think how simple was their starting, just a pebble from the ground! PI CIT'I VIC BLOOM.

White- bloom on the branches ! White mist on the rices!. Sun-kissed avalanches That curtain the bees! . White-breathed on the grass, for a moment, it lies on—'l’hen dies on The breeze.

White love for a season— White, pearly, and rose— i Without cost, without reason. It comes and it goes. Sweet, sweet in the heart for.a moment, then thither — Oil, whither. Who knows? —Myra Morris, in the Australasian.