THE LAST DESIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8986, 17 September 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAST DESIRE.

—« — j Under this heading a short poem of four verses appeared recently in the Academy. They seemed to a correspondent so sad in spirit that he has composed a " reverse" picture in a different vein, and permits us to insert his lines. That the reader may compare them we print what we may call THE OHVERSIS. When the time comes round for me to die* To-morrow or some other day, If God should bid me make reply, " What would'st thou ?" I shall say, " 0 God, Thy world was great anil fair, Yet give me to forget it clean, Nor vex me more with things that were, And things that might have been ! "I loved and toiled, throve ill or wellLived certain years and murmured not. Now grant me in that land to dwell, Where all things are forgot! " For others. Lord, the purging fires. The loves re-knit, the crown, th<> palm; For me, the death of all desires In everlasting calm." R. And follow on with THE REVERSE. 0 God, whene'er I come to die, lie it to-day or some to-morrow, Before Thy thr >ne I would reply, All trustfully and yet with sorrow, " Father, Thy world was large and fair, And men and things have helpful been, And I have tried while living there To understand what Thou didst mean ; " But, though I strove to serve Thee well, And in my striving wearied not, How oft upon the road I fell: Alas, how oft the way forgot! " Yet let me have my heart's desire, That that short life of good and harm Shall prove a germ of something higher In heaven's great life of stir and calm." Elliot Stock. lb is a remarkable fact thab the famous Treadwell Mine in Alaska, which has yielded nearly £1,000,000 in gold bullion, was purchased by the man after whom it is named for £100. Ellen Terry first appeared on the stage when ten years old.