POETRY, OLD AND NEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13868, 30 September 1908, Page 9

POETRY, OLD AND NEW.

ACHIEVEMENT. How fraudful is that high estate, Which, like an. opera glass, to all Can make the very small seem great. Or, turned about, the great seem small! Happy the man of finer clay, Who so Upon' himself relies That when the glass is put away He still appears of proper size. CHAINING Pollock. A SUMMER SONG. 'Tis the. noon of the your. ■'; '■ As a .toiler, oppressed -".;»' . By the labour and heat, :,. . : r Folds his lunula'Oil his breast, \ .-'" Drawing strength from his dreams, , 1 Lo ! the earl!) swings at. rest ■ ,' In tho noon of the year. 'Tis the noon of the year. . Ere it pass to its wane, . Over full-bosomed trees, Over yellowing grain, Earth, the toller, a-drowsc, Must revive him again ' • In the noon of the year. . 'Tis the noon of the year. - Come, be one with it, sweet 1 : Love in idleness calls Through, the languorous heat, Where the dream poppies nod ... In the wind wimpled wheat, in the noon of the year.; —T. A. DALY. PAN AMU THE MAID.; . "Sighed the moid wistfully, Fast the tears ran, , ' Hast, thou no comfort, : I -' 0 mighty God Pan? "' Hast thou no comfort ■, '.' •• For travail and sorrow; : Shall all my bright to-day Pass with to-morrow?' " Tenderly smiled the God, Laid his pipe by, ' Needs must I sorrow for Men that must die? ."'Yet have. I treasure's That pass not away. Love is for evermore, Tears for a day.' " —From " Poems," by U C. BIiOJiLKY. THIS ABBOT'S BEES. In the warm garden to and fro . (.iocs Father Abbot; old and slow; And reads his breviary, lifting oft His mild eyes to the blue aloft. He lays his finger in the page. Sniffs at the sweets of thyme and sage, , ranges beside the lavender, f Where bees hum in the scented air. Close by in the midsummer day His bearded monks are making hay, •Murmuring, as they pass each other, "Praise be to Jesu !" 'Amen, brother!" t' . ' The bees hum o'er the mignonette And the.white clover, still dew-wet, And in a velvet troop together Fly off.to rifle the sweet heather. ."'.'...','■'-' The air is full of sleepiness, The drone of insects unci the bees", ,■ The summer day nods unawares As an old monk "might at his prayers. The windows of the novitiate '.- ';.■'' ' Are. open ever, early and late';. And hear the volets, like the hum -The bees make in the honeycomb! The. tall lads, innocent and meek, Gabble the Latin and the Greek. "Now bear my bees hi the clover-blooms!" He saith to the old monk : who conies. " Do you not hear them, Brother Giles?" Listening with alHeldtig head' he smiles. Giles, jo yon Hear the novices, . That are the Lord's bees and niy bees? . " Giles, do you hear them making honey All through the scented hours and sunny? ' They will make honey many a.' day • When you audi I are lapped in clay." As though 'he heard the sweetest strain, .He smiles and listens, smiles again. ■ Monks in the meadow, pass each other: " I'ialse he to Jestt!" "Amen, brother." ... —Kathaiuse Tynan-.

Till-; SPELL OF THE YUKON. J wanted gold, and I sought it; ' I Bci-übbiecl and mucked like a slave. Was it famine;or scurvy— fought it; I hurled my youth into a. grave. I wanted the gold and I pot it— , Game out with a fortune -last fall- ■■■■■ Yet, somehow life's riot what I thought it, And somehow the gold isn't all. No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?) . It's, the i.'iissi'Uest land . that I know, From the big, dizzy .mountain!) that screen it, To the deep, "death-like valleys . below. Some, say God was tired when He made it; Some say it's a fine land to shun *, Maybe: but there's some as, would trade it For no land on earth—and I'm one. You come to get rich (damned'good reason), You feci like liii exile at first: You hate it like hell for a season, And then you are worst than the worst. It grips you like some kinds of sinning; It twists you from foe to a .friend ; It seems, it a been since the beginning-; It seems it will be to the end. I've stood in some Mighty-moUthed hollow That's plumbfull of hush.to the.brim; I've watched the big, husky sun wallow.. In the crimson and gold, and-grow dim, Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I've thought that I surely was dreaming, With the peace o' the world' piled on top. The summer sweeter was ever; ..■-;■ The sunshiny woods all athrill; The grayling alenp in the river, : The bighorn asleep on the hill,,*:, The strong life that never jjmows harness; The wilds Where the caribou call; ' The freshness, the freedom, the farnoss— 0 God! HoW I'm stuck on it all. —From "Songs of a Sourdough," by R. „ „. W V ..SKJJVICK fUllhlished hu .Unmi^