POETRY OLD AND NEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14208, 3 November 1909, Page 9

POETRY OLD AND NEW.

0 FORTUNATOS NIMIUM. A BALLADE OF THE ANGLER IN TROUBLE. THE music of the reel ascream, A game half-pounder brought to bay, The porter colour of the stream, The glories of an April day, Its sunshine chased by clouds of grey— If life could run on such a plan, And nothing mar its perfect way The angler were a happy man! • If length of fish meant breadth of beam, If trout would but consent to weigh In pounds and ounces what they seem When, heart in mouth," our fish we play, If hooks would undertake to stay 1 In fish we rose or fish we ran. And not in oak or thorn or May— The angler were a happy man! If rivers which should surely teem * With trout as oceans teem with spray Were iishable by any scheme Which mortal. fisherman could lay; If lochs had not a Ashless bay, If springtide rivers ne'er began To tun too low And clear—then, say, The angler were a happy man. ENVOI. Prince, though his basket holds but hay,' Though troubles make him pale and wan, Believe me—oh. believe me, pray. The angler is a happy man. G.C.P. VENICE. I stood in Venice, on tho Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave her structure rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand , Around me. and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times when many a subject \, land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles. Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! Byron. WAIT FOR THE LIGHT. We cannot kindle when we will The Are which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth' and; is still, 111 mystery our soul abides. Bat tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. With aching hands and bleeding feet . We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long da}-, and wish 'twere done. Not .till the hours of light return, All we have built do. we discern. • Matthew Arnold. WRITTEN ON THE FAN OF A FLIRT. They are blue, Ab the skies Those sweet eyes, Made, to woo! But can you E'er surmiseAre her sighs False or true? To beguile And to hurt With a smile And desert Is the wile Of a flirt! —ASHBY STEnny. ■ TWO SONGS. I. Look not thou on beauty's charming; Sit thou still when kings' are arming; \ Taste not, when the wine-cup glistens; «• Speak not when the people listens; Stop thine ear against the singer; From the red gold keep thy finger; ' Vacant heart and hand and eye, • ■ Easy .live and quiet, die. ' .. ... v - ; . ■ . 11. ( Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, " One crowded hour of glorious life • Is worth an age without a name. fcliTJtai SCOTT.