POETRY OLD AND NEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14934, 6 March 1912, Page 10

POETRY OLD AND NEW.

EDINBRO'. . City of mist and ruin and Mown grey spaoes, Dashed with wild wet colour and gleam of tears, Dreaming in Holyrood halls of (he passionate faces, Lifted to one Queen's faoa that haa conquered . the years, • Are not the halls of thy memory haunted places? Cometh there not as a moon (where the bloodrust scars Floor* a-flutter of, old with Bilks and laces), Gliding, a ghostly Queen, thro' a. mist of tears? —Alfred Notes. THE PAINTED DESERT. Land of a thousand lures, I see' In memory your face at morn And sens© again your mystery— Your lonely plains! of verdure shorn, _ I see again, in arching i(ky, The mirage, like a painting rare; There oomes, from distant ranges high, A wine like perfume in your air. Across the canyon, grim and vast, A trail lead# upward to the crest, And, eyrie of a clan long past, A ruin clings, like swallows' nest. Wide and white are your sands that drift— White are your plains where lisards run— And ne'er shall your spell on mankind lift, Land of tho flaming evening sun. —'The Denver Republican. WANDER SONG. Calling', calling, and ever calling, That's the way with the wander will, Be dawn at. break, or he twilight falling Behind the crest of the lonely bill 1 The wind's a lure and the moon has voices, And "Come" says then one of the water's s flow, And whatsoever at heart my choice is, ■ I needs must rise and I needs must go. Out and away, then, again a rover Far as the sound of the outland seas, And whenever the round of my life be over, Little -to lay on the great God's knees. And yet—and yet when the quest is ended, Under the span of the vast blue sky, It has all been virils and vital and splendid, And what may a mortal do but die! Calling, calling, and ever calling, That's the way with the wander will, Be dawn at break, or be twilight falling Behind the crest of the lonely hill! , -CLINTON SCOMAttD, in the New York Sun. THEN AND NOW—THE NORTH - DOWNS. " '■

; Hare you not heard of the road that vo long ago travelled with Ohauoer, Here on the Pilgrim's Way, spanning the length of the Downs? Hate you not • seen these' yews, still green In their smcalar glory, Marking this course of the route—older than Edward the Third? Well, we are With them now, on the height that • faces St, Martha'*, Thus 'on a- summer ere -watching- the sunset '' ■awhile , - . iWatohiiig'ithe golden moon, aY' rlies afar to • the eastward,- -•. • ■ '-.Y!<.'r "V. ■ Over the Silent Pool, over the hollows of She Look toward the crest of, the hills, to the south where breeie* of ocean ! Blow from the Sussex Weald, savouring stfll of the sea; • took to the north, far down, Where sheep-bella heard in the valley Tell of an order d peace, safe in some sheltering farm; Yea, 'tis ,a . noble view! • But more than the beauty of Ifature,, . . :• More than the things wo see, lives" in this quiet ■.\'i around;''!? '• '■ ' • ■ ••• • - Yeafs.tbat, are gone long ago,- and centuries dead and departed,. ■ Rise through our searching souls into their places again. Ah! what- a long, long line of lofty add rforied emotion /.. «■ -. • Glows through those gaunt old trees, out of a far-away world! —Arthur Mushy.