AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 12

AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

Original vers is.

sonnet.

LJ.8.1 Shall I. if bfglared ot this world’s increase, And bankrupt of provisioned store for age, The kindly competence that might assuage The downward cm rent of the years in peace ; Shall I then falter, or in weakness cease In each day’s duties hopeful to engage ;

Shall I life’s warfare with less courage wage Till death itself shall sign the last release l IN ot, with impatience or rebellious will Should wo fulfilment of our being wait ; Encompassed by the eternal are we still, Let.us then face with confidence our faie, Our feet with rectitude of purpose shod. Our hearts submissive, the rest left to God. SELECTED VEli 8E * THE BLIND BEGGAR. [By Arthur Symons] He stands a patient figure, where the crowd Heaves to and fro beside him. L) his ears All day the Pair goes thundering, and he hoar 3 In darkness as a dead man in his shroud. Patient he stands, wiih age and sorrow bowed, And holds a piteous hat of ancient years , And in his face and gesture there appears The desperate humbknesH of poor men proud.

What thoughts arc hi-, as, with the inward He sees those rmrtnrm faces Is the long darkness darker for that light, ’The misery deeper when that joy is nigh . Patient, alhie lie stands U ni morn to night, Pleading in his reproachful misery.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OP

BALEN

[By Algernon Charles Swinburne ] In hawthorn time the heart grows light, The world is sweet in sound and sight, Gla 1 thoughts and birds take flower and flight, The heather kindles toward the light, The whin is frankincense and fl one. And be it for stiife or be it lor love The falcon quickens as the dove When earth is touched from heaven above SV'itli joy that knows no name.

And glad in spirit and sad in soul, With dream and doubt of days that roll As waves that race and find no goal, Rode on by bush and break and hole A northern child of earth and sea. The pride of life before him lay Radiant; the heavens of night and day tShone less than shone before h:s way His ways and days to be.

And all his life of blood and breath Sang out within him ; time and death Were even as words a dreamer sail) When sleep within him slaekeneth, And light and bfe and spring were one. The steed between his knees that sprang, The moors and woods that shone and sang, The hours wherethrough the spring’s breath rang. Seemed ageless as the sun.

But always through tha bounteous b’oom The earth gives thanks if heaven illume, His soul forfeit a shadow of doom, His heart foreknew a gloomier gloom Thau closes all rren’s equal ways. Albeit the spirit of life’s light spring With pride of heart upheld him. king And lord < f hours like snakes that sting And nights that darken days.

And as the strong spring round him grew Stronger, and all biithe wind-* that blew Blither, and flowers that flowered anew More glad of sun and air and dew, The shadow lightened on his soul And brightened into death and died _ Like winter, as the bloom waxed wide From vvoodside on to riverside And southward goal to goal.

Along the wandering ways of Tyne, By beech and birch and thorn that shine And laugh when life’s requickening wine Makes night and noon and dawn divine And stirs in all the veins of spring, And past the brightening banks of Tees, He rode as one that breathes and sees A sun more blithe, a merrier breeze, A life that hails him king.

And down the softening eouth that knows No more how glad the heather glows Nor how, when winter’s clarion blows Across the bright Northumbrian snows, Sen-mists from east and westward meet, Past Avon senseless yet of song And 'Thames that Lore but swans in throng H> role c-la'e in heart and strong In trust of days as sweet. THE MODERN MANDALAY. [The lament of Mr Kipling’s “ British soldier,” on hearing- of tho ladies’ cricket match recently played in Mandalay.] By the o'd Moulmein Pagoda lookin’eastward

to the sea, Never more will Supi-yaw-lat set an’ softly

sigh for me ! For my Burma girl is weary of the name of

Theebaw’s Queen ; She has ’eard of Kanjitsinhji’B, an’ she’s lost

her senses clean. Oh, she’s left the creek an’ rice fields, an’ her

banjo an’ cheroot, An’ she’s turned as cricket crazy as a collegebred galoot On the fields of Mandalay ! I beguiled her wi’ a kiss, From her idol-lovin’ bliss : But what use is soldier’s spoonin’ to willowwieldin’ miss, Oil the fields of Mandalay ?

What’s the good of question poppin’ to a critter whose caprice Is to want no sort of poppin’, but the bloomin’ poppin’-crease ? Why, the bound of her ambition is in makin’ boundary hits. An’ her “ skirt before the wicket” gives her everlasting fits ! So, in spite of flenglish drizzle, I will stick to Hengland still, y An’ tlin Hicy 1 11 select a ivife —I will — An’ ho ’anger! to Mandalay ! Grubby-’anded they may be, But they’re better fu- nor she : For my “ no iter sweeter maiden ” is a female “ W.G.,” Ou tli2 fields of Mandalay ! Jai HS3‘ GaZQttQt