AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1404, 26 January 1899, Page 12

AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

. SELECTED VERSE. A RUINED COTTAGE IN THE HIGHLANDS. The beam says to the rafter, We are crazy and old: The hearth says to the chimney, We are blackened and cold: The door says to the window, We shut not out the rain: And the whole place is accursed, it reeks of wrong and pain. Yet tho burn flows on the mountain, still limpid and fleet: And the wind sings in the fir-tree, with song still as sweet: And the grouse crows on the hill-top, the first to greet the day: And the deer strays in the forest, with its young one at play. But where now is the tartan, with the clansman of old, Who si allied once in Lochaver, with step free and bold? He is lord now of a prairie, he cannot count his sheep: But his heart still is Lochaver’s; he returns there in sleep. Then his foot brushes the heather, where it purples the moor, With the light heart of the hunter, in the chase as of yore; With tlie proud step of his fathers, as he roams o’er hill and glen; O fair mother of heroes, who shall match thee for men? They have wrung wealth in lowa, with the steam horse and plough : They have crushed gold in Alaska with tho sweat of their brow: But the true wealth of a people is the home with its loves and tears, Where the dead lie, and the heart lives, by the tombs of a thousand years. Then roll, waters of Yukon, your reefs rich in gold! Grow white greenest of prairies with fleeces untold! But his heart still is Lochaver’s, in the cot. wiih tho “but and ben;" They have deer still in Lochaver, but—where are the men?

They were torn up from the shieling, that cradled their birth: They were chased ’forth into exile, as strangers on earth: Oh, how shall they sing the old songs they learnt when the heart was young, When the minstrel spirit is broken, and the harp is all unstrung? There are snowpeaks in the Far West, sierras that cut the sky; Like the white clouds of the summer that dazzle the eagle’s eye: But it’s Oh! for the Hills of Scotland, for the mist, and glow, and gloom, And the far cry of the curlew, and the heather in bloom! —A.G.B. in "The Spectator."

A GUN-ROOM DITTY,

Mr Rudyard Kipling’s " Barrack-room Ballads" recounted the tragedies and comedies of the British soldier s life. In his “ Gun-room Ditty Box" Mr G. S. Bowles performs the same task for the British tar. From the " Regiment of the Sea" we take the following extract: So, way for this Old Regiment Wot’s always fit for war; Whose barrack-square runs wide and fair From Sydney to the Nore, Whose sentries stand in every land, Who’s guard-room’s out at sea. Ho ! Where’s the Soldier Regiment That’s cornin’ out wi’ we?

All over the broad Atlantic. We fought in the days of old, We collared the Frenchman's victuals, We finished the Spanish gold; Or ever a curb-chain jingled, Or ever a soldier came, We’d battled the Seas half over For tbft might of the English name.

And now, when the days are over, And the long-backed liners go Over the seas we fought for v Into the Lands we know. Every flag that passes Says " 'Off do ye do?”* to we, Dips low to the ahine of the big steel

lino, To the Regiment of the Sea!

A»vl ever- throughout the ages Still shall our vanguards go Out to the Other Peoples, Out to the Lands we know, And ever throughout the ages Still shall they bend the knee To the first and greatest Regiment, To the Regiment of the Sea!

VILLANELLE.

Last night in Memory’s bows aswing, When none but I had heart to hear, A wee brown mavis tried to sing. But oh! the wild notes would not ring, As once they rang so loud and clear, Last night in Memory’s boughs aswinng. I saw the rowan-clusters cling, And far away and yet so near A wee brown mavis tried to sing. Almost I found a long lost Spring, Almost the loves I held ao dear, Last night in Memory’s boughs aswing. For joys that had their blossoming Beyond the grief of each grey year, A wee brown mavis tried to sing. But the dew wrapped him, glistening, And every dewdrop told a tear Last night in Memory’s boughs aswing. While, throbbing heart and drooping wing, And cliill claws grasping at his bier, A wee brown mavis tried to sing. But I shall know when hailstorms sting. And not forget when leaves are sere, Last night in Memory's boughs aswing A brown mavis tried to sing. Will. H. Ogilvie, in "Adelaide Critic." The Tutanekai, which arrived at Greymouth the other day, had 10 trucks for the Midland line, which will be used in the work of ballasting above Jackson,