AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4407, 13 July 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE

THE OLD COOKHOUSE TABLE. Rapt in day-dreamland, the images come. The ghosts of the far away past. Of men tired and sweat-scored and blackened with gum. And faint with the long morning fast. They were men in those days (we still have a few). Big-limbed, strong-bodied and able, - Who flew to their coats when the mill whistle blew For kai at the old cookhouse table. 11. From the high-lying paddocks, sun bathed and dry. Where the white hanks lay bleaching in rows Like the fields of cut corn—oaten hay or prone rve— In this go'dland where everything grows. From tho depths of tho swamp where tho long-bladed flax . Gleamed and tossed like the famed reeds of fable. Came tho ii.cn at a run through the footbeaten trades To mess at the old cookhouse table. HI. From the dust-choking shed where the scutcher rotates With a roar muffled deep by its cover; From “glory-hole,” wash, stripper, bench and tow-gates. Hasten men with the speed of the lover. And well I recallf the hoarse voice of the cook. High above the loud clatter and babel; “Roast or corn?” “Duff or Rice?” as the men their seats took' On the forms round the old cookhouse table. IV. And that table. Ah, me! How old was its frame; What tales it could tell of the laughter Of dead and gone "Flaxies,” nnnoted by Fame, AVhose shouts shook from basement to rafter The battered old whare, now infirm with age. It's ceiling beards smoke-grimed and sable. Which prisoned within like a grim, hoarded cage. The planks of the old cookhouse table. V. The table was bnilded in Abraham’s time Of iotara fag-ends and rata. And Noah superadded a section of pine. Ere the ark ploughed the great Rangitpta; Brrorists give it a more remote birth. And, with levity, say Cain and Abel. Left to this sad world a subject for mirth In the plana of tho old cookhouse table. VI. Be that as it may, it’s a relic we love Of days, alas, gone now for ever; When'pi su scorned to place sordid motive above The joy of real honest endeavour; But methinks now its penned this is gross antiphrasis; There are hands still who like not the label Of “crawling”—er—blanky—which history says ii ' Unknown to the old cookhouse table. VII. Robbed day by day of its smoothness Pristine, By the knives of irreverent feeders. The board gained renown and a lustre sublime In the eyes of the later-day readers. Through the names handed down of the men who had fed When straight was tho set of the gable, Which marks now as drunken the sprawl ■ of the shed That shelters the old cookhouse table. VIII. There was Jimmy the carter, a mountain of strength. Full of song, doubtful joke, and live curses; • . Freddy and Vie., Con., a name list of length. Too great for the span of these verses. The tracings are thick as a swarm ot bush bees, Or the strands of a flax-woven cable, And recall in a flash, bright and dark memories To the hands round the old cookhouse table, IX. ‘ For dark, dismal black, and sad is the tale The crippled old-timer will tell: In mill-life wag sown the germ of travail. From the sin-lighted blacks of hell. But rather I dream of the rollicking sound (With the teams snorting loud in the stable) Of laughter and song and jest passed around By the group at the old cookhouse table. X. And oft as I hear, ere the night closes in, The rustle and swish of the flax, The woka’s shrill call. the. answering din, And those sounds the great city lacksi Watch the toi feather as it rifles the sun Of its last dying gleam or© it goes, My brain travels* back—the fun has be* gun— Dark care seeks flight from his foes. XI. The long, spreading shadows transforms and are men. A wiiare springs up in the gloom. Again in the distance—from paddock and fen, And the scutch-shed and mill—figures loom; The men cluster in with song, laugh and shout, And Curse and loud clatter and babel, I awake me in sadness and so put to rout My dream of “the old cookhouse table.” —las, Cowan, Ward 4, Wellington Hospital, June. 11th, jalii. SOUL-SEAS. We sail in our pur ship from the great, great shore. On the noble sea awide; And fateful promises, faintly urged. And all farewelling is softly merged In hymns of the buoying tide. Oh, free and true in the lifting wind, To the etiength of an ardour young; With a glowing hope and a yearning heart, Of friends to meet and dreams to part. And the myth of a joy unsung. Ah! me, the heart tho’ strong and true, Will sometimes fail and slacken; And fancy beats like the flashing spray. To bubble and hjss and fall away, When cloufls tp the nor’ward blacken. We cast an eye to some distant land That beckons thro’ the shadow; There is channel wide and harbour light. And cove and nook and home invite. And many a flowery meadow. The lure is still like tho lure of old, Tq hearts of tender feeling!— What seek we then when Love is given? What seek we, hut another heaven,— Another shrine for kneeling! We breast again the wide Soul-Seas, For further ports enquiring; Burden and ship, and crew, away! With Hope to cheer and Sin to pay. On the Infinite Quest un-tiring. —Evelyn Macdonald, Pori, Pahiatua.