AT 29, DE VERE GARDENS. December 28,1889.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 28

AT 29, DE VERE GARDENS. December 28, 1889.

Twilight and peace In the chamber ; Twilight of death and peaie For him who the strike, the long battle of life, Had fought out to the last release : Dead in a dying city, Through her silent waterways sped Toward the misty Weit, and the place Of rest And grey home of the mighty dead. Now bathed in silence and twilight, Where with Wisdom's rostate glow, Quick lightnings of wit, the chamber was lib So lately—yet so long ago : Where eyes that from youth ne'er looked on ma But the heart's bright message they bore— The welcoming lip, the hand's honest grip, Were mme — mine now never more : — There with amaranth cross and bay wreath, Inane munus, I strove, Knelt there and prayed where they aaid he was laid To do the last office of love. Love, reverent, grateful, deep, ? For the treasure that only they, The poets of Love, the wise from Above, To the world in its deadness convey. For he, Star-crested, Hope-armour'd, Struck straight at swelling tido ; In the valley of doubt, with clarion shout, Chased coward and doubter side. Then the vanished Presence in brightness Was felt once more in the room. While the worn-out shred the great spirit had «hpd Lay garnished and still for the tomb. Not there was the soul I had loved. Where the mortal raiment was laid— Death's fast vanishing spoil, the lamp without ■ il, The blank sheath of the God-wrought blade - Bare walls of man's house, where no fire On the central hearthstone glows 1 Till silently round me a vapour of sound, The mußie of memory rose : And " Blest are the dead in the Lord ; For they rest from their labours," I heard ; With a " Love Is best I "—and the life now at ie ft Waa summed In that one brief word. — F. T. Paigrave, in the Athenaeum.