WANDERINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 49

WANDERINGS.

By Oswald Hugo. By the River.

I strolled through the : Christchuroh gardens, following the path, by the river. I found a seat— a seat just fit for a pair of lovers— and sat down. How two lovers, I thought, could sit here, hour upon hour, and look down in the running stream— sit here in silence and build castles in the air j conjure np pictures of days that have been and of days that are to oome. . Every leaf that floats past is a little poem. Whence did it oome, whither is it going 1 There comas a large sycamore leaf. The current takes fierce hold of it. It is the time of youth. It whirls round and round, tries to get up the stream, is thrown back, tries again; and is again thrown baok. Then it sails sedately otit into the slow, even ourrent. It is burdened with a couple of large drops of water, whicli it got in the time of youth's wild days; but still it goes evenly and Bteadily with the stream— it is manhood's time. It floats, on a little longer, but the water is now soaking through all the pores, and when it meets a snag it is too heavy and tired to go round it, bnt lies still a little while, then sinks— it is.death. One gets melancholy sitting here alone. IE "she" only were here how we- would enjoy the peaceful beauty of this sunny autumn afternoon — the river and the floating leaves, the overhanging willows— still green — the crimson clusters of berries on the hawthorns. But she is not here, and I go home— sad and alone.

In a Dead World.

It iieems so long since we parted— since we broke off our attachment— in anger, and yet it is not years as it seems, .bnt only months; but then, time is measured by our hearts, not by the rising and setting of the sun. In an hour one may feel more happiness or sorrow than others do in -yeaiu Therefore it seemti so long since, for many- hours of sorrow and remorse, many severe conflicts, lie between ; and now the memories of our past love borne to me like birds on tired wings, worn out by their flight through vast distances ; or like music sounding from afar on the other side of the wateri Which is only caught in fragments, , though I stand still and bend the head and listen attentively that I may gather up the notes and bind them together in the old melody. I look out of the window into the night and see the leafless poplars lifting their bare branoheß towards heaven as in prayer — in prayer for snmmer. I feel myself alone in a dead world, and then there comes the recollection of a story I heard when a child.

The plague was raging in the island— man and beast fell down as suddenly as if struck by lightning. One man alone was left in the south part of the island. - He wandered through the lifeless, desolate land for days till he reached a church. "I will toll the bell," thought he, '"and if anyone is alive he or she will come to me." The bell tolled through the silent land. Far away there was another solitary life spared by the plague, and she had laid herself down to die in despair at her loneliness when the sound of the bell roused her. She followed the sound ; and two who had once been lovers but had parted, and who had since both felt themselves alone in a dead world, found each other and were united, never to pare again.

It fis with me as had ' I wandered far through a land of death and desolation, and at last had reached the church. Shall I toll the bell, and try if I can call her back to me again ? I stretoh out my hand for the rope ; then another hand grasps my wrist, a woman's face looks imploringly at me, and a voice says : "Do not call her back ; what shall become of me if you do ? The world is not dead ; I will be life to you."

On tbe Ashley Bridge.

The past has a melancholy yet irresistible power Qver me. My eyes, like those of the sailor, are constantly fixed upon the horizon — not upon the horizon that lies ahead, in hope's sunshine, but upon the shores that are gradually becoming fainter and fainter, and to which I shall never more return. It is 12 years since I first stood here and felt the poetry of this lonely Waste, bounded in the distance by high, snow-clad mountains,. Then I looked out into the years that were" before me, confidant that happiness was there. And time has flown away, like sand between the fingers of the. seeker, and no gold is left behind, bnt only a few faded memories, some dried flowers that once were fresh and worn by a beloved ,woman— poor relics of the years that are dead.

Sklas Onar.

A large stretch of tussock country bounded in the distance by the sea ; • in the foreground a broken-down' fence and a solitary bluegnm tree. I sit down at the foot of the tree, tired with my long walk, and listen to the voice of the sea, that sounds like a great beast grovelling in the distance; then I forget the sound of the sea in listening to my thoughts. , Ten years Odin .worked as a slave to obtain a drink of Suttung's mead, from which poets drink their inspirations ; and It Odin, who was a god, had to pay such 'a price, (Jan we 'mortals expect to obtain, without suffering, the gift of poetry— not necessarily the writiDg of verse, bnt the gift" of seeing the poetry in life and in' Nature ? -This many may do who cannot express what they feel. Indeed, the most exquisite expressions cannot convey the fulness of the writer's heart. The finest music is but. a stammering of the melody that flows- through the soul of the composer; the noblest marble form but a shadow of the ideal form wbioh stands before the sculptor's spiritual eyes.

From this fact that no earthly springs can satisfy the soul's thirst, men invent another life, but they represent it as a continuation of personal consciousness. Bat does not life offer us occasional glimpsesof, the truth that the soul's true home is in the cessation of personal consciousness ? Oar only happiness is in such states, when welosa our personality, when we forget ourselves— in love, in contemplation of Nature or of art, in a great idea or a noble work. The more we' think about ourselves the more miserable we are. Whatever existence shall be' ours beyond this life, no doubt it will be a higher one, but it cannot be a conscious personal existence.