THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 1 March 1921, Page 52

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 592. By Duncan Weight, Dunedin. NIGHT. By Charles Grinrod, a' thor of ‘'Plays from English History.” etc. The sunset fades into a common glow ; A deeper shadow all the valley fills: The trees are ghostlier in the fields below, The river runs more darkly through the hills, Only the Night-bird's voice the coppice thrills, Stirring the very leaves into a sense. A witching stillness holds the bread: of things. Earth hatii put on her garb of reverence, As when a nun within a cloister sings To mourn a passing soul before it wings. Silent as dew now falls the straight-winged Night, Clear overhead (God's still imaginings), Shining like Hope, through very darkness bright, Stars follows star, till heaven is all alight. “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good : And God divided, the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”—(Genesis i, verses 3,4, and 5.) The ev’ning bells ring out, Of joy they ring; Yet heavy laden hearts Thy people bring. The ov’ning bells ring out, They ring good) will; And yet Thy word is sad, Sweet songs are still. For human hearts are void, ’Tis love they need; O Father, 3ource of love, Give love indeed. Sweet love is born of peace, And wars must rage Till love shall reign supreme, And heritage. —A. Simpson. “Far down the western steeps is the home of the evening wind. The fire and splendour of the sunset make flattie about it, and fade to misty shadows and dim blueness of twilight. The wind steals forth to sweep along the face of the trembling waiters and to speed over the shadowy lands. All day the flowers have waited for him. Ever they turn their faces to the sun and catch a richer beauty from that far-off splendour, but it is the evening wind to whom they whisper their secrets, and languish and breathe their souls in love and perfume. The wind steals bv many a gloomy coppice, and hurries along beneath the dusky trees. He stays not long within the woodland, for there spirits are moaning and wailing, and the trees shake with strange boding and rustle their green garments tremulously. The wind loves the open country, the heath, the broad pasture, and fallow lands, and the wide waste of waters, grey and strange in the evening time, or gleam with the scattered silver of the moon’s light. He lingers, too, in many a chasm and cleft in the rocks, and tells strange tales there of spirits that walk the earth and find no rest but ever make moan, weary and despairing. Here he hears the strange un-ending-whisper of the sea, and' the voice of unsatisfied desire the ocean sends forth at midnight and at dawn. He bears these things in memory and tells them ag-ain in strange and un-looked-for places. Often he wakes and sends forth a sighing of the secrets he knows in the bright, strong light of day, and beneath the golden haze of sun-filled cornfields, so that men wonder and their hearts, for a moment, fail them and they say, ‘.How the night wind sighs !’ " —Anon. Soft thro’ the dusky light half seen, Sweet evening objects intervene; His wattled cotes the shepherd plants, Beneath her elm the milkmaid chants: The woodman, speeding home, awhile, Rests him at a shady stile; Nor wants there fragrance to dispense Refreshment o’er my soothed sense; Nor tangled wodbine’s balmy bloom, Nor dewy grass to breathe perfume, Nor lurking wild thyme’s spicy sweet, To bathe in dew my roving feet. —Wart on. Wrote Saint Andrew : —“Evening is a wonderful revealer of human character. During the day a great many of us are not our own, but parts onh\ .as it were, of a great machine—not free to follow our own bent, to show our feelings, to come into contact with each other. Only when the working day is done, when the shutters are put up, the desk locked, the factory wheels at rest, the customer or client gone does the real man come out, and the repressed tendency show itself. As the going down of the sun brings forth the stars, and the universe disclosed by night is vaster far than that which is beheld by day—as the shade that is thrown over some tidy seed, or the gloom of rainy skies, brings to the surface many a form of life that under the glare of noonday would have withered away—so the evening hours, which we have to ourselves, reveal our true nature, and foster many things, both good and evil, which the work of the day represses and kills out. How do we spend our evenings—those of us who have our evenings to ourselves, who are released from work, from bread-winning at a fixed hour every day. Any candid answer to this question ? The very putting of the question seriously will! show us more clearly perhaps than all else what is in us ; what is the spirit, the tendency of our life; in what direction our character is growing; what kind of books do we read ; what kind of company do we keep when we are free to choose. It is good for ns to study ourselves in the light of evening. What we discover may not, perhaps, be very flattering. We mayturn out to he little better than machines, our spare time hanging heavy- on our hands, to ho got through somehow, since

we have few or no resources. We may be made aware of our own selfishness, of a peevish desire in time of ease to ho lot alone, to be excused from all that is distasteful—a desire to keep our evenings to oaroelvos, and to resent any invasion of them on the plea of duty- or of kindness. We are responsible only for what is our own, and if the evening hours be long to us. as the hours of the day- very often do rot, shall we not take somp strict account of them? It is not our properties, but our liuings, that determine our character in God’s sight,, and the evening is the time to take stock of these.” EYENiNO THOUGHTS. By Frank May. The evening shadows deepen, The busy day is dune, And in the blue above us -» The stars gleam one by one: Beautiful stars that were hidden till now In the fierce, hot glare 6f the sun. And in the gathering darkness I hear the hurrying feet Of the throng hurrying homeward Along the crowded street. Eager in home’s dear shelter Beloved ones to greet. I see from every casement The glow of ruddy light Flashing like precious jewels , Upon the robe of night, Telling o-f cheer and welcome Far warmer and more bright. And my thoughts go on to the mansions Prepared for us on high— In the eternal city So far off, yet so nigh— And the shining stars seem the household lights Of those homes beyond the sky. And there ray loved ones are waiting, Waiting my face to see, When I shall rest from my labour, And I know that there will be Among those “many mansions” A home made ready for me. “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.”—(Psalm civ. 23.) “Watchman, what of the night?” Say not “Good Night,” but in some brighter clime Bid me “Good morning.” —Mrs Barbaulcl. S.. Weir Mitchell sings : Good night! Good night! Ah, good the night That wraps thee in its si ver light; Good night! No night is good for me That does not hold a thought of thee. Good night. Good night! Be every night as sweet As that which made our love complete, Till that last night when death shall be One brief "good night" for thee and me. Good night. The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the* wing of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. And the Night shall be filled with music. And the cares tnat infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away. —Longfellow.