EARLY DAYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 4085, 28 June 1932, Page 64

EARLY DAYS.

Since one yard made my clothing. For sunset thought I keep The town that brought a shy held Over its only street. Where asses, lazy as stone, stood And round an old mill-wheel A stairs stood out of the water • That fattened in a green sleep. And there with a shadow from N'ephin, And the far lake all an ear To a cuckoo’s own echo. In the green rise of the year. Hearts quickened, while limbs grew restless. And as first love catne tuy way That road seemed always to wander Through the finery of a Sunday. •Twas then that I handled old ballads, As notes in a pauper’s care. By the wood, that shrunk from a saw-mill, ■Where 1 whispered their words of despair— Despair, like an aspen’s grey whisper That's overheard, while afar The hilly road turned to Silence By the signpost -of a star! » No more now I go there, when Nepbin, Dike a black wave, thickens the dusk. When a moon angles out of the dark land The bright slimness of the miii brook. When night breathes unspeakable secrets; And when the night’s gone No more I'll find my town timid In a still born dawn. [.• H. Higgins, in the Spectator.