VERSE OLD AND NEW

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16703, 21 July 1928, Page 10

VERSE OLD AND NEW

THIS CRICKET. This fragrant game that's.played in white on green To a sweet music as tlie willow .swings And starts a hundred happy handclappings— This game's a parable of what has been And still shall be for all our mortal race. Out of deep shade, as forth into the sun Come cricketers from the dim pavilion, We move toward life and life, alone we face The deliberate Bowler with, his bolt of flame And creeping snare to beat the guardian bat. Steadfast and summerhoarted is our stand. Ev'n though we know that in the greater game We bat but once, and to the dread "How's that ?" The Umpire soon or late must lift his hand. —Thomas Moult. "THE "SEA-HORSES." Over the sands and up to the shingle Watch the -Sea-horses ride. Hear the sound of their hobf-beats jingle, As they-gallop in with the tide. In will) the tide, their white hoot's gleaming, They scatter the stones and sand. Back from their crests the wild manes streaming, 'They mount the strand. Oh they race where eaves and hollows Are loud with sound. Out again till they meet the shallows And spurn the ground, Rearing and plunging with freshfound forces, Their ranks re-form;

And they charge again, the wild Seahorses, ■Moeast the storm, - - Dorothea Core Browne, HALE HOl'l-:. When in the mines of dark and silent thought Sometimes 1 delve, and find strange fancies there, With heavy labor to the surface brought That lie and mock me in the brighter air. Poor ores from starved lodes of poverty, Until for working' or to be refined, That in the darkness cheat the miner's [ turn away from that, base cave, the mind. Vet had I but the power to crush the stone There are strange metals hid in flakes therein, i-'acii flake a spark sole-hidden and alone, 'l'h,i! only cunning toilsome chemists win. All this I know and yet my chemistry Fails and the pregnant treasures useless lie. F.dwanl Shanks. THE TIM-:i-;s 1 PLANTED. The trees 1 planted stand along the walk; Tloir brandies reach across the shadowed street, They touch their neighbor's hand bill do u.ii talk Pl!y of this and tL:.t—nor wander on feet Tim I lead one en for i othin.* more than lust To wander. Their :-o its go A<:'-n'v down than tin ■'. How tall they stand! lion solid in their height! How bravely do they hold their tirejess guard Over the old things of mine. All day and all night They watch the ancient things -of Home 1 . [liimarred Rv Time liut statelier because of years — Stronger and straight or as my deathtime neai's.

The trees T planted grew to leaf above And men went by and marked the tender shoots. Thev grew with men and all the tilings '] love, But. they went deep and spread I heir branching roots. I went in search of shallow things. and. talk, While they kept guard along- the old home walk. —Raymond Kresensky. CREATIVE EVOLUTION. No elan ill the seed impels Us leaves and blossoms when it grows, Nor is prefigured in its cells A daffodilly or a rose; Bui as a sculptor's cunning hand Makes ii;: r .utj out of marl le dead So by a Mind foreseen and planned Are born the flowers white and red. --Ronald Campbell MacEie.