VERSE OLD AND NEW

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17233, 12 April 1930, Page 14

VERSE OLD AND NEW

THE OLD HOME. How often at thy cheerful hearth they met, Talking until the last lone ember died; At merrymaking Laughter’s eyes were wet And they in song and story often vid. In through that door as little folk they came, And through the same each one went down the way, Where Praise held high her laurels, and where Blame Awaiting their adventure, ambushed, lay. Thou one last place whose door was open wide, Of many a journey, too, the happy goal, ' Thou almost heaven, where’er they may abide, There thou shall be, a shrine in which the soul, i May, often at the call of Twilight, bow Though far from thee, and one anothor now ! —Alexander Louis Fraser, in Toronto Globe. POLICING OF THE SEAS. Big ships and little ships lying side by side, Swinging to their anchors at the bidding of the tide; Waiting for the signal that may order them to sea, For 't is never known beforehand what the order is to be. The Flagship sends its message, each ship responds in kind, And galvanised to action by the leading master mind, Smoke belches from the funnels, the anchors all are weighed, And slowly steams the leader out, upon the course that’s laid. And in correct formation with ever rising speed, Flotilla follows flagship wherever she may lead, Into a blinding blizzard of snow and sleet and rain, Shipping the green seas over and clearing them again. The tempest screams a challenge to vessels on the deep, The universal enemy that seldom is asleep; And all around a jealous foe is waiting for a sign Of weakness in a sea power for its ultimate decline. And so policing of the seas must go on year by year, Not just a brazen challenge to the foemen far and near. Hut to protect, our land and homos, as writ in Naval lore, To keep the peace; but koepink it, to be prepared for war. —Freda Lee-Morris., HOME. An artist wakened from a dream, O’er length and breadth of lands to roam To lind his dreamland Arcady That he could paint as “Home.” He found a spot—a running stream, With graceful willows bending o’er, A cottage hid among the trees, A woman at the door. / A child sprang to the outstretched arms; — What fairer picture could suffice? “I’ll call it home,” he said, “but I Have dreamed of Paradise.” —Lilia Nease, in “The End of tho Road.” A local resident- has forwarded the following previously unpublished verso from Gray’s “Elegy” : There scattered oft- (the earliest of the year), By hands unseen are showers of violets found; The redbreast, loves to bill and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.