THE MINSTREL.

Saturday Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 112, 1 September 1877, Page 3

THE MINSTREL.

“ Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar.” . • .i i. ' ■t - ■■ r 1 ' —Beattie.

N O T D E AD.

COriginal ,) I gazed upon the withered buds and said—- “ Sweet little flow’rets, ye are precious yet, The sun that kissed ye into life has set, The fragrant perfume of your breath has fled. “ Pure relics of the sweetness of the earth, Your blushing loveliness of yesterday Has vanished, and your bloom has passed away, The garden bee forgets your place of birth. “Bright new-born sisters fill your cradles green, And sip at, morn your cups of pearly dew ; They grow to-day where yesterday ye grew, Anri smile around as if ye ne’er had been.

“ Why are ye precious then, sweet flow’rets, why If those poor faded leaves alone remain As dear mementoes of your transient reign ? Because to me, sweet buds, ye cannot die ! “ A gentle hand has made ye part of me, For here below, our selfish spirits cull All they can gather of the beautiful To clothe themselves for immortality.” Sadi.

Dunedin, August 25th

LINES SUGGESTED BY BEADING SELECTIONS FROM THE ENGLISH POETS.

By C. E. Button, M.H.B.

Oh! where is now the sacred fire With which the Muses did inspire The men who held the sounding lyre— The fire that came from heaven ? Has lovely Clio passod away, And with her every poet’s lay, And have we in this modern day No inspiration given ?

The language which a Milton sung Remaineth still our mother tongue, But now no minstrel’s liarp is strung To weave it into song., These are the days of common sense, When things which yield not pounds or pence We mercenaries banish hence,

With labour all day long.

Ye sons of toil, who know not ease, Whose ice-bound hearts for ever freeze Amongst those chilly Arctic Beas Of duty never done, No longer softening verses spurn, But bid the heavenly muse return, And in your frozen natures burn A soul-reviving sun.

Eeturn, return, 0 heavenly muse, Into our flinty hearts infuse Thy softening virtues, to produce An ardent love of song j Exert thine influence to restore The bards of England, who may pour Their lays into our ears once more In accents sweet and long. Hokitika, 1877.

AFTER THE BURIAL.

Yes, Faith is a goodly anchor ; When skies are as sweet as a psalm, At the bows it lolls so stalwart In bluff broad-shouldered calm.

And when, over breakers to leeward The tattered surges are hurled, It may keep our head to the tempest, With its grip on the base of the world. But, after the shipwreck, tell me What help its iron thews, Still true to the broken hawser, Deep down among sea-weed and ooze ? In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out, And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt.

Then better one spar of memory, One broken plank of the pist, That our human heart may cling to, Though hopeless of shore at last!

To the spirit its splendid conjectures, To the flesh its sweet despair, Its tears o’er the tliin-worn locket. With its beauty of deathless hair! Immortal ? I feel it and know it; Who doubts it of such as she ? But that is the pangs very secret— Immortal away from me!

There’s a narrow ridge in the graveyard Would scarce stay a child in his race j But to me and my thought it is wider Than the star-sown vague of space. Your logic, my friends, is perfect, Your moral most drearily true, But the earth that stops my darling’s ears Makes mine insensate too. .

Console, if you will; I can bear it: ’Tis a well meant aim of breath : But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death.

Communion in spirit! Forgive me, But I, who am earthly and weak, Would give all my incomes from dreamland For her rose-leaf palm on my cheek ! That little shoe in the corner, So worn and wrinkled and brown— Its motionless hollow confutes you, And argues your wisdom down.