VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 18938, 11 May 1923, Page 4

VAGRANT VERSE

TO MY MOTHER. Ab a pure stream, whose silver-bright caress Quickens her thirsty brink, your way you went, One tireless purpose and one sole content ; To find the folk unloved, and cheer and bless Such as had only heard of human happiness. Not all the deepening shades of your own woe Could blind your vision to pain, Y'our tender quest and sure response restrain, Or bate the toil that you would undergo Compassion swift to bring and gentle ruth bestow. Now stilled the generous heart that never beat For self in all your length of fruitful years; And shut the eyes that shed not many tears For your own sorrows; stopped the ready feet That on a thousand roads your mercy made so fleet. I was your first-born son and me you bore T© share through half a century of time Your gracious days, to see your hope sublime, Rejoicing that a widowed love of yore Had fashioned me a part of you for evermore. Mother, you win the song of human praise For righteous souls who wrought and now are gone, Unto Faith’s Household add a precious one, And, ia the after-glow of your good days, Lift up some patient hearts still beating on thoir ways. r—Eden. PhiUpotta In tehEfecJbk Jtadow.