OUR POETRY

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1931, Page 20 (Supplement)

OUR POETRY

PICNICKING. (Sent by Rex Woodley.) If you have a motor car, And really want some fun, Just fill it up with fairies And take them for a run. They'll wear the latest dresses, Bought in Elfin town, Cut from aster petals, Trimmed with thistle-down. They’ll sit along the wind-screen, (’Tie such a shaky seat), And hardly see the road-way, Through their little, twinkly feet. They know euch lovely places, To stop for morning tea; They’ll give you fairy lollipops, Just you try and see. So take the fairies with you, The very first fine day, ■But don’t you get a puncture, Or they’ll all Ay away. CAN YOU GUESS THESE? (Sent by Amelia Radford.) What bird sits at every tea-table?—• The swallow. Why did the window box?—Because it saw the garden fence. (Sent by “Tom-Tit.”)-Which is the lightest town in Scotland? —Ayr. What boat is always full of fun?— A jolly boat. What word becomes shorter by adding to it?—Short. When is a football like a freshly caught plaice?—When it is in the net. Why is your nose in the middle of your face ?—Because it is the scenter. DICK KILLED PUSS. (Sent by Betty Hood.) Do look at the cat. Why, what is she at? She’s catching a rat, That’s hid in Dick’s hat. Dick ran for a bat To knock him down flat, But crossing the mat, The foolish young brat Tripped up and fell flat. He half killed the cat, Instead of the rat. Hal cried out that that Was just tit for tat. MY. HOLLYHOCKS. (Sent by Jean Jamieson.) ■ Down by the gate Are my hollyhocks gay; They dance in the cun&hine This summery day. So tall and so sprightly, They dance in the breeze, Above the wee pansies Like flowering trees. And Bumble Bee .told me That if you look well You may see an elf In a hollyhock bell. BREAD AND JAM. (Sent by Renee Petch.) When I get home, right after school, I’m kind of hungry, as a rule; I climb up on the pantry shelf, ' And help and help And help myself!

Of all the things I like to eat, It isn’t fish and it isn’t meat; It’s not potatoes, spinach, peas; Or rhubarb pie with bits of cheese; Or chicken, chops, or maybe lamb; Or even nicely sliced-up ham; It’s buttered bread And lots of jam! THE RUNAWAY GUY. '(Sent 'by Elizabeth Connor.) Once there was a timid guy, Who heard that he was meant to die upon a bonfire blazing high. Said he, “Oh, what a dreadful fate! “Aly mind’s made up, I will not wait “To meet it. Where’s the garden gate?” . . ' ! He stepped down from his wooden seat, And on his two unsteady feet He ran into - the village , street. And where he went,! couldn’t say; But maybe one November day You’ll meet him shufl’ling on his way— You may! MRS. JARVIS. (Sent by Alary Benny.) Old Mrs. Jarvis she sits on a cart; Her pony is quicker to stop than to start, I But always she ambles on fine easy rambles, From village to village to fair and t o mart. ( . Her pony is fat and a glitter of brass, Her cart is a green as the greenest of grass, And rabbit-skins dangle and old bottles jangle, And she sits in the midst, and she bows as you pass. THE STARS. (Sent by Renee Startup.) They glide upon there endlees way, Forever calm, forever bright; No blind hurry, no delay, Mark the Daughters of the Night; They follow in the track of Day, In divine delight. And, oh! how still'' beneath the stars The once wild, noisy Earth doth lie; As though she now forsook her jars And caught the quiet of the sky; Pride sleeps; and love with all his scars In smiling dreams doth lie. Shine on, sweet orbed souls for aye, Forever calm, forever bright. We ask not whither lies your way, Nor whence ye came, nor what your light, Be still, a dream throughout the day, A blessing through the night. (Sent by Merle Druce.) Betty made a magnificent bonnet, But I fear that she will never don it— For ’twms laid on a chair, With the greatest of care, And a visitor sat down upon it! SUMMER TIME. (Sent by “Tom-Tit.”) 0 summer day beside the joyous sea! 0 summer day, so wonderful and white, So full of gladness and so full of pain! Forever and forever shalt thou be To some the grave-stones of the dead delight, To some the land-mark of a new domain. From brightening fields of ether, fair disclosed, Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes; In pride of youth, and felt through nature’s depth, He comes, attended by the sultry hours; And ever fanning breezes on his way.

IS THE WOODS. (Sent by Amelia Radford.) There’s such a lot of bustle Throughout the woods to-day; It's time the leaves were painted With autumn radiance gay. From sunset’s skies of orange, And from the dawn’s pure light, The elves have stolen radiance To make their colours bright. NURSERY RHYME COMPETITION. These are the answers to last week’s competition:— 1. In the house that Jack built. ■2. Old Mother Hubbard. 3. Will you walk into my parlour? 4. Polly put the kettle on. 5. The Queen of Hearts made some tarts. ' 6. A song of sixpence. 7. Little Jack Horner. 8. Little Tommy Tucker. 9. Mary had a little lamb. 10. Jack Sprat and his wife. 11. Jack and Jill. 12. Froggy would a-wooing go. 13. Who killed Cock Robin! 14. Old King Cole. 15. Humpty Dumpty. ■ 16. Georgy Porgy. 17. Little Miss Moffett. 18. Little 80-Peep lost her sheep, 19. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. 20. Three blind mice. 21. Dick Whittington. 22. The cat and the fiddle. 23. Pussy in the well. 24. Goosey, goosey gander. 25. Tom, Tom the Piper’s' son. (Sent by Trevor and D’Arcy Nicholson.) What is always hot in winter?— Mustard. Can you say, “I’m. not feeling well,” in four letters?—l.M.C.D. (I’m seedy.) ■ Why is a peacock like the figure 9?—Because it is nothing without its tail. When is a butcher , like a thief ?— When he steels (steals) a knife. (Sent by Marion and Jack Curran.) When is the most dangerous time to go to the country ?—When the new trees are. shooting and when the new bull-rushes out. . What can lie on. water and never get wet? —A shadow. Why is a sugar plum like a racehorse !—Because the faster you lick it the faster it goes. , (Sent by “Tom-Tit.”) Father: Do you know where little boys gowho don’t" put their-money in money-boxes? Sonny; To the pictures. THE CLEVEREST ONE. ANOTHER JUNGLE TALE. Mike the Monkey was down" by the river when the storm came on and there was no shelter anywhere. Back to the jungle he raced, his poor little feet caked with mud, his coat wet through, and his face blue with cold. Shuddering he darted under a tree and clung to the nice rough bark. Then he heard Prim the parrot laugh. Prim, had her nest, in that tree, and she was warm, and snug, and quite dry. She poked her pink and grey head just a little way out, and simply gigglcfl. “W-w-what are you 1-1-1-laughing about?” asked Mike, his teeth chattering like cups and saucers. “You,” said Prim. “You are so clever, Mike! You think of!the most wonderful things, but you cpai’t do anything. I’m only a bird, but 'X can build myself a beautiful nest, while you stay out in the storm because you don’t know how to make a house. Why, even worms make burrows and they have neither beaks nor hands!” Mike couldn’t answer : thii; he could only think about it. And.the more he thought, the more angry he became—and the more Prim laughed. At last, in a rage, Mike climbed the tree and shook his fist at Prim. “Qh, I can’t build a house, indeed!” he cried. “Well, if I can’t build one, I can pull one down with-my two hands, which is more than you, or anyone in the jungle, can do.” As he stretched out his two delicate little hands to destroy her nest, Prim screamed. You see, she hadn’t thought of that. “You’re the cleverest one, Mike!” she cried. “But you’ll be unkind if you do it.” That,-of course, was quite true, and Mike walked haughtily away to dry himself in the sun. “Never mention houses-to me again,” he commanded. . . 'Prim never did. PLEASE ANSWER. I have bgen-reading a book (not a very uncommon thing, I'll adm.it), but I-take up my'pen to ask you humbly —on my 'bended knees—these tions, which" have been , worrying me until I am naught but skin arid bone. Have you never felt in sympathy with the villain, and-secretly thought the hero was a weak-minded, sentimental ass? - '" / ” . ; I have, often, but perhaps it is because I am topsy-turvy, for,-you see, I was made upside-down; it is' very annoying. Then why must a villain or villainess have sallow skin arid shifty eyes? I have one or two friends with sallow skins, though- I must admit they are not shifty ; eyecl. Am I imperilling my life by associating with them ? They have not proved false as yet, but one never knows, especially when my very wealthy great-aunt is did and, I am next-bf-kin.

Have you seen a girl -with violet eyes, shaded by thick, golden lashes, beautiful hair like ripe corn, an oval face, delicately tinted (naturally, I mean), with .tiny hanfls arid feet? •■ ’ If you have, please tell me; I would be so grateful to you. You have no idea how I have searched everywhere for such a girl, but alack, in vain! Of course, I do not doubt there are such people, but I should be. firmer in my beliefs if mine eye had truly beheld the vision. Though, now I come to think of it, I really only have to look in the mirror (?).

I must say I get tired of gardenerheroes. You say you don’t know what species they are? W®B> they are those heroes who use .horticultural similes when describing the heroine, e.g., pansy brown eyes, cheeks’like rosps, pure a lily, straight as a young birch, etc.

And, please, how do you curl your lip in scorn, and smile with deadly hatred and malice? I have often tried to do so, before the looking-glass, but the only result is a. ridiculous grimace. If anyone versed in such arts, please write arid tell me, and I shall take private tutoring— £s for ten lessons. There is still something more. When you get in terrible, deadly passions, and do not wish the hero to see, because you are playing a double part, do you bite your lips so hard that the blood spurts forth, and dig your finger nails in the palm of your hand, equally hard? I once tried, but 1 hurt myself so much that 1 have never done so since.

Then, just before I leave you, can you inform me of the whereabouts of a gallant, Bull Doggy Drummond man, to rescue me, a maiden in distress. ■ My fate is in the hands of—guggle, guggle, the villain—clutching—my—throat, res-cue—full-hog.

SCHOOL A CENTURY AGO. “PEARS, PRUNES AND PRISMS.” With; school days here again, the following article, taken from the’, Melbourne Age, will no doubt be read with interest. Such an article makes one more appreciative of our present educational system. If you had been living in England 100 years ago or so you would not have been sent at an early age to a well-equipped State school for free elucation from a staff of trained men and women, who tried to teach lessons in the pleasantest way possible. Nor would you afterwards have been sent to a high school or a technical school. Oh, no! For in those days there was no such thing as free and compulsory education for everybody. Unless you had rich parents you would probably have been sent first to the village “dame school,” where an old tyrant, more despotic than a queen could be, collected a roomful of infants in her cottage parlour, and for a penny a week each taught them next to nothing, or those were the days when girls had to constantly repeat such phrases as “pears, prunes and prisms,” which were supposed to give them pretty and lady-like lips- ~ ■ The great novelist Charles Dickens has told us what the schools of his day in ’England were like. Boys were “farjned out” to the master, .who took §o ,mary pounds, a year to keep the lad and to give him some pretenpe of learning. Holidays there were none; the boj might not see his, parents for years, nor would the parents know whether he was starved or ragged. . There was hardly anything done to find out in what direction lay the boys’ inclinations for workIn fact, the general attitude was summed up in. the words, “Find put what . the boy wants to do;, then tell him he mustn’t.”

Even in the great public schools, where the sons of the rich were sent, methods existed that would not be tolerated in any State school to-day. The actual buildings would be condemned as slum dwellings, as insanitary. Such luxuries as swimming baths were unheard of. In those days the scholars rose at 5 o’clock, and went to bed at 8.15.

There were no team games. If boys did play, they did so on their own. Marbles | was a favourite “sport,” the “men” in the head forms being specially clever at this branch of “athletics.” Another popular recreation was poaching, and if a school happened to be in the country it .was considered quite the thing to make up a party to go out and steal as much game as possible. As there were no organised games, the masters had little to do with the boys out of class rooms, and the idea of being on friendly terms with the boys would have been highly improper. There were even serious riots at some of the great English public school, the boys banding themselves together to attack their masters. On at least one occasion soldiers were brought out to deal with a party of rioting scholars. The old idea, you see, was that the masters and the boys were natural enemies, Some boys and girls, we are afraid, still think this ia true, but they hardly regard their teachers as gaolers, as boys in tlie old-time schools often did. The wealthy boy’s business then was to do' something he ought notito do, and the master’s job, whenever possible, to “cop him and whop him.” “Whopping,” indeed, formed the mainstay of the rough discipline of the day. A boy was lucky indeed to pass a whole day without having a taste of either the birch or the cane. Have you heard the story of a master in England who, through force of habit, proceeded to flog every boy in the group which he found waiting for him in his room? After this exercise he learned that they were a class of boys for religious instruction, but the discovery made little difference. Probably the olff. slave-driver said to himself that they were boys, and therefore bound to want flogging; if not. then, some other time. Girls, too, feared the birch. Girls of to-day will be shocked to read that; their sisters of a century or so. ago were whipped even up to 19 or 20 years of age. The schools for girls were even worse than boys’ schools. Education of sports and the sporting spirit there was none. From the beginning of the term to holidays, very likely, the average girl would not be permitted outside the grounds. The unfortunate girls were taught a little bad French, a good deal of the • delicate, ’ unreadable ’ handwriting that marked the “young lady,” and hour after hour of monotonous piano scales. It does not sound very inviting, does it? In order to obtain a “ladylike” method of walking, the girls were strapped to a board, which fitted the back, for many hours a day. The knowledge of how to blush becomingly when a young man spoke to her, of how to enter a room with a swanlike grace, were then supposed to be of far greater importance than a knowledge of how to earn a living. .?" . ' ' ' ' To <xp; bapk,. a. good deal farther, here is an interesting glimpse' of a’fifteenth century school by a, writer of the period. The rules of a well-known cathedral school, we are told, -provided that “the boys should sleep three in a bed, .two smaller ones with their heads to the head of the bed, and an older one with his head to the toot and his feet between the others’ heads.” Their play time was half an hour. only. They were “to" cut their bread a ; t dinner, not to gnaw it with their teeth or,tear it with their nails; drink with their mouths empty; not to pick their teeth with their knives; and take up their meat not ravenously, but like gentlemen.” DIVING FOR PEARLS. The pearl-fishing season is now on. In the blue tropical waters off Ceylon and the Far East native divers are descending into the depth to find the oysters that contain these precious jewels. Pearls are formed of the substance with which the oysters'and other shellfish line their shells.. If a grain of sand or other irritant is introduced into the oyster, the mollusc immediately covers it with this shell-like' substance which is known as nacre. Nowadays “culture” pearls are formed by artificially introducing irritating substances into the oysters—which immediately form pearls to protect their tender bodies. One of the most extraordinary pearls —or; rather, clusters of pearls—that have ever been discovered is known as the Southern Cross and is probably the most wonderful jewel that nature has ever produced. So far as is known, it occupies an absolutely unique position in the history of pearls. SMOKE BUBBLES. Everyone, no matter what his age, finds something fascinating in blowing soap bubbles and watching their changingtints. But to blow a bubble full of smoke and to watch the fumes spreading as it explodes is much better fun. It is very easy to do. When you have blown your'bubble to about two-thirds of the size required ask your father to complete the blowing with some of the smoke out of his pipe or cigarette. Bubble-blowing is not just a game for children, for at the Science Museum, in London, there is a tremendous bubble-blowing machine which was used bv a famous scientist in the course of his experiments. He blew bubbles which were two feet in diameter and lasted for months! '