FOR A QUIET HALF-HOUR.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15127, 18 February 1922, Page 6

FOR A QUIET HALF-HOUR.

WHEN YOU ARE OLD. When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep. How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face. And bending down beside the glowing bars Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crown of stars. —W. B. YEATS. TWO WAYS OF LOVE. Why do you wgnt to leave me, if you love me? Because I must, The years will turn our lips and love to ruin, Beauty to dust. Better to leave you while the world’s a symbol Of this bright fire, So shall ,old age find brilliant and un-, tarnished Our love’s desire. Ah, no, the flame is nothing! For the forest Took years to grow, And in the ashes is the truth of beauty And this 1 know.

The bud is lovely, but the tree in winter, Though stark and bare, Knows all the earth knows, and no love is perfect 1 Without despair.

Too bright, too new, too shallow and ‘ unconscious Is young love’s heat, Give me the love that, knows the bit.ter wisdom Of love’s defeat— Give ihe the love that grows, through time’s own wisdom, More hard, more sweet. —A. CORBIN.