ORIGINAL VERSE.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 50, 27 August 1881, Page 580

ORIGINAL VERSE.

HARBOUR LIGHTS,

O night ! how sweetly solemn is thine hour ! What wondrous influence ocr the pensive soul Thy dark, deep silence wields ! By what weird paths Dost thou direct us hack to bygone days — To some dear spot where we have roamed in youth, Or, mayhap, where our hearts' one sacred love Lies sltunh'ring in its voiceless sepulchre ! Below me, in its rohe of darkness dressed, Tho harbour lies. Deep in the shade I stand, And look down where, with low, complaining sound, The waters roll in unseen majesty. All there is indistinct : and yet not all, For hero and there a faintly gleaming light Peers thro' the murky air from some lone barque : A guide to others, and a guard to them. And, straight betwixt these lights and where I stand, Bright rays lie on the wave like bars of gold, Smiling their gladness on the dusky night. How sadly like, O Life, is this dire scene To what thou hast been, and what thou must be To many a soul in this wide, chequered world ; — A constant night of hopelessness and gloom. And yet that gloom is never all so great But that it has some guiding star, to shed, Like these soft harhoxir lights, its cheering ray Over the waves of grief or cold misfortune. Alas ! I, too, have had my guiding star : Aye, and I have it still ! foiytho' its light Has passed for ever from these earthly scenes, In thought I see within a brighter world Its sad, sweet, smiling ghost, Seeming to whisper from that far-off goal, " Courage ! The way is dark and full of pain, But there are joy, and peace, and love ahead. Faint not, faint not, bear iip with every sorrow ; For, 0 ! there comes a day of sweetest calm, • When trouble ends, and hearts shall grieve no more.'' —Auckland, August, 1881.