TO MY OLD FAMILIARS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5227, 6 April 1895, Page 2

TO MY OLD FAMILIARS

[BY P.. h. STEVENSON.] (From the Antipodean for ISH ) Do you remember— can we e'er forgot ? ' How, in the coiled perplexities of youth, In onr wild climate, in our scowling town. We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and

feared ? . The belching winter wind, the inisbiie rain, Tho rai'o and welcome silence of the snows, The laggard morn, the haggard day, tho night The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,— Do you remember ?— ah, could one forget I

As when the fevered sick that all nightlong Listed tho wind intone, and hear at last The ever-welcomo voice of chanticleer Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn : With sudden ardour these desire tho day. So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope ; So we, exulting, hearkened and desired. For 10, as in the palace porch o£ lifo "We huddled with chimeras, from within— How sweet to hear ! — tho music swelled and fell I And through the breach of tho revolving door 3 What dreams o£ splendour blinded us and fled !

I havo since then contended and rejoiced; Amid the glories of tho house of lifo Profoundly entered; and, the shrine beheld. Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes Shall dwindle and recede, tha voice of love Fall insignificant on my doping ears, What sound shall come but the old cry of the vnnd In our inclement city ? What return But the image of tho emptiness of youth Filled with the sound of footstepr, and the voice Of discontent and rapture and despair ? So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp, Tho momentary pictures gleam and fade And perish, and the night resurges— these Shall I remember, and then all forget.