WITH THE POETS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1125, 19 December 1914, Page 8

WITH THE POETS.

THE DEAD SINGER.

Hero let the wood-dove softly coo. Hero let tho willow weep, Hero where Hie winds i.im waters WOO, The singer dreams in sleep.

The music of his magic lute Aroused the world to song, Now that tue singers lips are mute, About his bier they throng.

Ho hears, he feels, in sleep he smiles, Through du.sk and dawning dim, Adown the hushed forest aisles They bring their songs to him. —Robert Loveman, in " Smart Set." WHO COMETH? No queen is she, but a vagrant lass, In a gown of changeful hue. Buds gun the grass where, her bare feet pass, And her eyes are bluest blue.

A jovons waif in the hushland. old, She strays where Winter lingers, And boughs unfold their green and gold Beneath her-fairy fingers.

She calls at my window, " Awake,, awake, And wander away with me, With a half heart-break for an old joy's sake, And laughter for joys to be."

"Come out, come out. With mo a rover, Such buss to thy heart I'll bring; For. never lover tlie wide world over. Was sweet as an Austral Spring." —A. Ai. Bowyer-Bosman, in " BmishAubtralian."

THE PRAYER OF THE ARMY MEN. At the going, when we stumble up the gangway to the ship, While wo wish, and curse the wish, that wo could stay; On the Channel, as w-3 watch the yearning cliifs of England dip, Help us, Lord, to hide our sickened hearts away!

On the marches—on the marches with the blisters on our feet, When our kits weigh not much less than half a ton, And our one idea of Heaven is a place to sleep and eat— Give us ,-treugth, Lord, 'til our thirty miles are done'

Through the dreary, starlit vigils when. Ave guard the sleeping tents, Where tJiey huddle grey behind us in the gioom, Bid us challenge every phantom that our fear of death invents; Keep our ea-s alert to "hear the creeping Doom !

In the trenches, with tiie bullet-ridden earthworks spurting dust, And the peering rifle muzzles spitting flame; In the sweating bayonet charges, with the thrust and wrench and thrust, Hear u.>, when we, dying, call upon Thy name!

In the winning, in the losing, in the triumph, the despair, Be we victors or the holders of defeat, Keep us mindful of the honour of a . nation that we bear; Let our souls, Lcrd, bo above the fate wo meet! —Kenneth Proctor Littauer, in "Leslie's Magazine."

THE LOVELY LAND.

There is a , land that Jies beyond the

narrow city street, Of rock and river, pine and pond, of

woods and waters sweet, Where Nature wields her fairy wand and God and mortals meet.

There is a land that lies away out yonder in the hills, A laud where flashing minnows- play and happy singer trills— The robin redbreast in the day, by night the whippoor-wills.

"lis not a land of empty ease, this lovely land'of mine; I hear an.ax-blow in the trees, a splash where waters shine. The cross-cut's swishy melodies, the falling of a pine.

The axe makes music on the land, with sturd}' swing it gleams; The peavey in ""the driver's hand is merry in the streams; The day is made for labour and the night is made for dreams.

For these are men of might who toil where woods and waters are, Who battle with a common soil and look upon a star, With hands to labour in the moil and eves to look afar.

I would, O prisoners of town, we might at morn arise, Might leave the avenues of brown where love, where laughter dies, Might come at night to lay us down beneath those starry sides-

Might lay us down when day was late, when labour's day was done, Forgetting strife, hate, and, brothers •ev'ry one, . Beside uie woods and waters wait the summons of the sun. —Douglas Malloh, in "American Lumberman."