Among the Posts

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16426, 14 May 1921, Page 3

Among the Posts

[ A Bouquet of Verses [

PRAISE SONG. I do cot go lovelorn; Through God—His grace— I face tho glowing morn With rooming face. For I am lifted tip, Yea, I am free. Since I have drained the cup Of ecstasy. Free to have much of mirth; Free to love all the earth, And chiefly her, And so His praise I sing Tn every place Since I have gained this thing Through Gcd—iiis grace! —C l into n S collard. MOUNTAINS OF SUNRISE. I’ve Fecn the first tip of the morning sun Over the eastern hills. Fre vppy, the last, slow of the setting one, Sight of s hundred thrills. But'all c£ the sights that I've ever seen Never excelled the one Of mountains cf3r in a mystic sheen, Blushing before the sun. The mountains of dawn, with ■ their darker Turned to a lovely pink. Are fairyland mountains cf magic hues. Guarding the devlight’s brink. Tho mountains of sunrise with tints of goid Brightening A! the rose. I love: though their hearts are a bitter cold. Beauty upon them glows. —Helen Emma Mating. AT A DANCE, Oh, lel Earth enter here: a dawning cloua, an.l lonely hill-shapes where the long winds blow, Let Silence shut, her palms. Great, souls I know live in the stillness, and tbeir thoughts ore bowed. GL.ferii n ,. toward a, mint of silence, yet I fear "that quiet more than i.uy sound, Mv very roof« are restless underground, the leave* ore agued with a cureless fret. A rain singing. The lib:-' bell? of flesh forever ringing 1o drown the far-off music I have sought,. Sensation drugs my brain and tears my will, sensations creeping fluid over me, lAke bands of foam that, stretch out of the. sea. to snatch the 0 overs growing on a hi!!. ... So 1 remain here banqueting with lust, so 1 still spin the circle- cf the dance. To pick the spangle of a dead romance from out this heap of animated dust! --Iris Tree.

FROM MY WINDOW. The next-door lady with tho toque Is thirty, T surmise. And Beauty in the shyest way Peeps from ber amber ©yes. And quiet is iri her complete. She goes so softly down the street. Tn her green garden, to and fro, 1 often hear her sing With soft, low notes, as though her throat Fears its own carolling. She doesn’t sing like ether folk— The next-door iady. with the toque. Oh. ponderous husband. Portly owl! Why did she marry thee? So 'pleaaurelcsp. so measureless In pompous gravity. And how, oh! how, didst thou beguilv That lovely frightened little smile? On summer evenings, through the dusk She flits on love-lit feet To meet In r husband coming hem© Down Alexander Street. I’ve seen him greet her with a scowl Th© ponderous, pompous, portly owl! Summer is dead. The autumn sprit© With russet paint-pot shows Jfis handiwork. Alas! Xo more My lady comes and goes, My lady come and goes. Her windows haunt mo, spectrewise, Wi‘k curtainless, pathetic eyes. Oh! pity n\<?! Oh! pity roe! She comoth not and comet.b not. I think she must be dead Sitting among tho angel folk Too timid to remove her wCjue. —Anna G. Kcoivu. THE JOURNEY. It’s a wild night for a soul to go. Stars shine but winds blow And the flood tides flow. It’s a long read to the nearest star, Where the band cf well-beloved arc, But I shall reach it, pear or far, A wild night for a naked soul To cast aside the broken bowl And start for the distant goal. A wild night and » lonely way. And Ucr.ih is terrible, they sav. Yet metbinks T like his looks to-day. And glad I’ll lay my garment by And fling me forth to the windy sky When Death rides by.A Jong road to the nearest star. Where the band of well-br’ovrd are, I*vi‘. I shall reach if. near or far. —L. Do Mesurior. THE SOUL AND ITS LETHE. “The. body is for the soul the stream of Lethe. To tiie soul alone belongs memory.”incs <translation by Dr i Kenneth S. Guthrie). How much, O soul of man, hast thou .forgot? Ere thou didst stoop to drink this I.©the --what ? If sad thou art sometimes—nor knowest v.hy. It is, thou askest this, with no reply. When thou didst dwell alono with The Alone, Tli© things eternal also were thine own, And thou hadst Memory—or, no need hadst thou, Whose touch could then lay hold upon a Now. Here. Beauty maddens with its broken And at iorne turning thou the thread dost lose ! But, once, with Beauty was thy bond entire. In a Loon place beyond tbe empyreal fire. It chanced, into n. Mirror thou didst bend Thy gaze—O foolish one, that must descend! Why didst thou love thy floating image a© Thou must make one with it in realms below ? Thv wings discarding lightly, here t-hon art. Hast thine own kingdom . . . Dost thou love thy part, ria iuiLnd P fZs,ZT betray ? O Soul within the body—and without! How often thou hast held one brooding doubt: If this—thou bruised and wingless wanderer. Has been the only time that thou didst Or, oft. thiqe imaged self a lure has been, Within tho Mirror of Enchantment seen— Soul, Soul, when next detached, thou shalt Of some of these poor roles that thou hast But thou—my Littlo Love, confess thee, here, Life has intrigued thee—Life has oft seemed as gladly, wilt thou leave this This loug forgetting by the Lethe stream. —Edit* StL Tfcomaa