BE SURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16907, 5 December 1922, Page 3

BE SURE.

(By IVALT MASON.) ! Bel ore you lift your voice in song be sure lha;, joh can sing, or neighbours, when you’re going strong, all kinds of bricks may fling. For it is iil to slay a tune with voice that doesn’t track, recalling dogs that bay the moon until 1 the welkins track. Ihe fake Carusos l ot tiiis land much tribulation bring when, with their maps ajar, they stand imagining they sing. When i was young J thought my voice was like a seraph’s lute, designed to make the world rejoice, and' hriiig me scads, to boot. And when I had the least excuse J : d lubricate my gears, and turn .a flood of music loose to charm the people’s ears. I chanted luscious lays and sweet, of youth and love and home, and eggs that long were obsolete were broken on my dome. And. chunks of coal that bruised my slats from windows high were throw n and caniflowers arid crocks and. cats and broken slabs of stone. And thus the truth, so ghastly raw, at last in pain I grasped ; my voice was like a crosscut saw when it is rudely rasped. From that day forth I would not lift my voice in go 1m den song; to sing when one has not the gift is villainously wrong.