VARIOUS VERSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7966, 17 February 1906, Page 3

VARIOUS VERSES.

TOWa WEARINESS. I am weary of the noisy streets, The turmoil of the city's life; 1 long for pure, fresher sweets Thau those 1 find amid this strife. I long for some dear state of bliss, Brought from another life than this, Some draiiKht that quenches the sod's thirst From rivers unaccursed. My spirit yearns for briery lanes, The shadowed halls and leafy woods, For meadows where no human strains Dißturb the breezes' interludes; for life that moves in natural rhyme, And not in artificial time; For thoughts less feverish and small, And love to lighten all. —Maurice Baldwin, in the Metropolitan. A LOVER. (By Clinton S. Collard). First her eyes!—l can't express All the wonder of her eyes; Truth and trust and tenderness Dwell there over, vernal-wiee. ■ Next her smile)—l oannot tell all the marvel of her smilo; 'Tis a golden miracle Toenrapture and beguile. Then her voice I—l cannot say What most charms me in her voice; Melody to trance the day, . . Notes to bid tho nißhr rejoice. Last her heart!— And when 1 think That it quickens but for me, I am mute upon the brink, Of amaze—and ecstacy. "A-GUESSIN' HOGS." Dad wua the kindest man what ever wuz. As faithful as a sbadder to the sun, No more his shadder falls as ourn does, But there beyond he waits us one by one. His boys that growed up 'neath this shelteriu' heart, Like weeds that flourish by the water trough, All green an' lusty standm' there apart With drougb and dust an' famine farther off And Dad he seemed to take such joy in life, A*-watchin' his young 'una as they thrlvud and grew, And lovin' them and her that was his wife— And the greatest sin that good man ever knew Wuz guessin'hogs. Bat guessin* hogs, thet was his chief delight An' he could guess 'em part right to the pound >. I've saw him. guessin' hogs from , noou till night, An' weighiu' 'em—when men folks I was around. And almost every Sunday a'ternoOD, When bens was braggin' of the eggs they'd laid, An 1 all the turkeys gobblin' In tune, *N cattle restin' lay in the shade, . You'd find Dad in his wrinkled Sunday togs j Around to some the neighbours, guessin' hogs. Ma says the very day she married Dad.: '• He plum fergot what he was goin' to do; ' He never showed up at the 'pointed time And throwed the weddiu' party in a stew. A searching party started out his way, His rig they found at one of the bottom farms An' there they found him on his wedding day, A yearlin' Poland China in his arms, / A guessin' hogs. Still not a kinder man has held a plough Ner braver swung a cradle in the grain; We knew it then, we know it better now, ' Since he has passed beyond this land o'pain, And still sometimes to me it really seems That when I go to join him soon or late If Heaven' is the Heaven of his dreams, \ I'll meet him With the angels at the gate— A-goessin* faoge.