FROM A SCRAP-BOOK

Waikato Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2444, 15 September 1921, Page 3

FROM A SCRAP-BOOK

“SONG or THE DECANTER” 7 TRAGEDIES OF THE PAST A correspondent of the To Aroha Mail over the name of “A Woman Pioneer, ’ ’ has forwarded a rather unique literary ,relic to the editor of that journal. “As one intimately associated with the tragic events of other days may I ask you to reprint the ‘ Song of the Decanter V 7 she writes. “It is one of the treasures in an old scrap-book, handed down to me when a child, and I feel I should like to see it reproduced for the bench! of the present generation. 77 Enclosed was the following poem printed in the shape of an ordinary wine decanter: —• There was an old decanter, a n d i ts mouth, was gaping* wide: the rosy wine had ebbed away and Icft its crystal side ; and tb. e win-J. went li muni. I n g h u m ming, upa n 0 down the win d i t 71 blew. and t h r o u g li th e reedlike hollow neck th e w i 1 1 1 c s t notes it blew. I placed it in the window, where the blast was blowing freely. and fancied that its pale mouth sang the queerest’ strains to me. “They teli me—puny conquerors, the Plague has slain his ten, and Y\ ar hi* hundred thousands of the very best of men; but I 7 thus the Bottle spake—“but I have conquered more than all vour -famous conquerors' so feared and famed of yore. Then come yo youths and maidens, come drum from out my cup, the beverage that dulls the brain and burns the spirits up; that put to shame your conquerors slay their scores below; for this has deluged millions with the lava tide of woe. Tho 7 in the path of battles darkest streams of.blood may roll, vet w-hile I billed the * body, I have damned the very soul. The cholera, the plague, the sword, such ruin never wrought. as I, in mirth, or malice on the innocent have brought. And still I breathe upon them, and ' they shrink before my breath, and } cm by year the thousands tread the dusty way of death