SELECTED VERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14770, 8 October 1921, Page 9 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE.

WANDERER. I have come home again to meadowlancl and orchard, And the dear, cool fingers of home wind fast about my own. While broken words of love are sounding at my shoulder, Saying: You were away, and everything was lone. The hills you knew, and meadowland, and house were empty, 'The cherries blossomed and the petals fell unseen, The dark fruit rounded, ripened, and was gathered, i\nd oh, how empty was the place where you had been 1 Sometimes the dogs would come, whining softly for you, Asking for a romp across the windy fields once more. Wondering what kept you so, worried, and bewildered, Waiting for your eager step, your whistle at the door. —Y'es, I am home again, the chimney smoko is rising Straight against the sunset, and, 10, a window gleams; But there's no voice at my shoulder, no clasp of dear, cool fingers, Only the Quiet frost and the dim-eyed sorrow of dreams. —Bernard Raymond, in New Republic. TWO SONGS. I. THE DANCER. Sheathed in scales of silver sequins In a blue pool of limelight dancing She twists and twirls and smiles and beckons With dark eyes glancing— She beckons to me in her skiey seat With smiling teeth and dark eyes glancing: Rut I only sec as I watch tier dancing The shadows that seek lo tangle her feet. 11. SMYRNA. Over Ihe mountain’s shadowed snow, A rosy flake, Ihc moon Drifts in the beryl glow Of early night; And over the still sea nr malachite Sings from the marble'quay Where blue-hack Nubians crouch >n shivering cold A shrill and reedy tunc My heart first heard In Uganda forests piped by some dead bird In un remembered days of old. —Wilfrid Wilson Cibsdn. WITHOUT CONTENTMENT. Without contentment, what is life? Contented minds like bees can suck Sweet honey out of soot, and sleep Like butterflies on stone or rock. Contented minds arc not in towns. Where stars arc far away and cold: That tremble till they almost fall, When they draw near to Nature's world. Such quiet nights we’ll have again, And walk, when early morning comes. Those dewy cemeteries, the fields — When they are white with mushroom tombs. —W. H. Davies. A MADRIGAL. Crabbed Age and Youth Cannot live together: Youth is full of plcasancc, Age is full of care; Youih like summer morn, Age like winter weather, Youth -like summer brave, Age like winter bare: Youth is full of sport, Age’s breath is short, Youth is nimble. Age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold. Youth is wild, and Age is tame:— Age, I do abhor thee, Youth, I do adore thee; 0! my Love, my Love is young! Age, I do defy thee — 0 sweet shepherd, hie thee, Fo-methinks thou stay’s! 100 long. —Shakespeare. HAMLET ON IMMORTALITY. To be, or hot to be, that is the question: —• Whether ’Us nobler in Ihc mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And, by opposing, end them? To die, —to sleep,— No more;—and, by a sleep, to say wc end The hcart-achc, and the thousand natural shocks That lle.sli is heir lo: Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die—to sleep—To sleep! perchance to dream; —ay, there’s Ihc rub! for in that sleep of death what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life: For who would bear the whips and scorns of lime, Ihc oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely. The pangs of despised love, (he law’s delay, Tile insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When hr himself might Ins quiclus make Willi a hare bodkin? Who would fardels hear, To grunt and sweat under a wcarv life. But Iha I Ihc dread of something after death, —• The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, —puzzles the will, And makes us rather hear I hose ills we have. Than 11 y to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience dons make cowards of US all; And thus (he native line of resolution Is sicklind o'er with the pale east of thought: And enterprises of great pith and moment. With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.