SELECTED VERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15272, 23 June 1923, Page 11 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE.

THE WIND’S CALL. ’Tis cosy here by the ingienook when the wild nor’-wester’s blowing; But there is a cry in the wind for me, and I must be up and going. I am tired of the warmth of the sheltered vale, of the still and breathless places, And I must be off to the upland plains, to the wide and windy spaces.

I love the valley at noon of day, when my heart beats calm and even; I lie in the shade of the hedgerow elms, and gaze at the broad blue heaven; But when the shadows are closing in, and the evening wind pipes shrilly, There’s a call that comes in its rising cry from the distance wild and hilly.

Oh, stay me not when I rise to go! I know you would cherish me ever; But joy for you would be pain to me — the anguish of still endeavour! The storm may buffet me on the heights, the rain and the sleet be driving; But I die for the wide and windy plains where the souls of men are striving. :—G. E. Merrick. WINTER. When on the leafless rowan-trees The black-cock finds no berries be, When through the whirling, eddying snow The lean red hinds all famished go, And frost has struck the river dumb, Winter has come. When man sits dumb beside the fire, Losing all hope, and all desire, Seeing dead faces in the flame, Thinking dead voices sigh his name, Hearing old tunes about him hum, Winter has come. —Riccardo Stephens. THE MOON. Cirqued with dim stars and delicate moon-flowers, Silent she moves among the silent hours —■■ Watching the spheres that glow with golden heat Under her feet. Then, when the sunrise tints the east with light, She fades to westward, with the dreamy night And all her starry train —in faint disguise Of twilight skies. —Hugh Austin. THE WIND. I saw you- toss the kites on high And blow the birds about the sky; And all around I heard you pass,. Like ladies’ skirts across the O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song! I saw the different things you did, But always you yourself you hid. I felt you push, I heard you call, I could not see yourself at all — O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song! —Robert Louis Stevenson. THE LITTLE GREEN GATE. There’s a little white house that, I once used to know, In the far-away country that’s called Long Ago, With a little green fence and a little green gate, Where Somebody once ’pon a time used to wait. Somebody once used to watch and to wait Every night between seven and eight, As timid and shy as a little gray mouse, At the little green gate of the little white house; Lingering there in a state of suspense Till Somebody passing the little green fence — Sooner or later, as certain as fate — Paused for a while at the little green gate. Only a gate in a little green fence; But the words that were said—though they hadn’t much sense— Make it seem—’tis a story so old and so new—* The gate of a Paradise made for the two. —Ada Leonora Harris. DOWN BY THE DOCKS. A red sun couched in a woolly sky, An oast wind juffling the oily scum; Rattle and clatter, and whirr and hum; Querulous sea-gulls floating by. Masts as far as the eye can skim, Masts and funnels and derrickbeams; Through misty rigging the brasswork gleams, Ruddily as the sun grows dim. Great ships loom in the outer reach, High-bowed, stately, and trim of line, With varied pennant and mystic sign; Proudly arrogant, each to each. pale lamps wake in the twilight streets, Cobble and iron bridge complain As the dockyard lorries pant and strain. And newsboys run with their evening sheets. —Dudley Clark. THE DOWNS. Oh! ihe Downs high to the cool sky; And tho feel of Hie sun-warmed moss; And each eardoon. like a full moon, Fairy-spun of the thistle floss;

And the beach grove, and a wooddove, And the trail where the shepherds pass; And the lark’s song, and the wing- ■ song, And the scent of the parching grass! : —Jonn Galsworthy.