SELECTED VERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16815, 5 June 1926, Page 13 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE.

THE OUTLAW’S SONG. The chough and crow to roost are gone, The owl sits on the tree, The hush'd wind wails with feeble moan, Like infant charity. Tho wild-fire dances on the fen, The red star sheds its ray; Uprousc ye then, my merry menl It is our op’ning day. Both child and nurse arc fast asleep And closed is every flower, And winking tapers faintly peep High from lady’s bower; Bcwild’d hinds with shorten’d ken Shrink on their murky way; Uprouse ye then, my merry men! It is our op’ning day. Nor hoard nor garner own we now, Nor roof nor latched door, Nor kind mate, bound by holy vow To bless a good man's store; Noon lulls us in a gloomy den, And night lias grown our day; Uprouse yc then, my inerry men I And use it as ye may. —Joanna Baillie (1702-1851). A BUSY LIFE. I thank God for my busy life, For the Things-That-Must-Be-Done, The tiresome and the trivial things In which there is no fun, That neither start nor ending know, But in a circle run. I thank God that for all I’ve loved He grants no thoughts to spare, That when I sometimes come upon My old self unaware, Looking at me from happy eyes, I have 110 lime to care. I thank God for my busy days, But most His Name I bless Because He lias seen fit to fill, In mercy merciless, My life so full I have no room To feel its emptiness. OLD AND WISE. When old age comes, shall I be wise? What knowledge, brooding in my eyes, Will find them fuller than youth’s tears ? What can you give me, mocking years, Tliat pass and, pass—and take the best, And leave instead a dream called Rest? Though with brave face I look at truth, Still the unwisdom of all youth Disturbs my heart and blinds my eyes. As yet, I am not very wise. Shall I grow quiet, growing old? 0 busy hands, when will you fold, And shut the world away from me? Perhaps the aged hearts are free.— Passion outlived, love changed at last, Dreams kindled only by the Past. They may forget what went before, Pain’s hurt, and joy that may hurt more. I have not learned how to forget, Nor have I come to quiet—yet. INDIFFERENCE. Vain are your careless arrows, Fate, Your choicest darts I should not feel, My heart knows neither love nor hate, Thrice tempered to the triple steel. I have beeh down where devils smite Red-hot upon the naked heart, Anvil and furnace glowing wnitc, Torture whereby no blood-drops start. I, too, have stood above the world, Tip-toe upon the topmost star, In love’s ethereal rapture furled, Where lime’s immortal lovers are. ’ With them have plucked the rose of dawn, And watched the stars out one by one; Plunged down to earth, where all arc born. Unmindful of the moon or sun. Pass on, pass on to worthier prey Than this cold shadow of delight Which moves upon unheeding way Neither of darkness nor of light. "A SIGH TOO MUCH.” Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, < And life is never the same again. Alas, how hardly things go right! "l’is hard to watcli in a Summer night, For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay, And the Summer night is a Wintry day. And yet how easily things go right, If the sigh and a kiss of a Summer's night Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray That is horn in the light of the Winter’s day. And things can never go badly wrong, If the heart be true and the love be strong, For Hie mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain, Will he changed by the love into sunshine again.

“GOD’S LOVING FACE.” Eye hath not seen, nor car hath not heard The joy, Hie bliss of that sweet dwelling place Where praise is aye the rapturous employ , , , , „ ~ Of those who there behold God s loving face.