SELECTED VERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17008, 22 January 1927, Page 11 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE.

THE YOUNG. There are no might-have-beens in their light mirth, No broken idols, and no dreams that failed; They scarce believe that loving can be staled By surfeit of the thing that gave it birth. Their faith is knowledge, and their pride is power, Their strong young knees bend with no doubts in prayer; And so they cannot understand despair, Or dread the ending of a jewelled hour. For they are strong, invulnerable, cold, Yet lonely sometimes, and too proud to seek The tender pity of the aged and weak, So strong in pity, and in love so old.

VISION.

In the thronged summer street. Where sunlight beat on pavements hot

and dry. The people hurried tensely, swiftly by, Or lagged on listless feet.

I shunned the dust and glare, The indifferent crowds on rigid errands

hound; When suddenly I heard a tapping sound, And saw a blind man there.

A blind man, moving slow, Tapping a stick along a wall for aid, Unseeing the coloured street, the drifting shade, The sunlight’s deepening glow.

I closed my pitying eyes, Shut out the scene the blind man could

not sec, That for a moment I might be as he, Sightless ’neath summer skies.

Then I looked forth, to find That everything was aureoled with

light And ail the world was lovely in my Because a man was blind, sight

A STRANGER IN THE CITY. She hid the dagger of her loneliness Sheathed in the scabbard Of her silence. . . . Proud, Aloof, she bore herself Among the crowd Of her co-worlvers. There was none to guess— Or, rather, it were nearer truth to say That there was no one Of them all to care, Ilow coldly pressed The dagger hidden there, How heavily upon her heart it lay. And none of them divined that wistfully She listened to Their laughter all about, And to their talk From which she felt shut out — They were unconscious, quite, of cruelty. For when at last the dagger slipped its sheath, They cried, “How sad!” —and sent a pretty wreath. BIRDS. My eyes are filled with wonder At any little bird; On every tree and bush I see A wing io give an ecstasy. A goldfinch sitting on a thorn Can make of me a man reborn; But sparrows in the mud suffice To carry me to Paradise. THE RED WIG. Deep in a tangle of frothing space, Far in a howl of glow, Something intangible made me be — Something I used to know. Faintly I moved in the bands of haze, Swinging in raptured sound, Moulding the being of what I am Out of the light around. You, who’re applauded by all the earth— Those are the things that I knew at birth. Sunlight swirled about a crag where 'L found my feet, Silkcn-’toed and slcndcr-boncd, beautiful and fleet. Looking down I saw a bear, lumbering and gray, So I ran lo follow it, heedless of the way. Eyes like berries, glazed and hard, shifted as they shone. “You arc not a hear,” they said. “Leave the bears alone!”

I, a creature formed of light, flickered there and stopped, But a stricken bird, above, fluttered once and dropped. Soft and pitiful it was, with a pulsing breast. “You are not a bird,” it throbbed. “Leave me to my rest!”

Further on, I found a camp by a rocky shelf, So I hurried, for I saw people like myself. But they wouldn’t see my light—wouldn’t feel my haste— Only pelted me with corn, leathery to taste.

Nothing would accept my love. I was . kin to none. Everything would hide from me, everywhere I’d run. Pantingly, I tried to please, lonely and But they laughed in swift contempt, blatantly and gay.

Then they turned and cried, “Hurrah! Here is one who’s Big!” And before thorn was a fool, in a bright red wig! When he glanced at me his eyes were the light of me! “We, the fools, must dance for them. Wo arc one!” said he.

Wisdom is a sharpened knife. This I’ve learned from living life

Somewhere a crag in the sun awaits Somewhere a bowl of glow ! 1 will return to the depths that were Something I used to know. Only a fool with his eyes could see—• Only a fool believed! Something 'intangible that made me be Sent me a fool who grieved. He was a fool in a wig of red. That I’ll remember When I am dead.