SELECTED VERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17078, 16 April 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE.

DAWN. ; v

Scotland-Flanders.

Dawn’s palely-gleaming Ungers Grope down the beetling Ben And seek the night that lingers In the deep-cloven glen.

Dian and Venus, paling, Abashed by peering day, Their thrilling radiance veiling, Fade into phantoms gray.

Mist-wraiths that brooded, chilling, Above dank bogland beds Trail skyward—slow, unwilling, Sad ghosts with shrouded heads

Earth’s first faint breaths are stirring Dew-heavy drooping grass; Wet muirfowl-wings are whirring And glinting as they pass.

Breaks dawn so still on Flanders? Aye! over field and fell In stillness now she wanders Where once she .wakened Hell —

Still as the lads who slay there That watched the dawn with me: Dawn I may sec, or day there, But them I shall not see. —P. Taylor. RESURRECTION. Oh, wild north wind! What message art thou bringing From ice-bound steppes, from 4 forests dark and lone, To this sad island where no bird is singing. • And light is gone?

I come from far, across the gray clouds flying, By leafless glens, o’er mountains bare and steep, And in my breast a little child is lying, Hidden —asleep.

The baby Spring I I bear her in my bosom Till skies arc clear, and early violets show, Till cleandinc uplifts a starry blossom, And white llow’rs blow.

She is not dead, hut only sweetly sleeping: When birds fly north again, and green buds break, With all that lie at rest in Nature’s keeping She will awake. THE SUPERSEDED. As newer comers crowd the fore Wc drop behind. We who have laboured long and sore Times out of mind, And keen are yet, must not regret To drop behind.

Yet there are some of us who grieve To go behind;, Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe Their Arcs declined, And know none cares, remembers, spares Who go behind.

’Tis not that we have unforelold The drop behind; We feel the new must oust the old In every kind, But yet, we think, must we, must We, Too, drop behind. —Thomas Hardy.

LINOTYPE. What are those whirring wheels and rattling bars, This wilderness of cogs and cams and keys, This clicking buzz like large metallic bees, Singing its songs of feted slums and stars, Of rising Man and dull, decaying Tsars? This silent thing whose hot thoughts freeze To shining slugs that carry tragedies And mirlii—abstractions and particulars ?

Its reaching rods are Angers skilled and true Compared to which all fleshly hands are frail; Electric, tireless, heating their fast tattoo, They tell to men life’s endless, varied tale. Here is the voice without which man is dumb; If it be stilled, silence and chaos come. —Read Pain, in the American Review.

TO A CHINESE RING.

Whose supple finger did you hold Within your hoop e'f silver, old And beaten thin with filigree Or ever you were bought for me?

Your Crest, slow-carved into a pair Of flying fish, flung fan-wise there Beneath the arching coral wing Of cherries’ starring blossoming.

Whose finger, painted with a flush. Of cream above the golden rush Or Asia’s blood? Whose plighted vow Was broke that I should own you now? —Nancy Lord.

OPENING VISTAS. The leaves come down, the gold and crimson leaves, Seeking a winter bed the leaves come down; The trees stand in the garden hare and brown, Summer is dead, and Mother Ceres grieves. Lo, now the flowers fade! Bright crystal tears; Sparkle upon the early morning grass. The year is weeping for tier youth—• Tout passe 1 We, too, shall falter ’neath the weight of years.

The leaves come down. Alas I The trees arc stripped. But stay; between those branches brown and sere The hills (in soft blue misty lines) appear With purple slopes and summits- golden tipped. Thus age doth bring us solace for its ills— The leaves come down, and we can sec the hills- •