SELECTED VERSE

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE

THESE THINGS AWAIT US.

I would lay hold on God. Man fails at need. His hand is lifeless and his voice is dumb, He is no more than chaff upon the wind. God is the wind.

Man is no more than foam upon the

sea. God is the sea. Let me depart and go And take Him for my home. The love

of man Is steadfast as a drifting Summer

cloud Upon the morning sky.

What is man’s heart? A fluttering, changeful thing, And not so faithful as the grain of sand That goes forever following the tides.

How soon a fallen leaf forgets the tree. Is man a fallen leaf? Shall he so soon Forget the roots of God? So soon for-

get The greenness of His spring, the

budded fruit. The golden harvest of the Lord of Life?

One hour, one life, the anguish and the pain, The bitter cup, the stark and stony hill— These are the passing phantoms of a dream.

The love we could not find, or could not keep; Beauty that seemed to wither like a rose; The light of truth that flickered and went out — These things await us in the heart of of God. —Barbara Young. ALWAYS LOOKING AHEAD. When I was eight I used to think at ten I’d be so very old and big, why, then, With no regrets, with scarce a tear or sigh, I’d lay my fairy-books and dollies by; At ten, well twelve seemed quite the proper age To put aside toys, games, and pictured page. And seventeen thought twenty trulv old; And twenty, as the shining days unrolled, Felt very sure, should she be still alive, How ancient she would be at twentyfive.

So when my years shall total up fourscore

In the same way I'll say, "One decade

more; At ninety i'ii he old and glad to die"; At ninety, contemplate my century. —From “poems” by “E.D.F." BIOGRAPHERS’ CONSULTATION. The man is dead. Now let us neatly Open the breast and brain, and learn how much lie had of truth, of weakness, or of vv it. The man is dead; he will not feel our touch, Though knives are in our hands, and hooks of steel. There are great crowds who are not satisfied With what he gave them in his art; they feel There may exist some secret that in pride He kept from them; they will not be content To read his books until we make it known Whether lie was a man of kind intent, Whether his heart was smooth as polished stone, Or rough with many wounds; whether his brain Was calm or grieved or crazed. It is our duty To dissect, to study, and to explain; And what wc find of cleverness m beauty Shall go down with the sadder things we find. Courage I Let us collect our evidence! The man is dead, and in the public mind We, too, are heroes, in a certain sense. —Helene Mullins, In the New York Herald Tribune.

THE WAGGON. Crimson and black on the sky, a waggon of clover Slowly goes rumbling over the white chalk road; And I lie in the golden grass there, wondering why So little a thing As the jingle and ring o.f the harness, The hoi creak of leather, The peace of the plodding, Should suddenly, stabhingly, make il Dreadful to die.

Only, perhaps, in the same blue summer weather Hundreds of years ago, in this field where I lie, Caedmon, the Saxon, was caught by the self-same thing; The serf lying, black with sun, on his beautiful wain-load, The jingle and clank of the harness, The hot creak of leather, The peace of the plodding; And wondered, 0 terribly wondered, That man must die. —Alfred Noyes. MUD. Mud is not always ugly. It can be transformed into a thing of beauty. When the tide goes out in the harbour; When the seagulls with their gleaming whiteness flock there, And the grasses are seen growing in the mud, And the mud is shining in the sunshine, And the blue water is sparkling as it

recedes, Then the mud at low tide is very beautiful! —Mary Beiben, in the “Queen.”

LITTLE THIWQS, There is a blessedness in little things, A balm for pain, forgetfulness and rest To sooth the ache that lies within my breast— The blessedness that daily living brings, The cadenced ticking of the old black clock; The blithe canary pouring out his soul, Firelight upon the cedar chest's brass loeSw