SELECTED VERSE

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17326, 11 February 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

SELECTED VERSE

REQUIESCAT.

They shall not shear the grasses where you lie: For well I know You could not bear the smallest thing should die That God made grow.

Pale cuckoo-flower, and sorrel, for your sake Shall spring up there: You, beauty’s seif, shall live in them to make The world more fair.

And if white roses, falling tear by tear, ’Mid these I strew, ’Tis but to case my own lone heart, my dear, And not for you. —lsabel Leslie. PEAR-TREE. Athwart the prostrate, gnarled bulk Our lissom cross-cut plays A swishing tune, while merry larks Uplift their evening praise. The crocodile integument And stubborn thews we cleave. While clustered gnats around the stump Their tortuous dances weave. But late her purple-tinted yield Enrich the misty Fall; We shook the boughs, and watched the globes Plop in the grasses tall. With sudden whoop from pole to pole The ruthless West Wind pealed: With swing and crash and gaping gash The answering fibres reeled. Tlie sweet of patient years is quenched By one fell gust of wrath: For April blooms and Autumn wealth We reap a load of lath. John Cook.

THE GARDEN OF NO DELIGHT. A pale and wasted moonlight falls On lawns of velvet green; Twelve stately fountains trickle down To pools that lie unseen. These fountain pools still wait unstirred — No image falls therein; Their mirrors, like a witless soul. Knows neither joy nor sin. The shadows hold no glad retreat Of lover or of maid; Along the empty terraces No child lias ever, played. No echo lies upon this air; Winds weep among the trees. Wistful to-night this garden lies. Hungering for memories. Frances Shaw.

TO THE PINES. To the pines, lo the pines, Where the sun never shines, Coin’ to shiver when the cold winds blow. My husband was A railroad man Killed a mile and a half from here. llis head was found in the driver’s wheels; His body has never heen found. ’Twas transportation Brought me here; Takes money fer to carry me home. The long steel rails That have no end Have brought me as far as here.

You’ve caused me to weep, You've caused me to mourn, You’ve caused me to leave my home

Through the pines, through the pines, Where the sun never shines, Gobi’ to shiver when the cold wind blows.

SCARLET LEAF. Not at the thought of dying in the rain, I rouse in sudden anguish when securely Asleep, I wake to sound of hurricane On Autumn trees, remembering how surely Life is a little scarlet leaf that falls Before the Anal winnowing of wind I This is the thought that shivers through my walls, This is the ice whereon my blood Is thinned. That you will one day be, most dear, most brave, That little lonely and incredible leaf Made radiant for the mystery of the grave; While J, standing In sudden voiceless grief, Must watch the final winds of heaven blowing, Powerless as trees to stay your mighty going. —Kathryn Worth.

THE TIME O’ DAY. As forth I went a-marketin', my little pigs to sell, An' buy a clock with weights an’ chains the hour o’ day to tell, Whom should I meet but Biddy Moore, an’ ooh I my heart went leapin’, Because I saw her roguish eyes beneath her bonnet peepin’. ‘An how's the eggs to-day?’ sez I. ‘l’ve sold (hem nil,” sez she; ‘An’ just ns lucky with your pigs, friend Pat, I iiope you’ll be ! Yet if it’s true the tale I hear, your little pigs are matin’ A home for two, an’ naught care you for colleens’ hearts a-breakin’J Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, though mocking me the while k An' och! T up an’ kiss’d her then, straight on her rougish smile: ‘That home for two,’ I cried, ‘for you was built among tiie heather; For now I’ve found on Love’s own ground both Maid and Time together !’ —J. M. Stuart-Young.,