Selected Verse,

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

Selected Verse,

BEFORE THE SPRING. She was no child of mortal birth; Far were her ways beyond the Earth. She came about the time of Spring And fell before the blossoming. But, while she wore this robe of days, She was a light to make men kind. Her smile was morning in her face because her baby eyes were blind. The frost of Death approached too near And touched her lily limbs in play. It seemed no cause for hateful fear, The earth go gently on her lay. The Robin brought her seeds and fair Narcissi, for a vestal ring: He knew her home was never here; She was a daughter of the Spring. —E. 0. Measor. THE LITTLE PRIEST. Believe in God? Why surely! For last night \ I watched a beetle climbing the tall stem Of my white lily, and aloft, alone, As in a temple, chanting evensong: A'small quaint priest all gloriously robed In brown and gold and green; who, moving light About a chancel paved with plate of pearl Did very softly sing:— , “ 0 God, my God, ' Who liftest up The lily cup That I may be A little nearer Unto Thee; How sweet to go Thus to and fro In a fair world And ever know Thou Art!” —Dorothy Freeman Larkin. A SHIP NOW OUT AT SEA. • Some far-off day a Ship, now out at sea, Will reach these lands. Still hidden ’mong the stars. Nor’west the sun, it has young gods for tars, Who scrub their wings and whistle blithe and free Amidst the smoke of satan’s cannonrv. . . . And tempests rage. ... So there’ll be many a wars, And kingdoms fall, before it cross our bars, With reefed sail, and safely anchored be. 0 Ship at sea! come soon, lest in our eyes There grow despair. Long have our tents been cast On shifting sands. And still our seers arise Who tell the future but know not the past. 0 Ship at sea! what are such prophecies? Only the gods can bring Ihe truth at last. —D. Morrison Jacobs.

THE SYMPHONY. Here in the forest, wind blows through the pine With sound as of strings by virtuosi played, And up and down the edges of the glade The wood-wind tones of slender reeds entwine ; The crash of cymbals mingles with the

sharp, Long riffles and staccato boom, of drums As the swift deluge of the tempest comes And, passing, drops slow gold notes- from the harp. It is God speaking to the ears of men In flawless harmonies, celestial, That rise in grandeur to a climax strong, Sweep through the forest in titanic song, Cease when the Master lets His baton fall, And silence folds the forest in again. —Francis L. Montgomery, LOST DAYS. . The days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they 4 f ell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? -Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces ivshall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. “I am thyself—what hast thou done to me?” “And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith), ‘‘And thou thyself to all eternity 1” —By Dante Gabriel Rossetti. FORGOTTEN GARDEN. Here marigolds and phlox still hold their sway, And ivy steeped in memory drapes a wall. Where hollyhocks like dreaming candles tall Licht this lost garden, crumbling and gray. Phlox, while, like lovely ladies in their day, Bend swiftly as if answering some call Where now alone forgotten pansies fall And faded moonbeams desolately stray. Clear as are morning trumpets, marigolds Lift, rapturous, their faces to the sky Where tones of sweet birds vanish in the folds Of rhythm’s far-forgotten songs and die. And all the rose-gold swooning hour holdß Echoes the requiem of love’s good-bye. —Alice Hunt Bartlett.