Selected Verse

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20464, 2 April 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

Selected Verse

REFLECTION There have been times when by myself, Recapturing each moment’s poignant bliss That your brief visits bring to me, I wondered would it lessen my distress If I should show myself indeed to you. "When you have gone from me, I often think Revealing things that lie within my heart That I could show you in a parable . . . But when you come, then I am stricken dumb, I am so overweighted with the joy Your presence brings to me; I cannot think How I should seem to you, but open wide The petals of my mind to take you in: Receive the rich impression of your thought That you would give to any child or man, And never think to ask for more. . . . Complete and satisfied, at least for one Fair hour, I rest in pure tranquillity, And let your spirit flow into my mind Like moonlight in the reproducing lake, That lies in listening stillness for the hour Of silence to possess night’s blessedness. And so I never speak, but let you go Unconscious of the right and wrong of me. —Brenda Skene, in “ International Poets.” TOMB OF A HERO This horizontal block of stone, Miraculously not a man, Is touched with presence nobler than The hollow scaffolding of bone. The chiselled tribute of a friend Who poured the harvest of his art, The stored-up grain of a full heart To swell another’s plenteous end. He lies—so would a hero lie— At rest from being incomplete. Then thirsting through life’s fever heat, Now bathed in cool eternity. —James Bramwell.

A PARALLEL Reason would have it that this pool is narrow rimmed, Restricted to a green frog’s active leap, No deeper than a single shower is deep; Yet in this autumn light, diminished but not dimmed, And with these eyes unsealed by reasoning I see all heaven here clasped, and much of earth— Clouds, sky, a willow young as spring, Wearing its leaves in bright „and silent mirth— All here, immersed in sunlight and in water. Nature is a wise and thrifty daughter, She knows no pool is judged too shallow For His great universe to hallow. Look here and see profundities To balance height* of tallest trees And the remote blue dome. Such parables remind That you and I who seem so small beside Immensities of space and the wide Turbulence of ocean, yet are designed To compass and reflect in still Unrippled thought all these, yea seven Times seven more, until We comprehend all Heaven. —Fanny De Groot Hastings. 1938 Be not disquieted, 0 anxious heart! The world is weary and is filled with strife, Old idols rear their mockeries anew, And all despised is quietude of life, But constant are the stars; the chill winds blow, Yet is there triumph in the strength that stands Patient for warmth renewed; the tide of Man Flows never backward, and the spraysplashed lands Will rise, assoiled, to greater destinies, Will force their way to Beauty, the one food That flights the human spirit—have no fear! The stony track winds upward; many-hued, The widening hill-tops touch infinitude. •—Lord Gorell.