A RUINED CARDEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 25, 20 June 1891, Page 76

A RUINED CARDEN.

All my roses are dead in my garden— What shall I do ’ Winds in the night, without pity or pardon, Came there and slew. All my song birds are dead in their bushes— Woe for such things ! Kobins and linnets and blackbirds and thrushes Dead, with stiff wings. Oh, my garden ! rifled and flowerless, Waste now, and drear ; Oh, my garden ! barren and bowerless, Through all the year. Oh, my dead birds ! each in his nest there, So cold and stark ; What was the horrible death that pressed there When skies were dark ? What shall I do for my roses’ sweetness, The summer round— For all my garden’s divine completeness Of scent and sound I I will leave my garden for winds to harry ; Where once was peace, Let the bramble vine and the wild brier marry, And greatly increase. But I will go to a land men know not— A far, still land, Where no birds come, and where roses blow not . And no trees stand— Where no fruit grows, where no spring makes riot, But, row on row, Heavy, and red, and pregnant with quiet The poppies blow. And there shall I be made whole of sorrow, Have no more care— No bitter thought of the coming morrow, Or days that were.

Beitie Brilliant (driving home from the club, after having taken rather more champagne than he ought): ‘ I sav, how much pleasanter it is to ride in a cab and think how much pleasanter it is to ride in a cab than it is to walk, than it is to walk and think how much pleasanter it is to ride in a cab that it is to walk.