Verse Old and New.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 25, 22 June 1910, Page 71

Verse Old and New.

When Father Shaves His Face. HEN father shaves his stubbly J J I faee ■ ■ I ■ At nine on Sunday mom, There .always steals upon the place A feeling al forlorn, An awful silence settles down; On all the human race; It’s like a funeral in the town When father shaves his face. He gets his razor from the shelf And strops it up and down; And mutters wildly to himself And throws us all a frown, We dare not look to left or righty Or breathe in any case; E’en mother has to tiptoe quite When father shaves his faee. He plasters lather everywhere, And spots the window pane; But mother says she doesn’t care., She’ll clean it off again. She tries to please him all she can, To save us from disgrace; For he’s an awful nervous man When father shaves his face. We try to sit like mummies there, And live the ordeal through; And hear that razor rip and tear, And likewise father, too. And if it slips and cuts his chin, We jump and quit the place; No power on earth can keep us in If father cuts his faee. —Joe Cone. © © © The Cost. All trembling is the meadow; All crimson is the rill. The dead lie in the valley; - The dead lie on the hill. And one side is the victor, The other side has lost— The women of two peoples Are counting up the costs. —Edwin L. Sabin.

My Lady. ’Tis not her kind yet mastering air, Nor yet the glory of her hair, Nor yet the beauty of her eyes With the deep look of soft surprise; ’Tis not the wit so often heard Where wisdom lines each airy word; ’Tis not her humours grave and gay That give my Lady all her sway. My dainty Lady’s sovereign power Hangs not upon the passing hour; The years may roll and still the same She is my Lady and my Dame. My Lady’s face, my Lady’s voice, These make my heart and soul rejoice. And yet they fall full short of all That keeps me still my Lady’s thrall; The secret why my Lady’s reign Can never turn to change or pain Is known alike to man and elf, It is that she is just—Herself! —Walter Herries Pollock. ■s>❖<?> In the Amphitheatre. Two architects of Italy—austere Men who could fashion nothing small — refused To die with life, and for their purpose used This dim and topless amphitheatre. Some Caesar trenched the orb of its ellipse And called on distant provinces to swell Resonant arches whence his world could scan, Tier above tier, the fighters and the ships But Dante—having raised as dreamer can, Higher tenfold these walls immutable— Sole in the night arena, grew aware He was himself the thing spectacular Seized by the ever-thirsting gaze of Hell,— Here, on the empty sand, a banished man. —Herbert French.

An Evening Near Athens. How many an eve, on yonder peak at rest, We watched the sumptuous splendours of the sky—The fading hosts in plume arid panoply Pas- on the cloudy ramparts of the West; Huge Titans, hurling towers from the crest Of toppling mountains of vermilion dye; And phantom galleons, slowly drifting by, ’Mid amber seas to havens of the blest! Islands of desolate gold; cities august Tottering upon the verge of scarlet deeps; Vast promontories crowned with jasper fanes Slow crumbling into wastes of ruby dust: And, plunging shadowy down the cri>* son steeps, The Horses of the Sun, with flaring manes! Lloyd Mifflin. 3 © © Ad Matrem Mortnam. Dear Mother-eyes That watched while other eyes were closed in sleep, That o’er my sliding steps were wont to weep— Are ye now looking from the starry skies, With clearer spirit-vision, love more deep, Undimmed by tears, while I my vigil keep: Dear Mother-eyes? Dear Mother-hands That toiled when other hands inactive were, That, clasping mine, constrained me oft to prayer For grace to run the way of God’s commands— Are ye now resting, or in realms more fair Still find ye some sweet mode to minister: Dear Mother-hands?

Dear Mother-heart That felt the good what* others found

the ill. That loathed the sin, yet loved the sinner still. And charmed his soul to choose the better part; Farewell! a moment’s fleeting space until God reunites us when it be His willDear Mother-heart. —John Ilendersoix © © © Unworthineia. Love turned upon the secret ways and fled. Pursued by phantoms to his guarded keep, Where laid he safe and desolate to weep. Forlorn as Hope, his heart renewed and bled And the lone anguish smote him with a dread And barren sorrow. Still he heard th deep And threatening cry that drove him from the steep Remoter height where he had dared to tread. His eyes uplifted to the mountain sought That evermore lost form and face that shone Like the fair pomise of an unknown land. He knew himself for evermore alone, For where he had not stood and had not fought There stood the angel with the flaming brand. v —Alfred E. Randall. © © © Fragment It takes two for a kiss, Only one for a s’gh; Twain by twain we marry, One by one we die. Joy is a partnership, Grief weeps alone; Many guests had Cana, Gethsemane had one. —Frederick Lawrence Knowles.