Verse Old and New.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 23, 7 December 1910, Page 71

Verse Old and New.

A Futile Farewell. /TX Y pettieoat, my petticoat ill That lieth demurely there, With all thy frilled exuberance j Cascading o’er a chair. Fret not to drape thy mistress’ form At this year’s ball or route, For fashion’s fiat has gone forth And petticoats are “ out.” When I assume the .mermaid garb, That modish law decrees, (That snugly hugs the human hip And clings below the knees). Thou find'st thyself, my petticoat, In much the same sad ease As manuscript sent back by mail — “ Refused for lack of space.” Thou near and dear from early years, I cannot- bear - to see My wardrobe or my walk in life Closed in, despoiled of thee. Thou art a primal female fact. The symbol of the sex; The dateless, voteless government To which men bow their necks. They tempted me, my petticoat, For fashion’s power is strong, But I’d catch cold, I know’ I would, And too much cling is wrong. Who said that I had given thee upT Who said thou wert displaced? Nay, with remorseful tenderness I bind thee round my waist! —Katherine Perry. ® ® ® The Orgy on Parnassus. LINES WRITTEN IN MY COPY OF TENNYSON. You phrase-tormenting fantastic chorus, IWith strangest words at your beck and call;

Who tumble your thoughts in a heap before us:— Here was a bard shall outlast you all. You prance on language, you force, you strain it, You rack and you rive it, you twist it and maul. Form, you abhor it, and taste, you disdain it, — And here was a bard shall outlast vou all. -« Prosody gasps in your tortured numbers, Your metres that writhe, your rhythms that sprawl; And you make him turn in his marble slumbers, The golden-tongued, who outsings you all. Think you ’tis thus, in uncouth contortion, That Song lives throned above thrones that fall? Her handmaids are order and just proportion, And measures and grace, that survive you all. Are these and their kin proscribed and banished. Serenely the exiles await recall, To-morrow return, and find you vanished, You and vour antics and airs and all. You may flout convention and scout tradition, With courage as great as your art is email, Where the kings of mind, with august submission, Have bowed to the laws that outlast us all; — But brief is the life of'your mannered pages; Your jargon, your attitudes, soon they pall; Your posture before the scornful ages, And here was a voice shall outlive you all.

For in vain is the praise of discord sounded, Under the Muse’s mountain wall. With ritual old she is there surrounded; Her great decorum rebukes you all. Her hill is not taken by storm) or leaguer; The cliffs are sheer as the peaks are tall. * She foils in the clefts a pursuit too eager, And breathlessly followed eludes you all. She is won as a bride, with reverent wooing; Not haled bv the hair, a captor’s thrall: Such barbarous love is its own undoing; And here was a bard shall outlast you all. —William Watson. B ® ® Falls of the Willamette. Here wheels the thunder-breathing steed, As if in dread to stay and heed A grander pageant than his own; Wild waters whirl in cresting spray, Fail- as the fragrant wreaths of May. And loud with laughter, song and moan. Yonder embattled firs around Chant high above, in martial sound. The peans of the marching years; And here a dark, historic cliff, Writ o’er with many a hieroglyph. Echoes and answers, leans and hears. And lop Within the surge and roar, Scarfed with a rainbow evermore. The pallid priestess of the flood, Swinging her senser to and fro, As swift suns wheel and soft moons glow Aloof, through lapsing time has stood. The tented and the tawny bands IVhose eamp-smoke curled along these sands And climbed and crowned the rocky shore, To murmurless deep seas and pale Have passed, with grey and slanting sail, Forgetful of the spear and oar. So now, beside this stormy gate. Pilgrims of brighter visage wait. To rest in turn beneath the sod: —

Yea shall this melody be rolled For aye these voices manifold The echo of a changeless God| —Samuel L. Simpson. © © © Cursed. '' 1 once was in love with a peach of a girl— Kind that the story-books tell you ' . about— / - '. My heart was a furnace, my head was a whirl, . " Oh, 1 was a lover beyond any doubt! I pleaded my cause, and she listened awhile, ) Then laughed at my passion and jeered every vow, • I swore 1 would die in a tragical style. And 1 didn't, and so—l’m over it now. And Once 1 saved up like a thrifty old soul, Preparing myself for the rainiest day, Until I had gathered together a roll That I couldn’t carry —I needed a dray. Yes, 1 was full wealthy, I dreamed it would last —■ A hope which my destiny wouldn’t allow; I look with a sigh at the wreck of my past, For once I was flush—but Pin over it now ! Time heals all our wounus, as it dims all our joys, I’ve loved and I've worked in the ■sweat of my brow: I used to go out for a time with the boys— Oh, I was a sport—but I'm over it* now! I sit in fite evening of life and look back On the furrows of life I was anxious to plough. And only one thing I can feel that I lack Ah, onee I was young —but I'm over it now! That’s all in my life I would care to call back— The youth that is fled—but I'm over it now !