Verse Old and New.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue 12, 18 September 1912, Page 71

Verse Old and New.

The Pear Tree. - HEN Winter, like some evil / / I dream IljL That cheerful morning puts V to flight, Gives place to Spring's divine delight. When hedgerows Mossom; jewel-bright, And city ways less dreary seem. The fairy child of sun and rain, Aly neighbour’s pear-tree, flowers again. His plot is not so fair a thing As country gardens newly green, Where winds are fresh and skies are clean. There, like some gay apparelled queen, In broidered kirtle walks the Spring; But dust and smoke have soiled her gown And dimmed her beauty here in town. Yet so the tree is glorified. Most gracious for the grimy wall Whereupon the fragile petals fall. And rows of houses, grim and fall, That shade the garden’s farther side, — More beautiful for growing here Where even Spring is almost drear. Ethereal in the dawning light, A sun-kissed cloud in glow of day, All rosy in the last ray When twilight spreads her mantle And like an angel tall and white, With murmurous wings ami shining ha i r. By night the tree vigil there. -Dorothy I. Little. •3 ,® ® London TJnvisited. London! 1 have not heard your thundering voice, ftave in my dreams. The magic of your name, Your wonder and your fame,

Your glory and your shame, ”* I have not known, Save as the winds and hurricanes have •blown Rumours of your wild passion to our shore. When will my heart beat with your iron heart? When will my pulses quicken and rejoice With your strange music, stranger than all art? You are a monster shell that holds the Of the wild sea of life. So loudly rings the strife That even across the wastes I hear you sing, Faint as a murmur of a robin's wing Above me on a silver morn of spring. I hear you as a sick man hears a life In a far street. Ami the faint marching of ten thousand feet. He cannot see the pageant in the sun. ’The flashing of sword and gun: Only the echo of the loud parade Comes to his window where he dreams, almost afraid. London, you are the heart of the wide world. Wrapped in gray mist, How you must shine at night, an amethyst Whose fiery beams reach through the terrible dark And flash to every corner of the earth! You are a woman, with Time's awful mark Upon your brow. And you are foul—and clean! Ton are a harlot —and a holy queen; jTou are the terror and the joy of life; A desperate mistress —and a patient wife. O London, you are false—and you are true; Evil or good, I am in love with yoifc! —Charles Hanson Towne.

The Knight in Disguise. CONCERNING O. REN RY (SIDNEY C. PORTER). “He could not forget that he was a Sidney.” Is this -Sir Philip ,Sidney, this loud clown, The. darling of the glad and gaping town ? This is that dubious hero of the press Whose slangy tongue ami insolent address W ere spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon lhe man with yellow journals round him strewn. We laughed ami dozed, then roused ami read again Ami vowed O. Henry funniest of men. He always worked a triple-hinged surprise To end the scene and make one rub bis He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer. He comes with megaphone and specious cheer. His troup, too fat or short or long or lean, Step from the pages of the magazine With slapstick or sombrero or with cane: The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain. They overact each part. Rut at the height Of revel and absurdity's delight The masks fall off for one queer instant there And show real faces: faces full of care And desperate longing; love that's hot or cohl: And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold. The masks go .back. 'Tis one more joke. .Laugh on! The goodly grown-up company is gone. No doubt had he occasion io address The briliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess, - He would have wrought for them the best he knew Ami led more loftily his actor-crew. How’ coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art—

Slave-scholar, who misquoted—from the heart! i So when he slapped his back with friendly roar Esop awaited him. without the door. Esop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh \\ ith little tales of fox and dog and calf. And. be it said, ‘mid these his pranks so odd, With something nigh to chivalry he trod. Ami oft the drear ami driven would defend— The little shop-girl's knight, unto the end. Yea; lie had passed, ere wo could understand The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand. Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip’s sword was drawn With valiant cut ami thrnst, ami he was —Nicholas Vachcl Lindsay. To What—End? Out of these dreams of good ami evil, dense With hopes grown half despairs, despairs that trace Furrows for h<»]M*, 1 wake sometimes ami face The darkness of our final nescience: Then all earth's dancing pageants fall Her flowers ami forests ami assuaging streams; All man’s philosophies ami golden dreams— The veil he wraps about the face of •clay — Dissolve. Ami there remains eternal la< k Of any comfort; for those questioning-', Whose stubborn challenge still uncluallenged rings— , Nor man nor god gives ever answer backset like stark monoliths as terminals To Life's strong alley, close Death's windy halls. Martin Armstrong.