AN EPITAPH

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1921, Page 13

AN EPITAPH

w (From the French!) In beauty she was like that statue cold That Michelangelo made and christened “Night” — oil’ll find -it in its marble slumbers laid Amid a chapel’s dim, religious light. And was she good? Yes, if ’twas good of her To scatter money idly in the city, caring, and not even thanked by God Who saw her heart and found therein no pity. Aon say she prayed? Ah, yes, if prayer means A studied attitude, and now and then a sigh From painted lips, and a self-conscious pose With those fine eyes uplifted to the sky. ■ ,/ . ’ And did she love? Ah, no! her foolish pride So filled her soul that she had love for none; She lived and moved and breathed for herself, And now, poor butterfly ! her course is run. She is no more. But who can' say she lived? I never saw a statue half so dead. But lo ! from her cold hands has fallen now ■ The book of life in which she never read. . — J.K.