Selected Poetry.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 24, 15 June 1922, Page 24

Selected Poetry.

Seven Years After Long years ago, in far ’l4, The same complaint was sourly sounded : A slacker youth was never seen, The waster and the lout abounded. .. They oiled their hair and scorned the scrum, Looked on at games instead of playing, And England, if her call should come, Was past all hoping for or praying. Then came the call, and men might tell One lamp at least burned clear and brightly: Whichever way the balance fell It was not Youth who counted lightly. Forth went the bounder and the best To claim their country’s cause and back it— A million British graves attest ' How well they stood their elders’ racket. There stands the answer none shall pass, There rests Youth’s plea and vindication; And here the old, unvanquished ass Still lifts his voice in tribulation. 0 Dead, who lie where darkness rules, Judge not too harshly of this presage — Forgive, forgive these aged fools Who neither ran nor read your message ! —Lucio, in the London Nation . Y Whom Spring Loves Best Sometimes I think the creeping caravan Of those too early old know most of Spring— That only those on whom the storms were laid Are glad enough to sing. For Spring is ever the slow child oh grief ; Always she flowers from some wordless pain; Back in the leafless days she dreamed herself Into an April rain. Back in the bare brown days she dreamed herself Into the quivering glory of the hills; Back in the meagre months she wove herself The gold of daffodils. Hers were the sterile months when no bird sang, Hers the unpitying garment of the snow Silent she lay within her tomb,, then woke And taught her feet to go. Quick with the rhythm of the mothers, quick With joy of budding —desire Of wakening streams with the urge Of the trees’ unfailing choir. 5 And so I think it is with these who come With broken steps unto the altar gate Journeyers slow, where still the blood trail falls, Finders of Spring, though late.

To these I thinks she will be kindto these Who like her waited for their flowering; I think she will give back to them the days And ways of earlier Spring. b , I know she loves young lovers, but I think That most she loves these slow, sad journeyers These who have kept through night their faith with her, Groped through blind corridors. Only these know to sing the last delight Whom first the years struck dulnb and then led on To sound of some far music—only these „ Who stumbled to slow dawn. —Mary Siegrist, in New York Times. When Blackthorn Whispers When blackthorn whispers on young boughs, Winter bides sceptic in his house. When daffodils glow under trees, Winter is doubtful at the knees. When cuckoo calls and cuckoo calls, The last rearpost of Winter falls. Now drowsing primroses give way To hyacinth drooped in disarray, Until when hawthorn floods the shires Springtime is lusty with bird-choirs. Hark the birds’ flute, the trees’ bassoon, When redrose bloods the breast of June! But, ah! when Summer’s self is come, Poets and birds are dazed, are dumb. —Louis Golding, in the New Witness. ■ Y Ballymachree The wind blows and the leaves fall, And the gray waves dash and moan'; The light wanes as the rocks call v 1 And I stand on the shore alone. And it’s oh ! to be far where the moon shines free On the rock-strewn road to Ballymachree, With my true love’s hand in my own. The green path and the gray road,! They lead to my mither’s door, Where the light shone, as the turf glowed, And the shadows fled before; And the wailing wind, like a lost Banshee, Went slithering down old Ballymachree, When the light of the day was o’er. ’Tis the braw lad and the stout heart, In the light of the rising moon, While the bats flit and the elves start At the sound of his whistled tune; > And it’s oh! to be there with Owen wae’s me, Where the fairies dance on Ballymachree, And the warlocks mutter and croon. • ~ The wind blows and the stars beam Thro’ the storm cloud’s murk and wrack, And the tide shifts and the waves gleam As they turn on the backward track; / And it’s oh! to fare forth with the rushing sea To the rain-washed slopes of Ballymachree, And the ' braw lad’s welcoming back. 4 Nella Mazard, in the Irish' World. ,