Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 35, 7 September 1922, Page 24

Selected Poetry

A Love Song She is like a leaf begun To s enfold her to the sun. ".'."■; Her voice is pushing : buds . Her smile is color breaking; f;.' Touch of her lips is waking. ... And sunshine floods The world when she is speaking. Her eyes are pilgrims seeking A grail, and finding it, Her eyes are altars lit. ( . Her joying and her grieving Are dear past all believing. *-Mary Carolyn vies, in the New York Evening Post. A ■" Old Man Winter Go down the road, and down the road By leafless hedge and willow; And stretch.your bones on the frosty ground With shoes to make a pillow. But it's south, boys, south! » Rim away from old man winter. "0 rain come wet me,~s-un come dry me, Wind o' winter don't come a-nigh me I" It's late to limp by hill and plain In rag 6' coat and breeches; The dogs they chase me out of the road And hunt me down the ditches. But it's south, boys, south! And run from old man winter. "0 rain come wet me, sun come dry me, Sleet winter don't come a-nigh me!" I follow the duck and the mourning dove, I'm headed south for winter; I'll throw my feet on a Dixie street Or lie in. gaol for the winter. And it's south, boys, south! Away from old man winter. "Bain come wet me, sun come dry me. Moonlit snow, 0 don't come a-nigh me!" —Edwin Ford Piper, in The Measure (New York). A The Rosary of My Years Some reckon their ages by years, Some measure their life by art — But some tell their days by the flow of their tears, And their life by the moans of their heart. The dials of earth may show • The length, not the.depth of years, Few or many they come, few or many they go But our time is best measured by fears. *• Ah! not by the silver gray That creep through the sunny hair* , And not by the scenes that we pass on our way And. not by the furrows the finger, of care. On the forehead and face have made — • Not so do we count our years; Not by the sun of the earth; but the shade : Of our soulsand the fall of our tears. For. the young.. are ofttimes old, Though their brow be bright and fair "While their blood beats warm their heart lies cold— ■ • : ; O'er them the springtime, but winter 'is there. .-

And the old ofttimes young-<:.'% •;' Y. ■'."' ■:■_■•■..'■ ;■■ When -their hair is thin and white, ■ And they sing in age : as in youth they sung, ; And they laugh,- for their cross was 'light. But bead by bead I tell* The rosary of my years; i From a cross to a cross they lead—'tis well! And they're blessed with a blessing of tears. ■ Better a day of strife, / . Than a century of sleep;' ' Give me instead of a long stream of life, " The tempest and tears of the deep. A thousand joys may foam ~ '-•■-'■• ■ ■-- On the pillows of all the years; . But never the foam brings the brave back Home, ■,'.'■ It reaches the haven through tears. —Rev. Abram Ryan, in the Irish. World. A.. Reflection Geraniums .* . . .' ' Who ever heard that. Sappho put. Geraniums in her hair? . ?. . ; .. Or thought that Cleopatra brushed \ Her long Greek face against their petals? . Did Beatrice carry them ? Or any bird sigh out his wild-fire heart In passion for them? Yet sparrows, far outnumbering nightingales,. Have -gossiped under their tomato cans, • And lonely spinsters loved them more than cats.. And living girls have felt quite festive, going: Down vulgar streets With such unsubtle gaiety at their belts. —Elizabeth J. Coats worth, in tho Diat •■ ? ,--. The Little Road Did you ever notice a little road That you didn't wonder where it led? Whether —after the cool, green wood— If chanced on the dell where your dream-house stood? beginning dusty and rough, It keeps up the pretence just long enough To tire those who haven't the clue, And leave the adventure—and end—:tb you? Maybe it leaves the highway to follow Up, swooping up like the flight of a swallowTill valley and. town lie dim below, And Time flies far on the winds that blow, There you may find a nook for your dreaming, Seeming, Just planned for you from the • Edenglow. - So the little road cries tome: "Follow, follow, Maybe you'll find that, your, dreams are hollow,' . Maybe you'll see—but follow,- follow, Come with the faith of. the -homing swallow, . Or, to your death, you will never know."- ' • —Ellen Morrill Mills, in the Lyric West. " ' . A ! i> Bird that Ceased Singing.."-, What proud bird sings in this tall tree; But halts to hear, my foot approach, His very silence a decree . Bidding me hence who dare encroach = On his demesne of melody ? How shall so gross a serf entreat v My lord in high, green state aloof? > Could he but know his silence beat -„:, . About me like a king's reproof, Re would sing swift' and twice as sweet ! ! Louib Golding, in -the Nation- and the Athenaeum. .;