Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 38, 28 September 1922, Page 24

Selected Poetry

The Poet to His Muse Muse, why have you left me to govern my fancies alone? Disorderly phantoms, they surge round the gate of my ' ' speech • l • - . / .": And break down the barriers of reason and sense I have flown . " ' " To my. stronghold of silence; but there they are forcing - a breach . My stronghold is crumbling, my thoughts are too many and strong. Scenes, faces, scents, sounds—they are whirling and plunging and churning; • i - . ~ The blue of a withered flower, a child's faint cry, The smell of the earth, the creak of a cart-wheel turning, Thin wisps of .distant music that falter and die — That falter and die' ere I weave them and make them a•' song.. '.••"•:•. Muse, why have you left me thus? Come with your old domination And marshal these rebsls— rainbow that jostles the ;,;'• moon, - < The shouting that drowns a poor whisper, the fierce anima- / tion *. That murders my stillness, December entangled with June. , Your voice will turn chaos to order, confusion to peace MoonwhisperJune — shall mingle, and flame, and live; They shall leap from my heart as one, and the strife will cease, . , ■ My soul will find rest in the joy that my song shall giye. —E. Lyndon Fairweather, in the Westminster- Gazette. "'"'•' ''"•, ? The Fish-hawk On the large highway of the awful air that flows Unbounded- between sea and-heaven, while twilight screened . ■ The majestic distances, he moved and had repose; On the huge wind of the Immensity he leaned His steady body in long lapse of flight, and rose Gradual, through broad gyres of ever-climbing rest, —Up the. clear stair of the eternal sky and stood Throned on the summit! Slowly, with his widening breast, Widened around him the enormous Solitude, From the gray rim of ocean to the glowing west. Headlands and capes forlorn of the far coast, the land , • - Rolling her barrens toward the south, he, from his throne Upon the gigantic'wind, beheld: he hung—he fanned , The, abyss for mighty joy, to feel beneath him strown Pale pastures of the sea, with heaven on either hand. The world with all her winds and waters, earth and air, Fields, folds, and moving clouds. The awful and adored Arches and endless aisles of vacancy, the fair - Void of sheer heights and hollows'hailed him as her lord And lover in the highest, to whom all heaven lay bare! Till from that tower of ecstasy, that baffled height,' Stooping, he sank; and slowly on the world's wide way Walked, with great wing on wing, the merciless, proud Might, . ... • ' ' -" v .', [, , - Hunting the huddled and lone reaches for his prey ' Down the dim shoreand faded in the crumbling light.. Slowly the dusk covered the land. Like a great hymn •'■• The sound of moving winds and waters was the sea, Whispered a benediction, and the west grew dim Where . evening lifted her' clear candles quietly .' .;"■' , Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim. *,-',- '—John Hall Wheelock, in Scribner's,

One Night there Came.to Ravenstone ...'■.....%'' , One night there came to Ravenstone v )■■s■ ■ '•'.".- A ragged man with quiet eyes 1 i H \ Desiring nought save bread and cheese, : But he was curiously wise. , * ') ■ '■ ■ * i .'- ' " >■ ■ ■ ■ For now he spake of government . . M ■ And now he spake philosophy. . -.. And now he stayed all dumb because A sudden bird sang in a tree. I think the earth meant more to him .c., , . Far more. to him than met the eye .. And at the dark I saw him j love The stars a long while in the sky. . \ * '. ■* . .y And at the dawning he had gone' -, In tatters on, and I daresay' < ' . A dandelion in his coat •''■'.', . s For a gold button all the .way. -\ ; —A. Newberry Choyce, in the New Witness. /-■,.'*. ■'■■•".■•' / You Ask Me Not to Die You need not fear, You need not dread that day I shall be dying; I shall not leave you, dear. . Others more tender, with more hope than I, / ■ ■-.-, Lift thrush-sweet voices lyrically crying . , That they are soon to die; But.l shall live to see each starry head That I have loved go down to its low bed, And I shall wander through a ruined land . - Where there will be no dear accustomed hand To ease my sorrow! - •- ; . Nay, sweet, to-morrow Your flowerlike beauty may have failed and fled And I shall weep you dead; Then rise to face the grim and hooded years, Each with his vase of tears, .'-.,,,' * - ' That move majestically by, Till the little I had of beauty will be but a withered mask And the little I had of wit will be bitter and dryDear, you do not know what it is that you ask! How can you love me and bid me not to die? —Aline Kilmer, in Harper's. v..-"' * Shelley The sea gave up its dead. The pyre Set the ethereal spirit free. Cleansed by the sacrificial fire, Washed by the sacrificial sea, He soared, to shine as some lone star, Heart-moving, though so high, so far ~" From where we mortals are. On radiant wings he flew to where The challenge of Prometheus rang, Beyond those lucid depths of air Wherein his circling skylark sang Its song—though'less its range than his, / /"• Which, human with Adonais, '■;■- :'.; / Stormed the eternities. • ■_•.' V' ■ "■ • -.■', -;•■>.; V ■ -'--".-.■ '■'.-_.•■ '' V •";.• .'y\ V" They wait. The shades immortal wait, '-.' ' Watching with burning eyes this sphere, ' Where Shelley strove with life, till Fate ' . : ' -/: Cried, Pass I—--and so he passed, ;to share ■ \ The glories of those infinite; ' . ' '•- -His genius a triumphant light . - / ~ t x < Set in the . listening night. ' ■.".•■' - '■:. —C. E. Lawrence, in the London Graphic. ■';,■?■