Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 14, 12 April 1923, Page 28

Selected Poetry

, Three Things Three things filled this day for me, Three common things filled this day; Each had, for me, a word to say; Said it in beauty, and was done: Cows on a hillside all one way, A buttercup tilted seductively, And a lark arguing with the sun. These three things, merely these three, Were enough to cry the world Out of my heart: the buttercup curled Where some gorgeous ruffian plundered; The skylark's dizzy flag unfurled; The placid cows pensively Wondering why they wondered. . —Joseph Auslander, in the New Republic. The Great Blasket: The Sea! The little bay ringed round with broken cliffs Gathers the tideborne weed, And there the islanders come day by day For weed that shall enrich their barren fields. Here, since the cliff-pa*th gaped, Cloven by the winter's wrecking storms, They had gathered to remake the shattered way. We idled as they labored With listless, laughing talk of this and that, When suddenly a seal, Rising and falling on the changing tide, Lifted a dripping face and looked at A .mournful face more sad Than the gray sadness of a moonlit wave. ' We spoke, and in a moment it was gone, And an unpeopled sea Washed up and died in foam upon the shore. Said one: "He's lonely after his brother still." And so we heard the story, A mournful memory of the island, cherished By the old dreaming people And told round the dim fire on winter nights. One twilight of late spring The men had killed a seal out on the beaches And brought it to a sea cave for the skinning, And as they worked red-handed A voice out of the sea called: "Brother!" once. And then "Brother!" again. Then silence, only A wind that .sighed on the unquiet sea. So, standing in~the surf, They saw as now a seal rising and falling On a slow swinging sea. They lifted their red hands, and he was gone, Silently slipping into a silent wave. Robin Flower, in the London Athenaeum, ¥ The Legend of St, Dara Still they tell it in the twilight on the sod of old Kildare— Tell you of another twilight, when young Dara wandered there! .^~ Sweet, blind Dara! She was fairest of the maidens come to bide When the Abbess Brigid tarried, far from courtly pomp and pride. Gentle Dara! Abbess Brigid, loving all that virgin band, Loved her best who bore the impress of the Master's chaseening hand; Sinless Dara not in anger had He dealt to her the stroke! Never whiter soul found shelter in the cell beneath the oak! . -.-- ' ." .• • • / -•' Pleaded oft the tender Abbess for the lifting of the crossHeart of her was sorely burdened with the sense of Dara's loss —

Never once to see the setting of the golden glowing sun!. Never once to see their coming—white stars filling one by • one! - ~f?\ SV ' Not to know the purpled beauty of the stately Irish hills! Nor the green of Irish pastures nor the sheen of Irish rills Loving God as Dara loved Him, how her spirit would rejoice In the beauty He had fashioned! there were tears in Brigid's voice, As beside her sightless sister, 'neath the oak of old Kildare, She awaited in the twilight, convent call to evening prayer. Sudden came an inspiration and the Abbess raised her hand — Touched the down-dropped lids of Dara — a word of soft command! Lo! the waxen curtains lifted, and the eyes of Irish blue Showed as show the April violets through a mist of morning dew. "God be praised! His earth is beauteous" Dara's voice the stillness broke; Never word of gratulation the expectant Abbess spoke— Only watched, the blue eyes roaming from the green of oak and sod To the silvered heavens above them —"Oh, my Mother, great, is God! I have looked upon His wonders, and I thank Him for the sight; Now, I pray thee, loving Mother, give me back my customed night, For this world of yours distracts me! ah! when earthly eyes unclose Fainter far I feel it. Mother! spiritual vision grows!" Brigid's hand, again uplifted, touched the clear, unshrinking eyes— Closed the veiling lids above them, never more on earth to rise! Once again 'twas sweet, blind Dara stood beside her Abbess there Where to-day they tell her story in the twilight of Kildare! —Margaret M. Harvey, in the Irish Catholic.

A Thrush Before Dawn A voice peals in this end of night A phrase of notes resembling stars, Single and spiritual notes of light. What call they at my window-bars? • The South, the past, the day to be, An ancient infelicity. Darkling, deliberate, what sings This wonderful one, alone, at peace? What wilder things than song, what things Sweeter than youth, clearer than Greece, Dearer than Italy, untold Delight, and freshness centuries old? And first-loves, a multitude, The exaltation of their pain; Ancestral childhood long renewed; And midnights of invisible rain; And gardens, gardens, night and day, Gardens and childhood all the way. What Middle Ages passionate, 0 passionate voice ! What distant bells Longed in the hills, what palace state Illyrian! For it speaks, it tells, Without desire, without dismay, Some morrow and some yesterday. All-natural things! But more Whence came This yet remoter mystery? ____ ■• How do these starry notes proclaim A graver still divinity? This hope, this sanctity of fear? 0 innocent throat ! 0 human ear] . '■-■ • —Alice Meynell, in Pcems.