Selected Peotry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 41, 18 October 1923, Page 28

Selected Peotry

On a Friend Who Died upon the Seashore

Quiet he lived, and quietly died; Nor, like the unwilling tide, Did once complain or strive To stay one brief hour more alive. But as a summer wave

Serenely for a while

Will,lift a crest to the sun, Then- sink again, so he

Back to the bright heavens gave An answering smile;

Then quietly, having -run

His course, bowed down his head, And sank unmurmuringly,

Sank back into the sea,

The silent, the unfathomable sea Of all the happy dead. —J. D. C. Pellow, in the London Mercury.

The Song of Elder Jones

Old Isaac Jones, he couldn't sing, not worth a tinker's dam;

And yet he joined in ev'rything ,and sang "Just As I Am" As loud as anybody there, as far as I could see, Poured forth his soul upon the air, but always off the key.

Right after we had "let-us-prayed" and passed the plate around,

Before the minister essayed theology profound,

He'd say, "We'll join in singing Hymn Nine-hundred-ninety-two' ;

Then Elder, Jones braced ev'ry limb, prepared to see it through.

The preacher read a verse aloud; the organ played a bar;

The choir arose serene and proud, as church choirs always are -

It sang with care the opening note, or maybe, three or four —

Then burst from out the Elder's throat that celebrated roar.

It shook the rafters, shook the pews; it shook the countryside; The Elder longed to spread the news of glory far and wide. His heart was full of joy to-day, of joy he longed to shout. And singing was the only way he had to let it out.

Courageously the choir withstood* old Elder Jones' attack

And tried to keep, the best it could, the tune upon the • _ track.

But, as the three sopranos glad gave forth their highest E,

Then Jones let loose with all he had and countered with a B.

A free-for-all, when that was done, was all there was to do; The choir sang one tune, Isaac one, the congregation two. I often wondered which the more was heard around the thrones - The E of those sopranos or the B of Elder Jones. But I'm a little older now, as old as he was then, And know, or think I know, just how the Lord arranges men. He judges singing, judges what we are from day to day, ' By whether we're sincere or not in all we do and say.

The Elder sang — had to sing—his soul was full of grace; And that's what counts in ev'rything, in church or any

: *V'i place.. ■■.'■; '...-.. -M.f.'lC. .V':;-':-The Elder's joy the heavens shook, and not the singer's art: The choir was singing from the book, the Elder from the

heart. i*

—Douglas Malloch.

The Captain

The captain was a silent man Who never said an extra word; He'd watch the sea for quite a span, Nor let himself he heard.

It's queer that such a man as he Should find himself so strange a friend, And be companion of a sea

That talked without an end.

—Milton Raison, in Spindrift;

For a Word How shall you ever know the adoration I spread like samite cloths beneath your feet? • How shall you guess the brooding desolation Learned from your eyes so passionless and sweet? There must be some word like the star that pauses In summer's rose transparency of dusk, Or like the bird-note heard through slumber's gauzes Between the hour of dew, the hour of musk; There must be some one word that is more tender

Than any word my lips have ever learned

Without which I can never, never render

In speech the love your cool sweet love has earned.

You know as none my heart's forlorn distresses, Its passionate tides, its daily tint and glow

Why must there be within obscure recesses This tenderness of love you can not know? —William Alexander Percy, in the Yale Review.

9. Ebb Tide of the Year Do you not see and hear Already is the ebb tide of the year, Though it should seem no more Than a first wave retreating down the shore? "No, no," you say, "for still

Noon empties his hot arrows on the hill; And many are the flowers

And ardent hued to mark the sun bright hours!"

I answer: Though the moon

Flames on the hill, when has night brought such boon Of cooling drink outpoured—

Deep —the oldest vintage ever stored; While the tree cricket plays,

Moving his slender wings of chrysophrase, And searching is the sigh

Of the low wind through leaves grown crisp and dry!

And as for many flowers,

Look —like ladies from their windowed towers, The bloom creeps, ever higher

On foxglove and on evening primrose spire Until the last flower-bell

With kisses tells aloft its world farewell I

No birds in nests: they fare

In flocks afarno mated loves are there. Silver yon stubble fields

Where her swift shuttle the gray weaver wields Red gold, the great orb's sun

Leans yearningly toward earth, day being done. Some beautypast all guards, x \

Each evening will be slipping heavenwards! Summer's old heart is tired,

Beats fitfully, but Time cannot be hired. You will not have it so ?:

Too young! These ageing signs you will not know! More wiseor sad, am I:

So many a year. has bidden me Good-bye!

Edith M. Thomas, in the New York ILerald: