Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 36, 3 September 1924, Page 51

Selected Poetry

1 ONE LOVER He wore her love in secret, pridefully , Not in the street where men were proud and blind; Knowing full well —aye, none so well as he— •..'.- That crowns are not becoming to his kind. .! Humble enough and drab and dull of face, He went unguessed about- the careless town. Thinking of Old World tales . . , the market-place * • • The gossips • „ » and a queen who loved a clown, He would not draw that whispering round his ears, With women wagging tongues in every door And taunts like laughing boys with sticks and jeers: But in his -bewildered heart he wore A secret crown, and played at being king, Believing somehow this incredible thing. David Morton, in the Outlook, New York. W VOYAGE (For Leyland Huckfield) I do not know what death may bring To compensate or woo me; What melodies the winds will sing That blow their cleanness through mo; What unimagined shores may rise Beyond the gusty deep, When I shall sail with eager eyes Across the tides of sleep. But whether there shall gleam a light Across the waters stormy, Somewhere beyond the crouching night You wait, who went before me; And I shall speed with bellied sail By winds of blackness blown, Alert to catch your eager hail, Who found the way alone. —Vincent Starrett, in The Midland. THE EMICRANTS FAREWELL The whins are flourished on the brae, And hawthorns are abloom, And winds blowing softly o'er the fields Are laden with perfume. The yellow bees and butterflies Flit in the bright sunbeams; Down Golin's slopes, among the heath, Dance gaily limpid streams. Come, let us wander to the glen, Down the green fields on the brae, And look our last on childhood scenes Before we go away; For other scenes beyond the seas Will greet our eyes ere long— The wanderlust is ours —the world Is wide and we are young! Ah! other feet will tread these ways . That we have often trod; And other eyes will view these scenes When we're far off abroad; And other hands will pull the nuts That ripen in the glen, For the leaves shall fall full many a time Ere we return again! —Patrick Doherty, in the Irish World.

AWAKENING Early I learned to walk the quiet path Of a secluded garden close whose -gate uiiut out a worid of hate and lust and wrathWhy marvel if my soul be delicate? Sheltered by walls of sweetly scented vine, How should I know them for imprisoning bars All that was beauty ever had been mine, Cool, fragrant morning night of dancing stars. Now you have come, you clambered o'er my wall To tell of life's romance beyond the gate, And of a sudden- beauty seems to pall, • k The beauty I have held inviolate. Then will you go and leave my soul dismayed, Or shall I follow after, unafraid? —Gertrude Callaghan, in the Stratford Monthly. EPITAPH FOR A POET Here lies a spendthrift who believed That only those who spend may keep; Who scattered seeds, yet never grieved Because a stranger came to reap; A failure who might well have risen, Yet, ragged, sang exultantly That all success is but a prison, And only those who fail are free Who took what little life had given, And watch it blaze, and watch it die; Who could not gee a distant heaven Because of dazzling nearer sky:. Who never flinched toll earth had taken The most of him back home again, And the last silences were shaken By songs too lovely for his pen. —Dußose Heyward, in The Bookman. THE CURSE Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows across the sea, And I shall meet a fisherman Out of Capri. And he will say, seeing me, What a strange thing! Like a fish's scale, or a Butterfly's wing. Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows away the fog, And I shall meet a farmer boy Leaping through the bog. And he will say, seeing me, "What a strange thing! Like a peat-ash or a Butterfly's wing." And I shall blow to your house, And, sucked against the pane, See you take your sewing up And lay it down again. And you will say, seeing me, "What a strange thing! Like a plum-petal or a Butterfly's wing." And none at all will know me That knew me well before. But I will settle at the root That climbs about your door. And fishermen and farmers May see me and forget. But I'll be a bitter berry In your brewing yet. Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Vanity Fair.