Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 2, 14 January 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

THE CRISIS ". (For the N.Z. Tablet.) ' Midnight; sickles of candle-light Flicking the dim wall; Soft weeping, and over all The dread hush of suspense- > Faces-in the —white and tense Hoping, despairing, watching Death's cold eclipse Chilling the pale brow Sealing the drawn lipsDulling the wide eyes Dim-unseeing now, ,".■•■.. For Life, fleeting as a spent flame, Wings to the great Giver whence it came. Stillness! and a swift fear! 0 God! he is here! 1 feel the icy imminence of doom Fraught with this voice—Thou too must pass this room. Harold Gallagher. Nelson. COURAGE 'Say not in scornful tones, we are weak, Though we are only women, we are strong. For man, the field of valor and the sword For us, the hearthstone and the cradle song! Have we not had our share of trials, and tears, And all. the sorrows that the world has known? In those dim paths trod by our weary feet The seeds of courage and of life were sown ! Ever with courage by the Man we.stand. What is his gain is ours — loss our loss. Unseen, unsung, but still courageously Down through the ages we shall bear our cross! ■-■'•, I ask: Does it not take courage to go Into the.depths—out of the depths again? Say not in scornful tones that we are weak — We are the mothers of the sons of men! —Catherine Elizabeth Hanson in the Irish .- World. «? DESERT DUSK ft Isled here a, moment from the rising swell Of ny§ht that brim's these canyons like a sea, I watch the desert's brazen savagery Levelled like lands that mighty waters quell. Stern is this touch, yet merciful its spell, - Which can- so soothe the wind-tormented sands, And make a temple of these outcast lands, Where for a night the peace of God may dwell. , Vain were a Noah! Yet this flood foreshows '■• End of a life through deserts come to age; The closing down of eyes that vainly weep; .That gracious respite which the spirit knows, ; Summoned from passion's tyranny and rage '•: To taste the larger dignity of sleep. ( —William Foster Elliott in the Lyric West

O WORLq, BE NOBLER 0 World, be nobler, for ber sake! If she 'but knew thee what .thou art, What wrongs are Iborne, what deeds are done In thee beneath thy daily sun, Know'st thou 'not that her tender heart For pain and very shame would break? 0 World, be nobler for her sake! —Laurence Binyon in An Anthology of Modern Verse. AT NIGHT Home, home from the horizon far and clear, Hither the soft wings sweep; Flocks of the memories of the day draw near * The dovecote doors of sleep. OH, which are they that come through sweetest "light Of all these homing birds? Which the swiftest and the straightest fight? Your words to me, your words! —Alice Meynell in an Anthology of Modern Verse. K OUR LONGER LIFE Some little creatures have so short a life .That they are are orphans bornbut why should we Be prouder of a life that gives more time To think of death through all eternity? Time bears us off, as lightly as the wind Lifts up the smoke and away; And all we know is that a longer life Gives but more time to think of our decay. \ We live till Beauty fails, and Passion dies, And Sleep our one desire in every breath; And! in that strong desire our old love, Life, Gives place to that new love whose name is Death. —W. F. Davies in the Nation and the Athenaeum. ■ : THE TENT SPEAKS I am the symbol of the soul of the circus— For if the soul of the circus is anything, It is the soul of the gypsy. I. am the charm of the Out-of-Doors — The charm of blue sky; of fleecy white clouds, Of storm-clouds; of wind, of rain; Of crimson and golden sunsets, Of glorious sunrises; Of dew in Summer and of frost in Autumn; Of sun and moon and stars The burning, pulsing, throbbing stars— . The red and silver and blue and golden stars; I am also the symbol of happiness, , For I am the psychology of the laughing, Shoving, pushing, joyous, care-free crowd: To me human nature is an open book; Wherever I go, men, women and children, Of all castes and colors, - Keep me company; Thus it isthat I get out of life Much more than I could possibly derive

If I were the palace of a king, Or the office, of a business man, Or a store, or a hotel, . Or any other kinds of a building. ... ' ■Sam' J. Banks in the Connecticut Standard. ' " \ ; ; AUTUMN . Great lady of the darkening skies, Great lady of the lustrous eyes, '-■['■■■ Stay, stay your hasty tread, And lowly bend your golden head. ' Ah! hush that rending moan ' - '■ Far wandering that turns to stone, And lead, my loves and every thought And all the visions I have brought; <. Ah, hush that bodeful sound ! Is it of sky or hollow ground ? That we together in good faith May talk of the great god Death. In charnel-house of little breath • Prisoners both are we to death, f And over all the freezing earth Is not a sign of ancient mirth. Here 'mong the ashes of the year, In dregs of life, sorrow and no tear, Memory on our minds doth lie So. intricate the old forget to die. Great spirit of many moods, Art thou god or devil of these woods? Sometimes a spectre vast and gray, Sombre, blotting out the light of day, And then a lightsome fairy here and there, Making mock of grovelling despair; And then a being of such gracious semblance, As turns to tears the anguish of remembrance Ah, enchantress weaving spells, What is it that thy riddle tells? s When sunset reddens the lofty trees, And the birds are singiirg high jubilees, ' And creeping night the woods doth darken, Deep down in my heart I wait and hearken, And in my.heart is naught 'neath the arching sky Save a reedy, tremulous, timorous cry. When Death makes of the young its capture, Innocence can call it still a rapture; Not so the old; from their strengthless eyes, Has faded long the fire of paradise. They see the. bareness of the ended year, The ended day, the sunken sun and a fear— Dust to dust is all, and earth to earth Spite of love, spite of hope, and wild bird's mirth; Great enchantress weaving spells, '•'•'.' Is this all thy riddle tells ? Hope's candle' lights man's trembling way, ' No more. There is no more to say, Save that the sick man's latest sigh, /■ . Blows out that candle'standing nigh, Alas for freedom, and oh, our frailty! Be illusion mine and away reality, '•-.>'• When past is the surges thunderous roar, And we list to the far recurrent lapse, . Of the ebbing tide on the desolate shore, , . • Oomes, sweet as hope, the wordperhaps ' In all the creeds and lexicons of sorrow, • ' *{ Sleeps sweet with hope, the to-morrow, i —John Butler Yeats iii the Literary Digest'