Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 39, 14 October 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

i*?.-? THE ROSARY. , (A Poem for October.) jp. Not on. the lute, or harp of many strings |||?; Shall all men praise the Master of all p: song. |fe~Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long; ih And skilled must be the laureates of kings. fp-. Silent, 0 lips that utter foolish things! I fi Rest, awkward fingers striking all notes w. wrong! |% ,: V ' How from toil shall issue, white and strong, Music like that God’s chosen poet sings? |V There is one harp that any hand can play, And from its strings what harmonies rise! I;' There is one song that any mouth can say — A song that lingers when all singing dies. y*‘ • When on their heads our Mother’s children P pray, Immortal music charms the grateful skies. —Joyce Kilmer. IRELAND IN THE SPRING. Oh, beautiful is sunny Franco, and beautiful is Spain, If And sweetly grand is Switzerland and Italy’s domain; If: Sure Scotia- fair has scenes as rare as gem v Creation’s ring ; g' But earth has not as fair a spot as Ireland 1 in the Spring. A jewelled Monarch, Dawn walks there along the glowing hills, ■ And sweet as gleams of angel dreams Noon glimmers on the rills; There Evening calls from sylvan halls her N. ' magic choir to sing, if-V And rapture swells from mystic dolls in Ireland in the Spring. • The bending blue with fleece-clouds flecked, throbs to the lark’s glad song: Soft music floats from feathered notes the £r- - K: flowered-starred meads along; From wild hedgerow a fragrant snow drifts on the zephyr’s wing, And roses screen each old borcen in Ireland in the Spring. ;■ A blessed vision, sunset lades along the s smiling sea; pL And twilight brings on purple wings a world of mystery. if.' . * Weird whispers pass along the grass, and round each fairy ring ' Is heard the beat of tiny feet in Ireland in the Spring. SyV ; ■ £■' Soft as the shadow of a dream. Night L; broods along the deep; iy And light as sigh of roses nigh the balmy breezes sleep ; |£ : ; On leaf and flower in mead and bower, like gw pearls upon a string. % r The night-tears flow and gleam and glow •: . in Ireland in the Spring. ■ -Dr. James T. Gallagher, in the Irish World. ’ ~

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 4 naked house, a naked me or, A shivering pool before the door , A garden bare of flowers and fruit And poplars at the garden foot: Such is the place that I live in, Bleak without and hare within. Yet shall your ragged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn; And when the wind from place to place Doth unmoored cloud-galleons chase, Your garden gloom and gleam again, With leaping sun, with glancing rain. Here shall the wizard moon ascend The heavens, in the crimson end Of day’s declining splendor; here The army of the stars appear. The neighbor hollows dry or wet, Spring shall with tender flowers beset; And oft the morning muser sec Larks rising from the broomy lea, And every fairy wheel and thread Of cobweb dew-bodiamonded. When daisies go, shall winter time Silver the simple grass with rime; Autumnal frosts enchant the pool And make the cart-ruts beautiful; And when snow-white the moor expands. How shall your children clap their hands! To make this earth our hermitage, A cheerful and a changeful page, God’s bright and intricate device Of days and seasons doth suffice. —Robert Louis Stevenson, in An Anthology of Modern Verse. V OUR FLAG. Lift up the starry flag; its blue Was caught from heaven’s azure dome; Twas there its twinkling star buds grew, Fling out its folds! ’tis nearer home. When, o’er the cloud-wrack floating high Its silver stars regain the sky. Lift up the flag! ’tis yours and mine, It stands for all we prize on earth; The teemi land of oil and wine, The motherland that gave us birth — The roof that shelters from above The hearth below, the friends we love. Flag of our land! the crimson stain Has never made your cheek to blush ; You never fluttered o’er the slain, They never bore yon who would crush The brave and free. Ne’er may the weak In vain your strong'protection seek! Oh, dear blue flag! the days are ill, We know not what the future holds: But this we knowthat; come what will. We’d rather die beneath your folds Than hear the shout of victory From foes of yours, by land or sea.

Oh, can it be, the men are born > : , Who yet shall see that flag blood red, ..WShall see it riddled, rent and torn, Shall see it wrap the Southern dead ? JjP 1 ' Before the Lord shall bring that day, May we be sleeping ’neath the clay 1 But should it please the Lord of hosts To try us in the fire of war, Should enemies invade our coasts, That standard, gleaming like a star, Shall light the bravest men there are, Whether on land, or yet on sea, To stainless death, or victory. —Very Rev. Dr. M. J. O’Reilly, 0.M., in Poems. V THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE. He crouches, and buries his face on his knees, And hides in the dark of his hair; For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees, Or think of the loneliness there — Of the loss and the loneliness there. The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass, And turn to their coverts for fear; But he sit in the ashes and lets them pass hero the boomerangs sleep with the spear. W ith the nullah, the sling, and the spear. Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaks On the tops of the rocks with the rain, And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes, . Have made him a hunter again— A hunter and fisher again. . For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought; But he dreams of the hunts of yore, And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought With those who will battle no more — Who will go to the battle no more. ft is well that the water which tumbles and fills (foes moaning and moaning along; For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills, And he starts at a wonderful song— At the sound of a wonderful song. And he sees through the rents of the scattering fogs The corroboree warlike and grim, And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs, To watch, like a mourner, for him / Like a mother and mourner for him. Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands, Like a chief to the rest of his race, With the honey-voiced woman who beckons ;W; and stands, .7^ And gleams like a dream in his face t Like a marvellous dream in his face? —Henry Kendall, in Selected Poems.