POETRY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 353, 12 February 1903, Page 2

POETRY

SUNBIBE. Into my dreams there came a bird-call clearWithin a June wood I had pitched my tent, And I arose and thence adoring went To watch the beauty of the day-spring near, I stood upon a cliff that gray and sheer Rose out of shadow; tints divinely blent, Made faery color of the firmament, Outspreading far in many a cloud-locked mere. I aaw the face of Silence, passing fair, God's angel of the morning who unban The Rates of Day, while all the train of / stars With dimming tapers vanished; and the air Held dewdrop sparkles, golden-silvery gleams. Flashing their welcome to the sun's first beams. —lngsah Cbocett. JOHN, PE EB, BOBEBT AND PAUL. John and P ,ter and Bobert and Paul God in Huj wisdom created them all. Oat of earth's elements mingled with flame, Oat of Ufa's compounds of glory and shame, Fashioned and shaped by no will of their own,

And helplessly into life's history thrown. £ ;m by the law that compels men to be, Born to conditions they could not foresee. John and Peter and Robert and Paul— God in His wisdom created them all. John was the head and heart of his state— Was trusted and honored, was noble and great; Peter was made 'neath life's burdens to groan, And never once dreamed that his soul was his own. Bobert great glory and honor received For zealously preaching what people believed; While Paul of the pleasures of sin took his fill, And gave up bis life to the service of ill. It chanced that these men in their passing away From earth and its conflicts, all died the same day. John was mourned through the length and breadth of the land; Peter fell 'neath the lash of a merciless hand. ' Bobert died with the praise of the Lord on his tongue, While Peter was convicted of murder and hung. God in His wisdom created them all. John and Peter and Bobert and Paul.