BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 12

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. ; SONNET TO AN EMPTY BOOM, the mirror gleams: "I saw, but will I tell?" A pin: "She dropped me; pity my despairl" A comb: "I glow—was burnished in liei hair." A rose plucked for her wafts: " Her lips did spell What I will not repeat, who loved to dwell Close to:the little cross that nestled where Sorrow for . Wrong, and Courage 'neath de- - spair In her vrarm, blooc} leapt, leapt, unconquerable.'.' Swallows! rejoice to.huild beneath these eaves Where jasmine clings—the Sun among its (All fluttered, for she pressed them back last • night) ' ' _ rraces-in sweet deceptive light and shade Her head, upon the pillow where'twas laid,— : Her fingers,' on the book where sho did write. —J. Marjoranl, in "The Nation." NOCTURNE. The love of the world it slides away. God send us quietness! The night is 6tiller than the day. And tho' the light be less White stars are gleaming from the deep And purple vast of sky. . The road unto the stars is steep, But dreams may fly. The stillness of the night is kind, ' And Tvhen the stars wax few There Istejs upon the chcek a wind Of sweetness and of dew. ■ Slumber,advances and recedes . 'In delicate caprice, .• _ That life may learn how much it needs . , AM longs for poace. . f The dulcimer of patience hath A music all its own; Outwearing joy and grief and,wrath, A tender monotone To soothe us till o'er sense and sprite ■ The enshadowing hush is drawn, And down-the solemn tides of night . Wo drift, toward dawn. . • —Eatharine Lee Bates, in "The Independent." QUEBEC. - At last, 'tis gone, thnt fevflr of fair days, And silence broods o'er that late Babylon. The iniehty fleet, tho marching hosts have gone, The radiant week becomes a memory. ■ The tired city, returning to its tasks, Takes up once more its' daily duty's round, Fulfilling, godlike, ancient destiny. But is the vanished pageant all a dream, At morning shattered by the cruel return To grim, material round of serf-like tasks Of mimes, who, mirthless, weave some hideous web, . . And, ever weaving, never know, the end? . ' ' •Harken! Thou ancient storied River Crag! , ■ Give answer from thy .'mists of thy great hill! Lifting thy titan shoulders, mantled green, And teach the world—yea, thy poor. children blind.' . , Rend wide this veil of gross, material sleep! Wake Neptune from, Ms foamy, spermy tent, And Pan, to sing, from out his forests green! What is 1 that lesson thoti would'st have us learn? What is that dream which lurketh in! thy ■ : sleep?,' ■What visions 'neath thine eyelids ere the dawn? ;■ .Would'st Thou, old ' Crag, worn of earth's de- ' spairs,. . • '• , . . ' Weary of dark dominion, like that fiend, . Planet o'ershadowing, bereaved of light, Upon thy shoulders, huge, uplift the morn? Meanwhile thou broodest where vast moua- . : tains frown, " ; And thy great river, seaward, ever melts Beyond Orleans for - many a weary mile Into the-lonely 6voning/ purpling bleak; As when; in ages gone, Atlantean gods, Grave titan children of the early world, Pushed here their wondering prows, and gazed in awe. 1 Or,'chance, Jason, with immortal orew,, Moored here the' Grecian ship, fearing thy grim Gates heraclean, to the Hesperidcs. —Wilfred. Campbell, -in Toronto "Globe."