VERSES NEW AND OLD.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 9

VERSES NEW AND OLD.

THE PICTURE-PUZZLE. Tho parable of a lonely little child, A dreamer, looking through the forms of things, Who sees the beauty lurking in the base, And glory in the common things of life; Forgets his hunger, following with liis eye The craggy.path that, skirts a dizzy edge And precipices of the homely loaf, And in his porridgo plans a fairy world. A picture-puzzlo had this child in- gift Disjointed for his hands to make again. And ho, not seeing ttte purpose- of tho game, Breamed deeply on the fragments, piece by piece. Nor sought at all to make the picture whole. And here ho saw a. lawn, and here a sunset, And hero a grovo subaqueous gleaming green, And here a cavo's mouth wliere a dragon dwelt, And stony hills, and pools whero lions drank, And here a roe soaring from gloomy valleys, And hero a twilight aisle of forest old, And here an Ariel in a dazzling spray Of broken light, hovering on a lily; And all the scones were washed with shimmering lights Of dreamland, and the old unreal world. Then, as he dreamed, came one and chid the child, And took the pieces up, fiddling and poring, And taught him how to make the picture out. So in a moment fled his vision fair,. And in their place, lo! a ridiculous garden, A stiff tree—such a tree as merchants feign Grew on round pedestals in Noah his ark— A square of bilious grass, a gaudy bird, Two vile automata, ono inalo, one female, ■■ "With wooden gestures pointing beauties out, And in a lurid sky four bursting pillows Floating as clouds, and more impossible stuff So came he from his dreamworld into this. —Arnold Wall, in "New Poems." HOMAGE. Not roses, not the face of any flowerNot any fine-spun charm of any hourNo' furious fugues of extreme sunset-tones Blown from the beetling Alps across our plains,— Nor silver hymns of stars upon their thrones,— Nor hest of auy Beauty queen that reigns — Not any sight or sound that inovoth me,,— The thunders or the scents of any sea — Nor summer pomp of any leafy place,— Can break or bow tho empire of your face. —Arnold Wall, in "N 7 9w Poems." ■ FAREWELL TO TOWN. Now with grey hair begins "defeat, Our sap is running downward;. So turn we from, the troubled street And look no longer townward. O'er yonder crowd, from roof and, mart, A hundred clocks are striking The hour for-us, who played a part , That was not to their &ng. And this is wisdom—not {a carp - Where waste of breath grows wordy; For if you harp too long, your harp Becomes a hurdy-gurdy. For weary tongue and laboured head That fail to gain their guerdon, ' " Farewell "—wlien once the word is saidMakes light the lifted burden. Farewell! Far harder was the word To beg what men deny us. We've harped our best, and some have heard And others have passed by us. Leave strumming at the doors of inns For dupes to share with sharpers; There, seek they minstrels for their dns, They'll never lack for harpers. So take the hint; the hands of Time Are pointing, not unkindly, To hills where motors cannot climb, Nor herds of hogs rush blindly: To where, perchance, by paths ill-laid, With hoofs and cart-ruts dinted, Some hamlet lies too poor for trade,' Where scorchers never sprinted: Where, nesting lone, a wind-vane stands ■■High on 'a time-worn steeple, . ' ' And blesses with its circling hands A still untravelled people. •There let's away, while blood runs warm, Before the heart's beat weakens, And roam again with sun and storm Along the windy beacons; And watch by wood and field and coast, While flying autumn yellows, The starling gather up his host, The swallow call his fellows. v No need is now for looking back:' If any wish to find us, They too can follow in our track n The .road we leave behind us. Or if they liefer'.would. forget, 'Tis easy to ignore us: Farther and farther from them yet The road that lies before us. —Laurence Housman in the " Westminster Gazette."