VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1085, 25 March 1911, Page 9

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

THE GIFT OP LIFE. Lifo is a night all dark and wild, Yet still stars shine; This .moment is a star, my child— Your star and mine. Lifo is a desert dry and drear, Undew-ed, unblest; This hour is an oasis, dear; Here let us rest. Life'is'a sea of windy gray, Cold, fierce, and free: An isle-enchanted is to-day For you and me. Forget night, sea, and desert: take The gift supreme, And, of life's brief relenting, mako A deathless dream. E.N., in the "Westminster Gazette."

CAOCH O'LYNN. Och. here I am wid arms and lags, ."Wid all mo thraveliin's far from home! Wid all me curlin' seas to cross And all me clamorin' world to roam! Wid all me jiggin', port to port ' Carousin 1 , rovin', round the earth — But wanst the thing's been said and done, What's all me blind philanderin' worth? For here' lie 3 little Caoch O'Lynn, Who's niver fared from bed nor house; IWid icrooked leg and twisted spine, As chirpy as a gracklc-grouse! He tells,mo, av the thrips he takes; The landin' parties Wanst he led, ■ : The foreign ports so spiced and fine. Betwixt the spindles av'his bed! He. tells me as Tangier and Fez, Av Cartagena, Suakim, 'And all the flashin', lashin' seas That iver wait and wave for him! From Chiny round to Spanish Main • 'He sings and- th'ravcls—m his mird--1 A King.av Dreams who's clean forgot' .. The crooked back he's left behind! ' —Arthur Stringer in "Everybody's."

BEFORE SLEEP. O child of weening, hero's tho O child of struggle, rest thee now. let pcaco come nestle on thy brow. Put out the light— Nor back into tho battle hark. Now in thy room at evenings' goal ■Put out the light. And in thy soul Put out the dark. —Agnes Lee, in "The Border of the Lake."