BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1330, 6 January 1912, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. THE BORDERIiAND. When youth is past, and when in life you si ana On youth's last verge, which is life's borderland, • . "'ho past is gone with inem'ry's smiles and tears, The, future looms a mist of failing years. You seek to bind tho years in iron bands, Striving to hold your youth with greedy hands, Aping the follies of a youth that's fled, \ Toying w'ith pleasures that are stale and dead. Fearful of facts and hiding from the truth, Hoping that youth will bring yon back your youth; Dreaming, yet knowing that the dreams are vain, . That a, young love will make ono young I again. . And should love come, von must hold it fast, For it may be the last, tho very last, ' And you can't afford delayiug. And timo speeds on, you must take your • .fill Of the fires of youth that are burning still, E'er tho time is fled, And tho fires are dead, And tho power of love decaying, t —R, M. M., in the "Westminster." IN AVALON. . I, too, have been in Avalon, x And walked its shadowy groves among, , . Aud talked with Beauty, dead and gone, And Love'that lives in'nncient song. ' Yea, I have been in Avalon— 1 Therefore, it is my brow is wan. 1 Pale violet were the belting seas, And violet, too, both peak and vale; Aud unremembering over thpso The heaven like a violet pale; And cliff and mountain o'er the deeD ■ Let down their streams as if asleep. ' No sun I saw; I saw no moon; But twilight seemed forever there, With glimmering starlight all a-swoon, _ About tho blue and quiet air, Whilo all around, from east to west, Tho consecration lay of rest. Here saw I queens of old romance, And shadowy kings of legend pass; And'on their brows and- in their glance ■ I read their dreams as in a glass, And, of my soul remembered yet, Tho dreams have taught me to forget. But in their hearts my heart could read No memory of what had been, No old regret for thought or deed, Or that they once were king and queen; They had forgotten all thereof— Tho hate of earth as well as love. Long time I spake them, dim apart; Long time I talked with queen and king, Whilo through the heaven of mv heart Oblivion trailed a twilight wing, And on my spirit's lifted browWas poured the peace that haunts it now. Yea, I havo been in Avalon, The faery isle mid faery seas; Therefore, it is my face is wan, Jly heart at peaco remembering these; It may not bo, and yet I seem Forever waking from a dream. —Madison Cawlin, in "Smart Set." ' KEATS. Bo little time he took to glimpse the rose 1 To us whose Summers are an endless talo Each year retold in beauties red and .pale, It seems lie scarcely oould have watched uncloso Ono pecailed spray, before the tender woes Of his own v nightin- ' Drew mm* apart to 'some'more" lovely Vale • ' Of deeper leaves and softer flowery shAws. Yet, who of us, for all our .Summertimes, . Hiis caught ono secret of tho budding flower? ■ . Or, in tho garden of enhoneyed rhymes, ■ Made of a moment's bloom a fadeless bower ? Who but this hastenor to fairer climes Half-vexed at being mortal.for an hour! —Rhoda Hero Dunn, in "Scribner's." NIGHT IN A SUBURB. While rain,- with eve in partnership, Descended darkly, drip,, drip, drip, Beyond tho last lone lamp I. passed Walking slowly, whispering sadly, 1 Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast; Somo heavy thought oonstrained each face, And made them blank to time and place. / The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed In mental scenes no longer orbed By ■love's young light. Each countenance i As it slowly, as it sadly Caught tho lamplight's yellow glance, Hela in suspense a misery At things which might, or might not, be. 1 When I retrod that watery way ' ■ Some hours beyond the death of day. Still I found pacing there the twain Just as slowly, just as sadly, Heedless of tho night and rain. One would but wonder who they were, And what wild woo detained' them there. Though thirty years of blur and blot Have flown since I beheld that spot, And saw in curious converse there ' Moving slowly, moving sadly. That mysterious tragic pair. Its olden look may linger onAll but tho couple; they have gone, .Whither? Who knows, indeed! . . . And yet To me, when nights are weird and wet, .Without those comrades there at tryst Creeping slowly, creeping sadly, , That lono lane does not exist. Still they- teem brooding on their pain, And will, while such a lane remain. —Thomas Hardy, in "Harper's."