BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1384, 9 March 1912, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. THE SLAVE, I BOOKS AND BEADING. Thus, naked, frightful, gaunt with loathsomo feed, A Slave—my body still retains tho scars— I was born free, where, rising toward tho stars, Old honeyed Hybla lifts his mountain hood, Alas, I' left tho happy islo! 0 friend, If ever, following tuo swans' Spring flight, Your galley's courso toward Syracuse shall tend. Seek her who was my love and 'my delight. Is it ordained that I shall ever seo Her sombre violet eyes, her hearenly smile, ■ • ■ . Caught from the eky when all the gods wero young? Be mercilul. Go! seek Clcaristo for me, And tell her to await mo yet a whileKnow her you will, for she is always sad. —John S. ICeed. TO CORISANDE. Sly dear, the breath of summer fans A, tired earth with quickening strongth. Though you are far my longing spans Tho distance, reaching you at length. ■ You bid me wait—ah! no indeed, When youth is here with silver wings, Can I woo Patience when I need, Hope, and a, thousand other things? Life lies—a garden, Corisande, With Patience sitting at the gates; Youth lifts tho latch with eager hand, For his is not tho meed that waits. And where our love's own flower grows Far from a cold world's prying eye, There every kiss becomes a rose In this our hidden sanctuary. When tired with work, tho glare and heat, The disappointment of the fight, We . both can enter our retreat, Our blessed garden of delight. Tho sun sets quickly, Corisande; Swiftly 'tis wreathed in clouds of pain. The gates may shut, youth drop his wand And lose it in tho driring rain. Poor empty garden choked with weeds That might havo been a Paradiso, 80 vory small aro lovers' needs When looking in each other's ey«a. Ago etammers only where youth sings,' . Ah, let us love while yet we may; Wo know not what to-morrow brings; I care not so you yiold to-day. —Sybil Grant, i

. DEATH'S HOLIDAY. He came upon the coasts of God »t dawn's young smiling, Across tho mora and down the mists, to where they waiting lay, The children, lent him at his prayer; and with strange wiling He laughed to them and sung to them, and-Jed them far nwuy: Led. them to Heaven's pleasance-place adown Life's river— The river now was in the cliffs, and placid as the skyTo scenes so fair that waters there and winds paused ever. !And, Time, with many a wistful look, would always dally by. . And thither came my Lord of Death, a mad crew leading Of dimpled rascals pink and sleek, with limpid, searching eyes. , Ko whit afraid: the shyest one, with two hands pleading, Anon in one great arm is throned, and straight the world defies. They never knew a gentler jnido. A brown wren nesting Forsook her eggs to follow : himj a butterfly'sjgayl plumes Ei3 touch_ unruffled leaves; and violets that questing ' .Young winds despoil, his palms caress, biit leave the ripo peTfumes. One care alone he cannot hide, one yra.ua wish carries— . That not ti childish heart may know a doubting or a fear, And kindly tongue and touch so winningly he marries That still tho happiest elf ie he who oftenest presses near. All day the 'wildering revels mn; and Heaven-folk tell it That since that day, at twilight's pause, ero nightingales begin, The vale to tinkling laughter thrills, and lone cliffs swell it, And glass pools crinkle into emiles whore yet no wind has been. But oomo3 at last a sound of bells; and Heavenward slowly He leads them till the Children's Gate shines near at hand, and then Waves them farewell; .but watching stands, as Hometown wholly Gathers them in: then turns to earth, and Death is Death again. —William Hetvey Woods. IMMORTAL. Death cannot keep me buried; when the dry Earth holds me close, a rose bush at my head, I shall not be contont for long to Ho Inactive in that dark and narrow bed. i For soon, the sweet and restless things of life Shall stir me, pierce me, make me once again Part of the vigour and the freshening strife I?ni?ed by tho sunlight and the healing rain. lind when at length, the pregnant seasons pass, ( Endowed with warm and splendid liberty, ■I shall go forth in rich and sturdy grass; Shall scent the clover, call the thirsting bee. 'And I shall be the urge that bursts the pod. the singing sap within the tree, That, sots the leaves atremble as with God- ■ Tho rose shall bloom more proudlybearing mo. All things shall feel and drink me unawar"s; The bee that sucks, tho tender green that thrives, The ant, tho forest—all that builds and ' dares . —And I shall live riot one but countless lives. —Louis TJnterrneycT.