BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW. THE OLD WEXFORD WOMAN. What do I think of the women that'i in it? Och! littlo enough I If, you offered them flax would they throuble to spin it? Faith! I've a notion before they'd begin it You'd wait for your stuff. Would they pick; wool:from the hedges and ditches? '.._', '.'•■■ We did in lny.day. . But it's easier-plans they-have now to make riches.; ':■ ■ Why would you,-sew when maohines make your stitches? '■ Sure that's what;they eay. 'Tis truth I'd no'hand for makinf a letter, ~ " ■..-• .-. ■- But where was the lack? An' I couldn't read books any more than that setter, , . But for baking,or etitchinj there waen t a better, ■*-. .. Or making a brack. . The black fasts were kept without hesita.tation, •:■.■:■■ 1 tell you no 'li».. ■. • ■ ■ ■'.-'• Arrah! now there's no manner of strength , . in the nation,. ■■'. ■ ■' ', It's sorra a one but needs dispensation, I'or fear they would die. . - 1 IXhe way they are now they're ieeking their pleasure, The days are too slow. They'd look twice at a spade were they hunting for treasure. It's towns that they want and eTeninge of leisure To etreel to and fro. What is it .they're afther there in th« city That takes them away? It's new clothes they'll be buying to make themselves pretty, No valuo at all—an' sure that a a pity, They'll know it some day. iWbat do I think of the race that we're rarin'?' They're not worth my shawl, For it's sooner they're threadbare an nobody carin'. ■ Mine was the days—but there'* no good comparin', God heip us all. —W. M. Letts, ia the "Westminster Gazette." OUT FOB BEAUTY-A POETS QUEST. One Toad leads to London, Ono road runs to' Wales. Jly road leads me seawards To the white dipping sails. One road leads to the river, As it goes singing, low; My road leads to shipping, i Where tho bronzed sailor 3 go. Wids me, lures me, calls me To salt green.tossing sea 'A road without earth's road-dust Is the right road for me. A wet road heaving, shining :. And wild with sea-gulls' cries; A madsalt sea-wind blowing , Tho salt spray in my eyes. My road calls me, leads me ■ West, east, south, and north, Host roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth To add more miles to the tally Of grey miles left behind, In quest of that one beauty God put mo here to find. —John Maseficld. :i SHELLEY'S SKYLAKK. Immortal bird, Whose song God's purest poet lons since And caught within : the golden chains of Time, b' yA i~ \<r f-, .-■ Our captive for* all timolH v,A>? ~-.-•, 0 tender tones, ' ... ' That none who; hearing, ever can forget, ■ Eren when'the city's thunder crashes and groans, : ■'■ • 'And the wood's whisper moansHow wondoiful that thou are with us yet! High on the Hills of Song thy song is sot Within the very blue where first thy voice Made his young heart rejoico; And from empyrean heights forever shall fall ■ Thy silvered madrigal, Drenching the world with thine enraptured stream. Thy heavenly dream, Cleansing us as in fires angelical, Sweeping us to the mountain-peaki of morn .Whero beauty and love were born. Ho loved thee; and we love the* for hii sake; ' 'And sometimes when the heart is like to break With ancient sorrows that wake In the still darkness of some desolate night, ,We hear thee, too, as he once heard thee sing On a white morn of spring; And all our eoul is flooded with the light i' Thy melody, and thine alone, can bring. We hear thee—yes; but only through his Bong! Our ears were empty of thy fluted trills Until he snatched thee from thy splendid hills, : 'And gave the wonder of thy joy to ns, O'bird miraculous! Wβ hear thee now—through him; "~ And wo rejoice that as thy date frowa ' dim, Ho, and not we, first heard that loiely / sound ? Which all his spirit drowned In a wild ecstasy beyond onr ken. And if thy v.oice now fills heaven's leafiest glon, "': Singing again, Flinging its silver cataract of bliss t Down many a sheer abyss, . * Be glad, 0 bird, that when thou earnest here, Thy song fell on his ear And ho was thy divine interpreter! —Charles Hanson Town*. V WHERE THE GANGPLANK WAS. There's running sea beneath her ports And the swirl of the scummed dock foam, f And across—a rod by tho gangway chains— i Where the midship hawser slacks and strains And the bollards rock—is home. It*3 cleared and out by the black-mouthed /' forts, . I Where the flood-tide lips her Bide, As the channel deepens calm and green And the western marshes sway between; Where the gangplank was—'tis wide! At sea, when tho gray wind brings the night, ■ And the sea fires spray and flare In tho keel-thrown waves of spark-bit foam, ~,ii. Oh ifs weary leagues o ersidc to home And the lights on the Cooper pier. * Do you hear, while the great sea runs in ■ Wilito , it •! And the wind wakes up tho miles, The son" of tho dark-faced stevedores, (Now high, now low, as the truck-wheel And tho'low-tido round the piles? Still nights, when the log line dips and trails In a still, star-silvered eea— And the north star far astern and past, And Vega over the aftermast, And—the faces back on the quay! Hi"h seas, outside tho oft'-shor* gales. When the seldom ships pass near, jit comes in the swing of a lantern lon«, fOr a schooner's hail thro her megaphone ;/ That sounds like a voice down there. ' Whero tho gangplank was-th« thriceturned years Are broad as the nnbridged sea. Ifs the wind alone, in tho slackened shroud, , That ever says your name aloud, And talks to the heart o' me! Where the gangplank was—remembered tears— Ifs the stars alono at sea— Tho ones that hang in the old south skies— Tho ones as steady as your eyesTbat givo you back to ine! —Kate D. M. Simons.