VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1425, 27 April 1912, Page 9

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

80NG AT THE BEINK OF DEATH. Bofore I leap and loso myself below, Give me one 'moment's look beyond the brink. Volumes of fog, vast piles of rolling mists, . ilako war upon each other like tho waves. X hear strong humming as of mighty winds, And shock and crash, as if a myriad ' Of toppling worlds were crushed and ground to dust. 'And Iroin their dissolution, whirling, rise Sharp fumes and strange; and all* the tingling air Beems. full of unseen thorns that prick and burn. My soul is in my hand—l shall not fear. Now shall I test the temper of that sword That I have spent my life to weld and whet. ... . Through ills I dream not.of,' through agony ' And ruin I shall cleavo my fieTy way. The heart, within me bums like glowing ■• - wine; ' And as tho husk of earth slips from my soul,. The thrill of dawning godhood stirs > within. ' t swing my sword, and with a cry. I leap. —Bertha F, Gordon. AT TINTAGEL, Here where the grass is wreathed with fairy rings, There where the crumbling crenellations • rise, I see dim shapes of half-forgotten kings And queens with starry eyes. ffhe shouts of strong, eiultant men I hear, .Tho ring of. harness on the causewaystone, , Jhe clash of arms comes faintly to tho ear, And bugle-horns are blown. iWhat'profits it, the ancient tale oft told :0f love or tournament-or bloody fight? .If Guinevere's deep hair were royal gold, ;j Or Yscult's hands wero white ? Dead, dead are they, and gone with all j their train, :i Dead, dead are they, or haply never % were; fere ha rice the phantoms of the misty > brain • Uf some old. chronicler. !lnd yet the moan of the remembering sea, •' The ancient winds, like pardoners to shrive, Kepeat their names: Ah; no; not they but \ .we, | Have never been alive.; ■ | —Mary Eleanor Kobson. • BACKGROUNDS. t"Xhe play, the play's tho thing!" Lord . Hamlet, 110. i The peopled and illimitable night . ' Hath mightier ghosts than Denmark's, ' and the light That limns the upturned face of Borneo taints half a world of faces in its glow; Arden hath untold lovers hid from sight To Rosalind, and many a willing sprite [Unknown, unsummoned, waits on Pro- ' spero. iff hat else is watching in the dark behind ? ,;Who knows when legions, angel, ghost, . or djinn, Shall break from out tho backgrounds vast that'bind'^"' , -"''~" v '- Our cramped horizon, and b'errun the scene,.— > Dr God Himself crash on us mummers • blind, And play be done, and life, life, life begin! ■ , —William Hervey Woods.

; TH^RET?AI^p,,OP > ,ig; i GHT. Though day bo long and wo another's, though day bo sweet to these our brothers, Yet have we better fate than they. They have the love of many a lover, SVho knows not, neither shall discover, Those : tHing3 which are not with the day: Of them one comes, another goeth On divers ways, whereof nono knoweth If this be wrong and that be right. But we, soon shall we find redeeming, !Wo shall bo well hereafter, dreaming, Dreaming through the ensuing night. —Godfrey Elton, ==.. VIGIL AT ARMS. if was but latefe^tfijtj aichilfl I; came _ Fifst'iipbn fife:— i; ' • • loving spring flowers, gentle, without • blame, Knowing not:strife: IThe world was- old erb; battles bloomed for me; Boyhood was dreams, and swooning minstrelsy; I wandered all alone and wandered free Where dreams are rife. But all at once the silver-crested surjja Ceased to bo cloud, 'And thundered over me; I felt the scourge . And stiilg, and bowed Under the brine, until half-dead, I lay Forespent upon the sand; and from that day, Triumphant-tongucd, the fury of the fray Calls mo aloud. iLet priestly, pardoners still shrive the world. While and aloof; Mine lie the battle-flame, the fear unfurled— The storming hoof; Let me be mingled with a maze of blows; Hard-pressed to live, heart mad, beset with foc=, Dr, lane® in rest, ride down the lists' ; enclose .; To peril's proof. —Benjamin R. C, Low.