VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1515, 10 August 1912, Page 9

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

■LET'US GO HENCE. Let us go hence!—however dark the way, Let us at. all adventure hasten hence! Too well we know what secret excellence, Eeal and unrealised, brooks no more delay Of who wonld make lovo porfect, and display In life, the spirit's true magnificence. ... Haste!—lest we lose the clear, ambitious sense • i . ■ Of what is ours to gain and to gainsay. Let us go hence, lest dreadfully we die— Die at the core of life where lovo is great, ■■' 1 Where thought is grave, audacious, and serene ... .. -\ . Thitber and henco all vast achievements lie. There where the truth's transcendant virtues wait \ Up tho dark distance, radiant tho' unseen. .... , ''; ■ —George Cabot Lodge.

THE DEAD. Yea, ye shall rest, 0 bo sure that your ■' ■ sleep will endure: Through tho daylight, tho dusk, and the dark, while the-moon-and the sun Rise successive and fail and dio . down • when the journey is done: Yβ shall rest, taking heed of no thing that . shall come or shall go: Ye shall sleep through the thunder nor heed when tho hurricanes blow: When the strong trees are felled and the rocks toppled down from the height: While the mountains dissolve into sand and the valleys upright; Climb stark into mountains again, ye Bhall hear not a sound, Secure in tho sleep that I give in the heart of the ground: ,Till the earth like a mote through tho • spaces falls into the sun, And the work of all things .that havo been is a work that is done. ' —James Stephens. CROWNING.ICING GEORGE. The latest-King in time is. crowned; ■'■■: Hailed by a matchless Empire's lips, Proclaimed to every ocean's bound With salvoes from - a • thousand •ships. The pomps, the plaudits melt away.; ( Like clinging pride,of storied wars ■ They drift,- the dustof yesterday, '■ . ,- A moment 'noath: the steady stars.. On nipples of. unnumbered hills The "lonely beacon-glow expires; .Lost in the downs the desert rills Alone salute the stellar fires..'.. ; .. Hushed is the hamlet,'dim the hall, " The smouldering city masks her eyes; On shadowy shores no sound at all, Save where a wave frets once and dies. Through velvet darkness no foot goes; ■;' The regal'tale, is wholly told.' The sleep is on the wild-wood rose That laps the bones of Kings of old. • ; , —James A. Mackereth; ■ DEATH. I am. afraid to think about my death, When it shall be, -and whether in great • ipairt. ~ ',•..'■'' I shall rise up and fight the air for breath Or calmly wait the bursting,of my.brain. I am ;'nocoward who could seek in fear A folklore.sdlace or■ sweet Indian tales; I know'.: dead-men are deaf and cannot hear. . .:>' ■ ..';■ '. ■ . The, singing 'of a thousand nightingales.

I know dead men are blind and cannot see The friend that shuts in horror their big ■jeyes, ._ . And they' are witless—o, "I'd'rather be " A liviflg mouse than dead as : a man dies. ■ ' .'. ■'' '.;.—James .Elroy Flecker., The.Baby takes;,.to-her,bc,d,at-.night \. A one-eyed rabbit that once- was white; A watch that- came from-a cracker. I think'; ; . And,a. lidloss inkpot that never held ink. And'the secret is'-locked in her tiny breast Of why she loves theso and leaves the Test. And J. give a loving glance as I go To three brass pots on a shelf in a row; To my grandfather's grandfather's lovingcup And a bandy-logged chair I once picked up. ..'■'■ And I can't, for the life of me, make you see ■.--■'; .■■: ■ ■■ i.,,. •■" :. Why just these , 'tilings are a part of me! —J. H. MacNair. VILLAGES. There are long evenings when the hamlets die, '','..' After the pigeons have comb homo to perch. . They die with.'the day's din, and the blue cry . Of swallows'.. stee'pled .on " the ivied church. i Then little lights to watch their death are ■'-'■. lit, ■•■■■■■.• ■. . , . Tapers of) nuns in their high-built abode, And.by tho misty houses lanterns flit, ■ .- Afar, winds leisurely the grey high-road. To listen to their village growing cold, The flowers, that love tho place where they were born, Over" their mournful hearts their petals fold. . i • Then are the lights extinguished, while tho worn Familiar walls perish without a sigh, Easily, as old, simple women die. ;.' —From the French" of Henry Ba'taille.