BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1663, 1 February 1913, Page 9

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

VERSES OLD AND NEW.' ;• ' BINGE'S GRAVE. My grief! that they hare laid yon in th« town . Within the moldher of ' its thousand •' ■ wheals. . • ' An<l busy feqt that travel up and down. They had a right to chooso o better bed Far off among the hills where .silence steals . / ' In on the son! with comfort-bringing ■tread; Tho curlew /would have keened for you . all day, Tho wind across the heather ' cried . Ochoco For sorrow of his brother gono away. In Glonmaluro far off from town-born men, . Why would they not have - let you sleep - alone ' - At peace there in the shadow of the glen? To tend your grave you should hav<j had the sun,- / , ■ , The fraughan and tho moss, the heather :'. brown, , 1 , And corso turned gold for joy of spring '.- DegM. 'Yon should have had your brothers wind and rain, 'And in the dark the stars all looking down , To ask "When will ho take the /road .. again?" - Tho herdsmen of the lone bock hills that drive J The 'mountain ewes to 6ome far-distant fair ( Would-6tand and say, "We knew' him ' well alive, . • - ; That God may rest his soul!''; Then they - : would pas 3 ' . Into tho silence brooding everywhere, And leave you to your sleep,-below ; the grass.; - .' V '. But now among, these alien city graves What way are yon without the wind's • harsh breath, . Yon free-born son of mountains and wild ■ waves? v . Ah! God knows better—here you've no abode,So long ago you had the laugh at death, And rose, and took the windswept moun- . • tain road. . ■;/, - • -W. M. Letts. THE SCHOOLMASTER. .. Supposing it was mine to claim, < If I had sought it, modest famo— Friends think of me as Mfaht-have-been And pity me my life's routine, Because, a scholar, week by week, ' I guide .the young to early Greek, Y And lowly cult of mood and tenso Makes havoc of tho glowing sense. Not I complain; the subtle blazeThat thrilled mo in' my younger days la quenched; and "now this 6tudy fire Fulfils my "uttermost desire. ,Yds; .all I ask-is this retreat— .-, The quiet evoning pipe is BweoW. A placid book, a lazy chair) , And (not too. close) I love,to hear / Tho cool clear voices of the boys Making a, young, unhallowed noise. These simplo pleasures novor pall; I am the youngest of them all. ,i • ." i —Hugh Sydenham,

: A SPRING NIGHT, .."The air is dark and sweet, : This wet Spring night. Spring, of the wandering feet, . The soundless flight, . v . Calls through the slow, Boft rain, O.voice of gold! \ ■ Calls to.me,once again V.. '. 'As' oft of old. . ' . ■"The darkness sigha.and (tin,**:!; • Blina?:-blind and slow; Night-wandoring loiterers, < The veiled airs go. Mutes of the viewless spall, -The-hiddon power.■ - • (These, but my heart knows well . r lts .magic hour. • >"My heart's one festival, - O far or-near, , .- - The Spring could never .call :■ : - And I.not hear. ' ; ■ Deep under graveyard grass, •It could not be— . . Tho Spring could never pass lAnd l not seo v . •"My . heart, my ; heart would break, Cbuld it bo so; ■ To : think that. - Spring should pass ; And I: not 'know." . . , . , ■ 1 , —-Kosamond- Ma!rriott Watson.