POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2084, 28 October 1880, Page 4

POETRY.

TTNDEE THE TEE PCS. High noon and not a cloud in the sky to break this blinding «un; Wall, I’ve half the day before me still, and most of my journey done. Shore's little enough of shade to be sure, but I’ll take what I can get; Ifor I'm not so hearty us once I was, although I’m a young man yet.

Young ! Oh yes, I suppose so, as far as the seasons go 5 Though there’s many a man far older than I, down there in the town below— Older t aye. but to whom in the pride of his manhood strong, The hardest work is never top hard, nor the longest day too long.

I've ate my cake, so I can’t complain, and I’ve only myself to blame. Yea ; that was always their tale at home, and here it’a just the same ; Of the seed I sowed in pleasure, the harvest I’m reaping in pain ; Oould I put my life a few years back, would I live that life again P

Would I ? Of course I would ! what glorious days they were! It sometimes seems but the dream of a dream that life could have been so fair. So nweet, but a short while back j and now—if one can call This life—at times I doubt if life be worth the living at all.

One of the poets, which is it ? —somewhere or other sings, That the crown of a sorrow’s sorrow is to remember happier things. What the crown of a sorrow's sorrow may be I know not, but this I know. That it lightens the years that are now, sometimes to think of the years ago.

Where are they now, I wonder, with whom those years were passed ? The pace was a little too good, I fear, for many of them to last. And there’s always plenty to take their place when the leaders begin to decline; Still I wish them well, wherever they be, for the sake of “ Auld Dang Syne.” Jack Villiers—Galloping Jack - (what a fellow ho was to ride !) Was shot' in a gambling row last year on the Californian side. And Byng, the beat of the lot, who was broke on the Derby of Fifty-eight, Is keeping sheep with Harry Lepell somewhere on the Siver Plate.

Bo they ever think of me at all, and the fun we used to share P It gives me a pleasant hour or two, and I’ve none too many to spare. This dull blood runs as it used to run, and the spent flame flickers up As I think of the cheers that rang in my ears when I won the Garrison Cup.

Add how the regiment roared to a man while the voice of the fielders shook, As I swung in my stride six lengths to the good, hard held over Brixworth Brook. Instead of the parrot’s screech I seem to hear the twang of the horn. As once again from Barkby Holt I “set ” the pick of the Quorn. Ah, those were harmless pleasures enough, for I hold him worse than an ass Who shakes his head at a “ neck on the post,” or a quick thing over the grass. Hide for yourself, and ride to win, and you can't vary wall go wrong; Gad, if I’d only stuck to that I’d be singing a different song. As to the one I’m singing now, that’s pretty well known to all; We knew too muoh, but not quite enough, and so we went to the wall. Whilst those who oared not if the work was done how dirty their hands might be, Went up on our shoulders and kicked ns down when they reached the top of the tree.

But though it relieves one’s mind at times, there’s little good in a curse; One oomfort is, if I’m njt well off I might be a great deal worse. A roof to my head, and a bite to my mouth, end no one likely to know In “ Bill the Bushman ” the “ Dandy ” who went to the dogs some years ago. Ont there on the station among the lads I get along pretty well; It’s only when I get down in the town that I feel this life suoh a hell. Booted and bearded and burn’d to a brick, as I loaf along the street £ watch the ladies tripping by, and I bless their dainty feet. Z watch them here and there with a bitter leeling of pain ; •God ! what wouldn’t I give to touch a lady’s hand again ! Shay used to be glad to see me onoe, they might be so to-day ; But we never know the worth of a thing until we have thrown it away. £ watch them, but from afar, and 1 pull my “ oabbagetree” over my eyes—partly to hide the tears that, rough and rude as I am, will rise— And partly because I cannot bear that such as they should see Zbe man that I am, when I know—though they don’t—the man that I ought to be. Puff! with the last whiff of my pipe I blow these fancies away, For I must be moving along if I want to get down into town to-day. Aa I know I shall reach my journey’s end though 1 travel not over fast; So the end of that longer journey will come in its own good time at lost.