POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2548, 8 June 1882, Page 4

POETRY.

BHFOBB THE OTTBFEW—IB29-1832

BT OUVKB WEHDBH. SOMIBB. Kjt bedtime yet! Tho night winds blow, Hue stars are out—full well we know The nurse is on the stair, With hand of ice and cheek of mow, And frozen lips that whisper low, •• Come, ohildren, it is time to .CO My peaceful couch to share.

Ho years a wakeful heart can tire; Sot bedtime yet! Come, stir the fire And warm your dear old hands; Kind mother earth we love so well Has pleasant stories yet to tell Before we hear the ourfew bell; Still glow the burning brands.

Not bedtime yet ? We long to know What wonders time has yet to show, What unborn years shall bring. What ship tho Arotio pole shall reaoh. What lessons science waits to teach, What sermons there are left to preach, Whfj 1 ". poems yet to sing.

What next? we ask ; and is it true The sunshine falls on nothing new, As Israel's king deolared ? Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire ? Were nations coupled with a wire f Did T.»rshish telegraph to Tyre ? How Hiram would have stared P

And what if Sheba'a curious Queen, Who oame to Bee —and to be oeen Or iomething new to seek, _ And swooned —as ladies sometimes do— At Bights that thrilled her through and through, Had heard, as she was oommg to, A locomotive shriek.

And Been a rushing roil way train As she looked out along the plain

From David's lofty tower — A mile of smoke that blots the sky And blinds the eagles as they fly Behind the oars that thunder by A score of leagues an hour !

See to my fiat lux respond This little slumbering fire-tipped wandOne touch—it bursts in flame! Steal me a portrait from the aun— One look—and lo ! the pioture done ! Are these old tricks, King Solomon, We lying moderns claim ?

Could you have speotrosooped a star ? If both those mothers at your bar, The cruel and the mild, The young and tender, old and tough, Had said, ' Divide you're right, though

rough'— Did old Judea know enough So etherise the child ?

"Thaie birthi of time our eyes have teen, With but a few brief yoar* between ; What wonder if the text, for other ages doubtless true, For coming years will never do— Whereof we all should like a few If but to see what next.

If »noh things have been, suoh may be ; Who would not like to live and boo — If Heaven may so ordain— What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, The waves that roll for evermore On life's long beach may caßt ashore from oat the mist-clad main ?

Will earth to pagan dreams return To find from misery's painted urn That all save Hope had flown— Of Books and Ohurch and Priest bereft, The Book of Ages vainly cleft. Life's compass gone, its anchor left, Left —lost—in depth unknown ?

Shall Faith the trodden pa*;h pursue The crux ansata wearers know

Who sleeps with folded henda, Where, like a naked, lidless eye, The star ; ."g Nile rolls wondering by Those mountain slopes that olimb the sky Above the drifting sands P

Or shall a nobler faith return, Its Fanes a purer gospel learn, With holier anthems ring. And teach us that our transient creeds Were but the perishable seeds Of harvests sown for larger needs" That ripening years shall bring ?

Well, let the present do its best, We trust our Maker for the rest, As on our way wo plod ; Our souls, full dressed in fleshy suits, Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, The daisies better than their roots Beneath the grassy sod.

Hot bed-time yet! the full blown flower Of all the year—this evening honr— With friendship*! ilima ie bright; Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, Though fields are brown and woods are b»re» And many a joy is left to share Before we say Good-night!

And when, our oheerful evening past, The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, Ere on her lap we lie; In wearied nature's sweet repose, At peaoe with all her waking foes, Onr lips shall murmur, ere they close, Good'night I and not Good-bye 2