Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 382, 4 June 1866, Page 1

Select Poetry.

OUR AIN PARISH YET. (ATTEND. auld world cronies, whase pows like mine S are gray. Whase heart is blithe an' hauld, as when in youthhood’s sunny day. I'll lit ye owre a ditty, for it’s laag sin’ we have met, *Bout the honny braes of Scotland, and our ain Parish yet. Fu’ weel we ken, fra Johnnie Groat's, to Tweed’s fair siller strand, ■’Mang a’ the hichts an’ howes, an’ streams o’ our dear Fatherland. In Highlands or in Lowlands, ye will never find a bit Sae cozy as the valleys o’ our ain Parish yet. I’ve been in far off lands that lie a'yon’t the raging sea, I’ve trod the plains of hauchtie France, an’ dreamin’ Germaine. The glacier’d Alps o’ Switzerland, O, wha can e’er forget, But ’mang them. a‘ my thoughts were on our ain Parish yet. 1 thoucht upon my baimhood’s hame wi’ patriot joy an pride, I thoucht I saw around its wa’s the gentle streamlet glide, X thoucht upon my Mary, wi’ her tresses dark as jet. And I tang'd to he beside her in our ain Parish yet. An’ now when sitting in the chair my fathers filled o’ yore, An’ poortith’s lean an’ wither’d form is banished frae our door, When round our bleezing ingle, auld flers sae blithesome sit, Wha wadna sing the praises o* our ain Parish yet. There’s music in the e’enin’ star, there’s music in the breeze. There’s music in the streamlet’s voice, that murmurs ’mid the trees. There’s music in our youthfu’ joys we never can forget. An’ it fa’s like angels whispers round cur ain Parish yet. When life is weariu’ to its close, an’ nicht begins to fa’, — When a’ earth’s joys an’ pleasures are dwiuiu’ fastawa, — When round my brain sae weary, auld vision’d faces flit, — 2ly latest thoucht an’ prayer, will be our ain Parish yet. John G. Smith. —Southland Times.