Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 496, 29 July 1867, Page 1

Select Poetry.

TjT-A~yF.rs. ! that Death Should ever, like a black untimelv uisht. Deseeml upon tlic loved in Love's liespile * Ah! tliat a littlo breath Expiring from the world, should leave each scene Where its warm influence before had been, So empty to the heart in Us despair Of all hut misery—misery everywhere! But loving souls, [again Though sundered thus by Death, must tend To union, since they die not, and no main Save that eternity between them rolls "Which in itsell were nothing, did not Hind Inhabit its blank depth, and o’er it reign In spiritual kind! This is implied by suffering. What is pain But prophecy of pleasure! What is grief But preparation for some meet relief! n. When The manifold hills forsaken of the sun. Arc duskeniug into one .Featureless mightiness,—how wildly then In the grey solitude of heaven afar There shineth a sole Star'. Even so the memory of One adored With all Affection's hoard Of golden feelings, treasured up for truth In vain—in vain, in pleasure and in pain, Throughout Life’s fervent youth, A far bright mystery knowing no remove. Shines—ever shines, peculiar and apart. In the wide vacancy of waited love— The love of a broken heart. nr. Bo his rest who sleeps below Done to death by toil and woe Sound and sweet; Bo much in fortune did he lack. So little meet Of kindness as with bleeding feet He journeyed Life's most barren track, That only Hate in its deceit. Not Love, not Vity, would eutreat To have him back. But he sleeps well where many a bloom That might not grace his living home, pranks the raised sod; Tokening perhaps, that One who here .Hissed the world’s smile, hath met elsewhere The smile of GOD. iv. Such is the strange succession of our Moods That life can never quite consistent be; One thought delights—another then intrudes To shrink the former into vanity ; “ Ah 1 that our life so wildly vast Had Reason for the lord of all its doing'." I cried aloud, the world of dreams eschewing: Avid then ray travel o’er the losaful past Which hath such grace at last, Brought up another Mood that thus went racing: “Ah 1 for the fancies fond and bright That were the playmates of my trustful youth ! Ah! thy so cold and disenchanting light, Men do not love it—Truth 1 For verilyjthat light is ever cold, And therefore withering. Who would live if Reason Ruled over us alone, to make us old As winter even in life’s greenest season !’’ v. A thousand million souls arise Out of the cradle of To day, And like a living storm, beneath the skies. Go thundering on their fatal way ! But ere to-morrow’s sun His ancient round hath run, That storm is past—and " Where are they!" Is asked of Faith by pale Dismay : “ Where—where are t hey!" [say. And Faith—e’en Faith bee-elf, hath not a word to With her serene assurance thrown,

Like moonlight, into the Unknown, And all her clasping tendrils emied [world. About the steadfast pillars of the never-failing To that wild question of Dismay Yet hath she not a word to say ; And only lifts her patient eyes Up from the earth’s change-trampled sod, To tlx them—out in the eternal skies— On all she kuowetU—Gob. VI. Since thou art dead—since thou art dead, Though to look up is Mill to see The blue sky bending o’er tny head, Bo big with good, showered bounteously; Though scenes of love be round mo spread. And o'er the hills, as once with thee, 1 wander still with venturous tread, ■\Vhere through dark woods broad rivers fret And lighten onward to the sea, As erst unchanged, unchanging,—yet How ciijferenl is the world to me I The light as wuh a living robe Doth clothe all nature as of yore ; The sun with his great golden globe Doth crown yon hill when night is o’er ; The moon and stars o’erwatch the earth As I have seen them from my birth : But O, thou Light, and Bun and Moon, And O, ye Blars so bright and boon, Though I as fervently may feel All the great glories you reveal As ever I have felt before ; Tour genial warmth—your mystic sheen— Yet, all to roe that yon have been You never can be more ! —CiixnLrs KxurtjE.