Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 534, 16 December 1867, Page 1

Select Poetry.

AX OLD MAN'S IIOSINGS. Are bums low; my course is nearly run; cLi* The greatest good on earth to me is Ke,-,L. What can an ohi man do, and do his best. But idly ponder when bis work is done ? i was a Tory. Tie who turned the sod, And delved, and led with brawny arms the plough,! kubhing the salt sweat from his sunburnt brow, VTas little better than a cumbering clod! The cry was then " to keep the toiler down He slaved to make, and I used what ho made—--1 saw him ghastly live aud ghostly fade ; Oppressed, ucgiected, iu the teeming town. Ah me : What would I now give for the youth And strength aud powerto work a long day's toil: What would 1 give to live to till the soil. And try to grasp this era's growing Truth ! 1 bow my head to learn, to love, to sigh O’er foolish words, (how many!) hoi ly spoken. Ere I was crushed with age, and spirit broken. Against my fellows worthier than I! ’Tis over now—the foolish conflict fret; 1 view the past to-day—it has been vain— I view the past and feel the ache aud pain. The humbling anguish of a sad regret I