Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 13, Issue 660, 1 March 1869, Page 4

Select Poetry.

MY BIRTH-DAY." (4 wmi birth-day "—what a different sound (ssl That word had in W youthful ears I And how, each time the day comes Tound, Less and less white its mark appears; "When first our scanty years are told. It seems like pastime to grow old; And, as Youth counts the shining links. That Time around him binds sq fast, Pleased with the task, he little thinka How hard the chain will press at last. Vain was the man and false as vain, Who said*—" were he ordained to run His long career qf life again, He would do all that he had done." Ah, 'tis not thus the voice that dwella In sober birth-days, speaks to me; Far otherwise—of time it tells, Lavished unwisely, carelessly; Of counsel mocked; of talents, mada Haply for high and pure designs, Bnt oft, like Israel's incense, laid Upon unholy, earthly shrines; Of nursing many a wrong desire; Of wandering after. Love toq farAnd taking every meteor fire, That crossed my pathway, for his star.— All this it tells, and could 1 trace The imperfect picture oe'r again, With poster to add, retouch, efface i'he lights and shades, the joy and pain, How little of the p:ist would stay ! How quickly all should melt awayAll—but that Freedom of the Mind, " Which hath been more than wealth to me; Those friendships, in my boyhood twined, And kept till now unchangingly : And that dear home, that saving ark, ' Where Love's true light at last I've found, Cheering within, when all grows dark, And comfortless, and stormy round I Thomas Mooke. •Fontenelle —"Si jerecommencais ma carridre, je ferai tout ee que jj'ai fait."