Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 794, 9 June 1870, Page 4

Select Poetry.

RUN WILD. ilcrc was the gate. The broken paling 1 , As if before the wind, inclines; ■The post half rotted, and the pickets, failing, Held only up by vines. The plum-trees stand, though gnarled and speckled "With lepipsy of old disease; ■By ceils of sormy life the trunks are freckled, And nioss : enlbld their knees. I pushiisidc the boughs and enter; Alas 4 the garden's nymph has fled, With every cliarm that leaf and blossom lent her, And left a hag instead. Some female satyr from the thicket, Child of the bramble and the weed, Sprang shouting over the unguarded wicket, With all her savage breed. She banished hence the ordered graces That smoothed a way for Beauty's feet, A"d gave her ugliest imps the vacant places, To spoil what once was sweet. Here, under rankling mulleins, dwindle The borders hidden long ago : Here shoots the dock in many a rusty spindle, And purslane creeps below. The thyme runs wild and vainly sweetens, Hid from the bees by conquering grass; And even the rose witli briery menace threatens To tear me as I pass. Where show the vyceds a gayer color, The stalks of lavender and rue Stretch like imploriug arms—but, ever duller, They slowly perish too. Only the pear-tree's fruitless scion, Exults above the garden's fall; Pnly the thick-tnaned ivy, like a lion, Devours the crumbling wall. What still survives hecomes as savage As that which entered to destroy, Taking an air of riot and of ravage, Of strange and wanton joy. No copse unpruned, no mountain hollow, So lawless in its growth may be: Where they wild weeds have room to chase and follow, They graceful are, and free. But Nature here attempts revenges Tor her obedience unto toil; She brings her rankest life, with loathsome changes To smite the fattened soil. For herbs of sweet and bitter savor She plants her stems of bitter juice; From flowers she steals the scent, from fruits the flavor, From homelier things the use. Her angel is a mocking devil, If once the law relax their bands ; Li man's neglected fields she holds her revel, Takes back and spoils his lands. Once having broken ground, he never The virgin soil can plant again ; The soil demands his services for ever, And God gives sun and rain ! —Atlantic Monthly.