Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 63, 16 March 1868, Page 65

Select Poetry.

! LOOK ON THE BBIGHT SIDE,

St TILL look on; the bright side, my brother and .= Mend! ThjS road maybe long, but it "will have an end; Skip lightly o*er obstacles you find in the way, And remember life’s . journey is shortened each . . day.

'Tis not the dark clouds but the sunshine so bright ; That opens the flowers—earth’s diamonds of light; . The sky oft looks black, but more often is blue, Then look on the bright side as life you pursue.

May be you have troubles—from such none are free, And perhaps it is well that none there should be, For they give tone to life, and make a man feel, He must put a shoulder himself to the wheel.

How helpless the sailor for ever would be Who sailed day after day on a calm tranquil sea! The soldier true skill would never obtain Who ne’er went to. battle experience to gain.

And so troubles are. sent, man’s courage to test, By One who’s all wise, and does all for the beat; Ne’er sit down to weep, or “ fortune ” revile, But look on the bright side, and change tear for smile.

You’ll find in this world there’s more-, sunshine 1 than rain, More love than hatred, and more joy than pain, ’ More flowers than thorns, and more smiles than i tears, If you look on the bright side, and ne’er yield to ' fears. - ; Despise not this earth because trials must be 1 borne, Would you scorn the 1 fair rose because of its \ thorn ?. ' They’re mercies more often than sent as rod, i So look on the bright side and have faith in your r God. THE BIGHT BISHOP IN THE BIGHT PLACE OB SELWYN AMONG THE BLACKS. 01 SALVO for Selwyn, the pious and plucky, ry The manly and muscular, tender and true, Let “Lichfield and Coventry” own itself lucky, If loss of her shepherd New Zealand must rue. On the bench of colonial Bishops or boat he The laboring oar has still pulled like a man; In his "stroke” for all mitres on sees now afloat he Ib a modeljto match, or surpass, if they can. He has toiled, he has tussled, with nature and savage, When which was the wilder ’twas hard to decide; Spite of Maori’s musket, and hurricane’s ravage, The tight * Southern Cross’* still braved time and tide. Where lawn sleeves and’ silk apron had turned with a shiver * • „ From the current that roared ’twixthis business and him, If no boat could be come at, he breasted the river, And -woe to his - chaplain who craned at a swim.

What to him were the'cannibal tastes that still lingered the outlying nooks of his Maori fold,’ ‘ Where his flock oft have mused as their Bibles they fingered, “Howgood would our warm-hearted Bishop be cold!” . What' to him were short commons, wet jacket, hard-lying, The savages’ blood-feud, the elements’ strife, Whose guard was "the" Cross, at his peak proudly flying, -v Whose fare .was the bread, and the water of life?

Long, long, the warm Maori hearts that so loved him, May watch and may wait for his coming again; He has sown the good seed there, his Master has -moved him To his work among savages this side the main In “the Black Country,” darker than ever New Zea land. ’Mid worse ills than heathenism’s worst can combine. He most strive with the savages reared in our free land, To toil, drink, and die, round the forge and the mine! % . '

Say' if We’nsbury roughs, Tipton cads, Bilston bul- .. lies, "Waikato can match, Taranaki excel ? Find in New Zealand clearings, or wild ferny gullies, Tales like those Dudley pit-heaps and nail-works could,tell— , A labor more brutal, a leisure more bestial, Minds raised to less knowledge of God or of man, More in manners that’s savage and less that’s celestial, ' " Can New Zealand show than the Black Country can? ; AMr field my lord Bishop—fair field and no favor— For your battle with savagery, suffering and sin. 'So'iS&mmon, their god, see where rises the savor Of the holocausts offered his blessing to win. ■ Your well-practised courage, your hold o’er the heathen, From, not To, New Zealand for work ought to . : roam; If i f be dark, what must the Black Country be then? “ What’s the savage o'er sea, to the savage at . home? *, Punch.