Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 65, 30 March 1868, Page 77

Select Poetry.

> THE TWO BTBEAMS.

SnIPON a leaiy mountain height two'streams caino gushing forth; 1 . One bubbled from the sunny 'south,' the other from the north; One leaped and sparkled joyously, as clear as summer sky, The-purple flood : the other rolled, went slowly ;■ . creeping by.

Beside the one green rushes grew, and blushing * ? buds and flowers ; Beside the other, men were chained in poison- , .breathing bowers. One welcomed ‘ sweet wild birds to sing their - ■ - hymns of peace and joy'; The other breathed.the breath of sin, and tempt- . ed to destroy.

The ohei went Bparkling cheerily beneath the noonday snn. And spread around life health, and peace, wheroe’er it chanced to run. The other was the stream, of death, with sorrow on its tide, And whoso stopped to drink therein must Satan’s curseabide.

The stream which gave such Joy to ail leaped from a rocky well; The vineyard.sent the other forth to work a deathlike spell. , . - They both have flowed for countless years adown , • the steeps of time; .One spreading grief and wickedness, the other bliss sublime.

—Sixpenny Magazine.