OLD PAEROA’S DREAM.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4418, 24 May 1922, Page 1

OLD PAEROA’S DREAM.

A THAMES SATIRE. The Thames “Star” literary (?) rehash, hack and kitchen-garden parodist of verse, “Simpllcitas," waxes sarcastic at the Paeroa Chamber ol Commerce forecast of the future of Paeroa as a railway junction, thusly: “The lines from Paeroa to Thames and Paeroa to MorrinsviUe will then be branch lines” (from the Paeroa Chamber of Commerce report). This very touching passage has moved our tame poet to try his hand at this very difficult metre. All apologies are offered to the shade of Longfellow :— Dreaming thus sat old Paeroa: By the brown Ohinemuri. Dreamed, and thus did softly mutter, Some day I shall be a centre, Trains will run to every quarter. Frankton will be quite • forgotten, Thames will be a northern suburb, MorrinsviUe will be remembered As a place near old Paeroa. In this valley of Hauraki I shall be alone, the peerless. Boats shall, sail upon the Waihou, Barges coine from .Patetonga Bringing riches to Paeroa. Auckland shall be just a village On the shores of Waitemata, Hamilton shall be deserted, Lonely, by the great Waikato. In the days to come, Paeroa We shall sea] the fate of nations. Wellington will be a whisker Of our great. Commercial Chamber. We shall pass some resolutions That will echo down the ages. These shall happen in the future. We shall be the great big centre If the brown Ohinemuri Does not some day rise and leave us In the backyard of Turua.” The “Gazette” can laugh with the rest at the wry sour grapes face “Sin.plicitas” pulls, but we are deeply grieved for the shade ofl Longfellow. That wooden mechanical effort at versifying will cause the shade of Longfellow to rock the gentle “ House boat on the Styx,” if poor old Longfellow is stil wheie Kendrick Bangs left him. The wonder is that such an awful; crudity found admission in a Saturday “Star, which invariably has an excellent literary corner on page 6. Is it a case of “adversity makes strange bedfellows ” ?

“ Simplicitas,” old chap, you stick to your re-hash job, and don’t go meddling with the “immortals,” or some dire fate will assuredly befall you. Criticise as as you like, but never commit .a sacrilege.