THE WAIF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2382, 21 January 1922, Page 1

THE WAIF.

This poem, by A. C. Smith, catches effectively (he spirit of tragedy which early experiences seemed to make at home in the Australian bush. The dangers of the waterless hush are more restricted in area now, as man increasingly comes into possession of the wild, but still (he poem represents the feeling of the hush as a place of, mysterious endings for lonely men. He went into the hush, and passed Out of the sight of living men; None knows the nook that held him last, None ever saw his face again.

It may he, in the wihlering wood He/ wandered, weary, spent, of breath, Till the all-mastering solitude Sank to the deeper hush of death.

Perchance he crawled where the low hush, More verdant, whispered streams were nigh.

Hopeful, hut desperate, made a rush, And found, () Ood! the bed was drv!

He was a waif, and friends had

none; Who knows hut in some distant land A mother mourns her errant son, A sister longs to clasp his hand? II e^was a waif, but with him died A world of yearnings deep within— Yearnings to loftiest things allied, But wrecked by cruel fate, or sin. None heard the lone one’s dying prayer Save Infinite Pity bending o’er, Who, haply, bore him quietly where They hunger and they thirst no more.

O ye vast woods! what fond lifedrea m Ye close! what broken lives ye hide! Darkly absorbed, like hopeful streams That in dry desert lands subside.* k.'iV'C C - ■ Stranger the tales ye could unfold Than wild romancer ever penned, Remaining buried in the mould Till time shall cease, and mystery end.