Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 17

Select Poetry.

PABIS—HER BAPTISM OF FIRE. [From Punch.] We saw her, the witching, the wanton, the winning, In the flush of her music, her meats, and her wine, The Circe that gave such a glory to sinning, That dalliance seemed duty and evil divine. Such, the spell of sweet eyes, and bright beautiful face, Men swooned to behold them, and died to embrace. We walked in her chambers, amidst a soft dimness Of folds wreathed and woven and cunningly flung To tame into touching and tender the grimness That under that weird face’s witchery clung : And through the white veils came a tremulous glow, Like the rose of the sunset through windwinnowed snow. And more bright for those clouds gathered artfully round her Shone the light of her cheek and the lure of her eye, Till we asked not whence came the allurement that crowned her, But yearned for her kiss, though to kiss were to die. All races and regions their worshippers gave, And none bub was fane to be some time her slave. So she reveled and ruled, wiled, and wantoned, and won, Like to her seen in Patmos in purple attired, Deckt with gold and fair stones that shot light as the sun, In her hand a gold cup, for their lips that desired, Of all filthiness full, and a name on her brow. That seemed fitting her then, but so seemebli not now. For behold, o’er her borders the foeman has stormed, And her guards set to meet him like straws swept away; A.nd now at her gate his battalions have formed, And close and more close draw their iron array: Sure the white wanton witch in her drap’ries must cower, As the breakers of battle beat loud at her bower.

'But 10, what a change in that face false and fair, And those soft supple limbs, late in dalliance entwined! 'She has torn off the rose-wreath that trailed in her hair, - She has knit up her loose locks that played in the wind ; For her silks and her laces hath clothed her in steel, And from wanton grown warrior, from proud head to heel. Per her meats of the costly, her wines of the choice, She eats of the coarse, and she drinks of the cheap: Hjke smooth limbs that wont in down beds to rejoice, On the straw by the bivouac watch-fire can sleep; And her brow hath ta’en sternness, and hardness her hand, And the lip-s that lisped love-songs sound words of command. Nor fcfie shot and the steel of the foeman alone She has foun d—this soft wanton—endurance to fat ce; With 'worse w aste of the heart than the shot’s of ttie stone, The slow tooth of Famine its way knaws apac e ; And the l warmth in her blood aiding iamj ne to kill, The winter frost creeps with its death dealing chill. And: at last with the Famine and Frost has conn 3 Fire, ()n that hej id, erst so dainty, its baptism to poui ■, Ti 11 her crown of proud towers topple down in the mire, And death-shrieks are shrill through the crash and the roar. Is’t despair or defiance thus nerves her to stand, Though shivered hilt-high is the sword in her hand ? Bids her hold her bent brows still confronting the flame, Whose hot hungry tongue licks her beautiful hair, As if in its fires she would purge sin and shame, Draw strength from starvation, defence from despair, ' Till we ask in amazement and awe—Can it be! Is this Dalilah, Queen of Earth’s Wanton’s we see ? Is this Amazon, shrank, stricken, scathed, hut still proud, And so staunch in hard steel, the soft silken robed dame, That with wine of her witchcraft made drunken the crowd, Till from men they waxed beasts, and thereof had no shame ? Can War’s fire so wickedness, wantonness slay, That her foul shall grow fair, and her dross slough away ?