Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 35, 23 September 1871, Page 17

Select Poetry.

' gold and silver. Come with me my bright-haired Nellie, For the time has passed away When my youthful footsteps led me By the flowering banks of May. I was thinking of you, Nellie, As you sat so spell-bound there, While the sprays of gay laburnum Fluttered lightly on your hair. Then I called you softly, Nellie, But you only murmured loav Of the Knight Geraint and Enid And King Arthur long ago. So I saw your eyes were fastened On some sweet poetic page— You believe it all, sweet Nellie, You are in the golden age ! You are gazing on the hill sides, Purple in the dying day ; I have seen thorn closely Nellie, They are cold and bleak and grey. Golden lights are on your landscape, I too saw them long ago, But their lovely radiance faded, Vanished like last winter’s snow. Do not look so wistful, Nellie, Do not deem me over sage— Time hath weighed me doAvn with trouble, I am in the silver age. Sweet tho pearly haAvthorn blossom, Still we know the thorn is there— Sweet to me your loving reverence, And your tender filial care. It is meet that our descendants Honor well the hoary head, For the aged heart turns sadly To the golden glories fled. I, too, loved poetic fancies In my girlhood long ago ; I have felt the same sweet sorrow OA r er books that now you know. But these feelings are forgotten, When we read life’s varied page ; Will you weep o’er Enid’s sorrows, When you reach the silver age ? Well, I will not make you mournful, Gold and silver may not blend ; You are looking down the vista, I am lingering at the end. You beneath laburnum blossoms Through a golden glory smile ; I beneath the fading hawthorn Linger but a little while. Dream your golden dreams, my Nellie, O’er the Laureate’s magic page, I will not dispel your fancies, Though I’ve reached the silver age! —“ Loudon Society.”