Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 51, 13 January 1872, Page 17

Select Poetry.

LITTLE NELL. WRITTEN ON BEADING "COIiETIT VP A 3 A FLOWER." I am sinking fast—so fast, the grave Lies open at ray feet; Soon the dark threshold will be passed, Where the known and the unknown meet. Oh, when I raise that awful veil, What, there, shall I behold ? What mysteries will Death before My shrieking sight unfold ? Oh, father, shall I look upojj That dear, dear Say do you wait for little Nell, Upon that uuseen shore ? Dear father, whom not all my grief, My passionate love could save, Nor all my tenderness could keep One moment from the grave. We were so happy, father dear, In those days long ago How could you leave your little Neil, So lone, so full of woe ? Life has been, oh, so desolate, Since thou wast called away, Since in my agony, I knelt Beside thy senseless clay, iussmg, once more, the dear, kind hands, The gentle careworn brow, The lips that, here, no more shall smile On ibtle Nelly now. * And yet another treasured face Death hideth from my view, Oh, Dick, my own, my bonnie Dick, With eyes so kind and trae. My Olaf, with the golden hair, Did I not promise thee To be thine own, thy little Nell, Or no one's ? —yet, ah me— Awaking from that trance of grief, 'Twas but to loathe my life, For that thou, too, wert lost to me, And I another's wife. And vain, all vain the sacrifice, The life I strove to save, E'en while I spoke the perjuring* tov?Slipped from me to the graves. Darling, I never thought thee false,, I knew one day would prove Those honest, kindly eyes of thine' Spoke truth as well as love. But when, at length, we meet once more, And I a hapless bride, Heard all the cruel, cruel wrong That kept thee from my side j Reading my own heart's agony Reflected in thy face, — What recked I then of name or fame, Of honor or disgrace ? I only felt that strong right arm Around me once again, I only saw that tender face, * So dark with grief and pain j And fam had left home, husband, all The world holds dear, for thee, Bub that thou wert so strong and true True to thyself aud me. E'en now I hear those anguished tones, Whose trembling spoke thy woe, " lb were poor love, my darling, " That could degrade thee so. " I could not bear that shame or f corn " Should rest on thee sweet Nell ; " My own, my precious snowdrop flo'wer, " My little one, farewell!" And I lived on '.—grief does not kill Or I had died that day— Oh, Dick, my bonnie, bonnie Dick, That wert so blithe and gay. God took thee first, my glorious Dick, Thou wert the first to go, 'Mid strangers, in a far-off land, Was thy bonnie head laid low. But I shall not tarry long,. Dick, My race is nearly rus, Methinks thou'lt weleome little Nellj, Ere sets to-morsow's sun. Gladly, for yon dark shore,l bid This beauteous earth farpwell, For Dick, and " dear old Dad" are there, Waiting for little Nell. Ida.-