Select Poetry.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 310, 30 March 1878, Page 3

Select Poetry.

GROWING UP. (from all the year round.) Oil! to keep them still around us, baby barlings, fresli and pure, Motlier’s-smile their pleasure’s crowning mother’s kiss their sorrow’s cure. Oh! to keep the waxen touches, sunny curls and radiant eyes, Pattering feet and eager prattle—all young life’s lost paradise. One brig’-t head above tlie other, tiny hands that clung and clasped, Little forms that, close enfolding, all of love's best gifts were grasped ; Sporting in the summer suushine, glancing round tlie winter hearth, Bidding all the bright world echo with their fearless careless mirth. Oh ! to keep them. How they gladdened all the patli from day to day. What gay dreams we fashioned of them, as in rosy - sleep they lay ; How eacli broken word was welcomed, how each struggling thought was hailed, As eacli baric went floating seaward, love bedecked and fancy-sailed. Gliding from our jealous watching, gliding from our clinging hold, Lo 1 the brave leaves bloom and burgeon, lo ! the shy, sweet buds unfold. Fast to lip and cheek and tresses steals the maiden’s bashful joy ; Fast tlie frank, bold man’s assertion tones the accents of the boy. Neither love nor longing keeps them. Soon in other shape than ours Those young hands will seize their weapons, build their castles, plant their flowers ; Soon a fresher hope will brighten the dear eyes we trained to see : Soon a closer love than ours in those wakening hearts will he. So it is, and well it is so. Fast the river nears the main. Backward yearnings are but idle ; dawning never glows again. Slow and sure tlie distance deepens, slow and sure the links are rent : Let us pluck our autum roses, with their sober bloom content.