THE WEEK’S POEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 4029, 2 June 1931, Page 71

THE WEEK’S POEM.

Several of your letters lately have told me how much you dislike winter, children. Now, I agree with you that winter is a cold and uncomfortable season, hut I entirely disagree that it is an ugly season. Indeed I say that it is a very beautiful season for those who have eyes to see it so. So this week I am printing a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson,' who despite the fact that his house was bare and unsheltered, was able to see it as beautiful all the year round- —for . reasons which he gives. What do you think of this poem ?—DOT. THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. A naked house, a naked moor, A shivering pool before the door, A. garden bare of flowers and fruit, And poplars at the garden foot; Such is the place that I live in, Bleak without and bare within. Yet shall your ragged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn; And when the wind from place to place Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, Your garden gloom and gleam again With leaping sun, with glancing rairt. Here shall the wizard moon ascend The heavens, in the crimson end Of days declining splendour ; here The army of the stars appear. The neighbour hollows dry or wet, Spring shall with tender flowers beset; And oft the morning musers see Larks rising from the brooiny lee, And every fairy wheel and thread Of cobweb dew-bediamonded-When daisies go, shall winter time. Silver the simple grass with rime, Autumnal frosts enchant the pool And make the cart-ruts. Beautiful; And when snow--bright the moor expands, How shall your children clap . their

hands! To make this earth our hermitage, A cheerful and a changeful page, God’s bright and intricate device Of davs and seasons doth suffice.