SELECT POETRY.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 241, 13 April 1866, Page 3

SELECT POETRY.

..EXPERIENCE. Experience, divine instructress of the soul, Whose grasp doth close around the unwilling wrist, The while thy finger points, thine hours unroll The changing scenes that break through sorrow's mist. The mind, enforced to judgement, bares the past Of golden Hues, divests the verse of sound That o'er its vacant phrase such sweetness cast, And where an Eden shone, but sand is found. Opinion, Love and Hope are dashed by Thee, Like eager, children by a cold, stem voice ; Their well- planned Paradise of lawn and tree Ploughed up withfall its knots of blossom choice And thus the soul in earth's resistless change To higher thrones of nobler thoughts ascends ; Accepts or leaves ; and on the topmast range Of joy or sorrow nether fails nor bends. — Chambers. LOVE SONG. When a laughing, urchin, gaily Many a merry game I play'd, In life's sunshine basking daily, Knowing naught of grief or shade ; For a garden of enjoyment Was the world I then lived in ; Tending flowers my sole employment, Roses, violets, jessamine. By the brook's side, on the meadow, Sweetly mused I in those days ; Now I see a pale thin shadow, When upon the brook I gaze. Pale and thin my grief hath made me, Since mine eyes upon her fell j Secret sorrows now pervade me, Wonderful and hard to tell. Deep within my heart I cherish'd . Angel forms of peace and love, Which have fled, their short joys perish'd, To their starry home above. Ghastly shadows rise unbidden, Black night round mine eyes is thrown ; In my trembling breast is hidden A sad whispering voice unknown. Unknown sorrows, unknown anguish, Toss me wildly to and fro ; And I pine away and languish, Tortured by an unknown glow. But the cause why I am lying Racked by fiery torments now Why from very grief I'm dying, — Love, behold! The cause art thou! — Translation.