ORIGINAL POETRY.

Southland Times, Issue 732, 4 October 1867, Page 3

ORIGINAL POETRY.

MAN'S DECAY. (By J. G-. Smith.) Oh ! frail is our life and short is our dream, As we sail down the current of time's rapid stream ; . . The sunbeams of pleasure but shine for a day, And we fade like the leaves of the forest, away. The springtide of life, oh ! how fair is the scene, And its summer beclad in her rokelay of green ; But we feel 'niid the ruins of Autumn's decay, That we fade like the leaves of the forest away. When the glories of Nature are over and gone. The blasts of the winter are dreary and lone ; Their voices they blend in the streamlet's lay, Man fades, like the leaves of the forest, away. You oak that for ages a monarch has stood, And braved all the rage of the tempeat and flood, ■ ■ ' ; ; ' ■ •;-..■■ -; UTow speaks the Bad lesson of nature's decay, , : And fades, like the leaves of the forest, away. The wife of our bosom, the loved, the caressed, Whose eye was our day-star, whose smile made ua blessed ; '. "•" ; / : : ; : Our solace, our hope, our trust, and our stay, Is gone like the leaves of the forest, away. The sire we revered when our life dreams \rer« young; ' - The mother who o'er us her lullaby sung ; The chsrub we fondled— all sleep in the clay,. They laded like leaves of the forest, away.