VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 18840, 5 June 1920, Page 4

VAGRANT VERSE

j AN URGENT APPEAL. | Written for the Southland Times.) I 1 Aye, great Aeolus! ye whose mighty powei* | Sung by the bluff bard, whose notes ara i sweet j To hear as the music that the untamed sea Wakes to life amidst the long the long-dead rocks. Are weak with lassitude, as if to the great [ Olympus Had mounted that full measured tardiness Which lived so many moons within the mines, Those Stygian depths where stored calorie* Were woo'd deliberately and won so slow That men grew cold with apprehension and stamp’d Upon the bosom of the ground, impotent and foul. , Throw of thine ease and bridle up the winds! Those mockers of the hat of straw, thoso fiends Which find the weakness in our head attin* And hurl it headlong in a madd’ning race To men’s delight and youngster's loud derision. Enshacklo thrm again, with forty chains And if these be unequal to the task Then gather men who in town councils sit, Most obstinate and* steady of our race. Into their hands give o’er the heavy gyves And tell them softly that the winds, That tug and twist so furious in the leash Are whelps of progress, destroyers of th* webs That spiders weave on municipal action. Ah, then will come into th’ insurgent air A calm as peaceful as our busy wharves And I, with praises wrapt in sweetest song Will light my pipe and gaily smoke along. SHAUN O'SULLIVAN. Invercargill, June 4-