VAGEANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 18842, 7 June 1920, Page 4

VAGEANT VERSE

PATCHED IMMORTALS. (Written for the Southland Times.) 1. —Shakespeare’s Last Sonnet. iTo Master Ben Jonson.) When in the future with confounding art The vagroni years shall cloud my simpla fame. And I beneath the dust shall never start To hear false claimants for my humbl* name; I’ll find of noble lords who held me cheap Talcing posthumous glory from my rhyme, More richly clad from an old rubble heap Of my worst plays than silken in their time. But will my bones be undisturbed still. Even lost love shall never .make them stir, I’ll drink of silence to the utmost fill And live with .men a half-named wanderer, Vet from the filthy ashes can I laugh, For 10, rare Ben shall write my epitaph. 2.—“ I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature 1 loved, and, next to Nature, Art.; I warmed both hands before the fire of Lifsj II sinks and I am ready to depart.”

—Landor. My words were from white marble chiselled. Lofty with glamour cf the deathless dead, And now into their immortality With an unfeigned applause they welcome me.

THE HOUR STARS. 3.—“ Consider this small Dust, here in the glass, By atoms mov’d: Could you believe, that this the body was Of one that lov’d: And in his mistress’ tlame, playing like a fly Was turned to cinders by her eye: Yes: and in death, as life, unblest, To have ’t exprest, Even ashes of lovers tlnd no rest.” Bea Jonson. THE DAISY (Sequel to Hour Glass) Dust welded back to finest gold must make Fantastic charms Which dance the sunlight on a summer lake On queenly arms, An hour-glass still for regal eyes to hold, And teil the waiting days of knights unbold Lo, every trinket is a painted grain Devout to pain, A link in love’s prophetic daisy chain. SOUTHERNER. Invercargill, June 0.