The Artists' Corner

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 287, 24 February 1928, Page 14

The Artists' Corner

TO A FRIEND \ (Written for THE SUN.) The little meadows of my mind Most quiet are, and green, And guarded so by hidden thoughts That raise a hedge between Me and the outer world that few Remotely even dream Of all the still and starry lands Beyond that wall that gleam. All day along the crowded road, Where dusty men go by, I animatedly converse, Talk, listen, and reply. All day I pirouette and dance And chat of trivial things , While safe behind that jealous hedge My heart’s a bird that sings. Because it knows the meadows of My mind are shuttered fast, And guarded so with quiet care For one who goes not past But enters proudly as by right Along those paths that gleam. Across those lands of cool delight As magic as a dream. . . . And down along those secret ways , Across that flowered grass, Sedate we walk and talk awhile, As up and down we pass Along the meadows of my mind, So quiet and so neat, And guarded with such careful thoughts That one may find them sweet. —NORA STACEY. Auckland. THOMAS HARDY. for The S«n.J Now is our greatest weaver of gray words Departed, now our gentlest, saddest heart Gone from us, leaving Another dark door to the infinite. He would not touch the golden or the blue — Ever the gray. His crowd-forsaking footsteps ever sought The steep untended paths, Paths to the heights, The gray enduring granite. Here he hewed, Mortised and tenoned toilfuiiy, to last ,4s long as grief and beauty. Patience, forgetfulness, and death Were all his remedies; Kinship with kind, obliterating earth. His only exaltation. Surely his blood ran gray, Gray from the thinking heart! How he abjured The garish and the trivial; The little thwarted sparks of human lives He spoke beyond — A murmur from the narrow house itself Seemed his gray words And his uncoloured cadences Quiet, unvarying. Yet they vindicate A pity in the darkness, and a Hand Gentler than light, caressing. In bravery stronger than confidence, In dim gray doubt out-splendouring certainty, He goes to that last Pity and that Hand Caressing. W. H. JOYCE. Diamond Harbour. BOOKS IN DEMAND AT THE ™ AUCKLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY FICTION “THE INFAMOUS JOHN FRIEND” by Mrs. JR. S. Garnett. “THE CAP OF YOUTH” by J. A. Stewart. “THERE IS NO RETURN” by Elizabeth Bibesco. “THE UGLY DUCHESS” by L. Feuchtwanger. “GOD LOVES THE FRANKS” by E. M. Walker. “SOUTH WIND” by Norman Douglas. “THE BLACK CAP” compiled by C. Asquith. “THE MELODY OF DEATH” by Edgar Wallace. “FORSYTE SAGA” by John Galsworthy. “SMALL SOULS” by L. Couperus. NON-FICTION “STEVENSON” by G. K. Chesterton. “ASPECTS OF SCIENCE” by J. W. N. Sullivan. “SELECTIONS FROM MODERN POETS” compiled by J. C. Squire. “READING” by Hugh Walpole. “THE EVOLUTION OF AN INTELLECTUAL” by J. Middleton Murry. “CELEBRITIES OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE” by R. de La Sigeranne. “THE ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION” by D. J err old. “A VAGABOND IN FIJI” by Harry L. Foster. “ROMANTICISM” by L. Abercrombie. “GIFTS OF FORTUNE” by H. M. TomlinsoTU —*