" LEONAINIR."

Temuka Leader, Issue 1557, 16 September 1886, Page 1

" LEONAINIR."

fbe following beaniilul lines were left in p«ym*nt for a night's board and lodging., by a. dissipated-looking young.raan, with ..the initials R.A.P., and whose descriptu.u answers in every particular to the gifted, but unfortunate, authorof " VUt B-Ik" A tear can be pardoued as recoil* cticns of his terrible Career of vice, wretchedness and woe steal upon the reader of these hitherto unpublished lines, stamped, as they are, by the image of Edgar Allan Poe : Leonania—angels named her, And they took the light Of the laughing stars and framed her In a Rinile of white ; ■, .■ And they made her hair of gloomy Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy Moonshine—and they brought her to tne In the solemn night. In a solemn night of summer, When my heart of gloom Blossomed up to gre'et the comer Like a rose in bloom ; t , All forebodings that distressed me I forgot, as joy caressed me . (Lying joy that caught and pressed me In the arms'of doom). Only spake the little lisper In the angel tongue ; Yet I, listening, heard (her; whisper—- " Songs are only sung Here below that they may grieve you— Tales are told you to deceive you— So must Leonainie leavo youj While her love is young " Then God smiled, and it was morning, Matchless and sublime: Heaven's g'ory suemed adorning Larth with i's esteem ; Every heart but mine seenni. gifted With the voice of prayer, and.lifted Where my Leonainie drifted From me like a dream.