Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3535, 24 April 1880, Page 1

Select Poetry.

BY THE BIVEB.

I am sitting alone by the river, And the willows are sweeping its brink; The shadows of twilight are falling, i And I git by the river and think, i The shadows of twilight grow deeper Tho river is fading from sight; I can see tho gray willows no longer, And I am alone with the night. In darkness and gloom, noble river) Thou art noiselessly'floating away: In darkness and gloom I am floating, And whither, 0 cay! do I stray ? The learning of Plato and Pascal Is madly at work in my brain: I am satisfied about nothing— I feol and I reason in vain. Does justice oxist ? Oh, whore is it ? Still the heart of the tyrant is stone, Still his victims are toiling, despairing, Still he heeds not, he hears not their moan. 'Tis vain that you tell mo hereafter These things are not to be so; Wo are only able to reason From that which we see and we know. For conturies long have the cursos Of tho heart-broken pierced to the skies; For centuries long has no answer Returned to their desolate cries. If I call upon Nature for comfort, It is silent and grim as the grave; The winds will not stop at my question— No reply from the long-sounding wave. And the stars as they glitter above me, Pure and calm as the flakes of the anow, Look as cold on the sorrows of mortals As they looked in the years long ago. Oh giveme! Oh give me my childhood, The unquestioning faith that was there, When I knelt at the feet of my mother, And gently she taught mo my prayer. I am sitting alone by the river, And the willows are sweeping its brink; The twilight lias deepened to midnight, And I sit by the river and think. —Golden Age