VARIOUS VERSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8183, 14 July 1906, Page 3

VARIOUS VERSES.

HER VALENTINES.

I like to tblnk before tbe fire, Within my easy onair, -Of valentines 1 used to gat When was young and fair. Tb©; first was from a little boy Wbo drew it on bis slate When he was only nine years old And 1 was barely eight The-next was from a bashful youth— A costly billet-c'oux Of satiD, laoe and silver gilt, Tied up with ribbon* blue. I loyed to read the verae concealed Its dainty leaves between. Fori was then at boarding school, : And be wbb seventeen. The last was written on a sheet Of paper thick and fine, A simple message: "Will you come And be my valentine?" -.Ms|answer, penned with happy tears, The post next morning bore; Then he was turning twenty-five And 1 was twenty-four.. il keep them in a secret drawer J" Ajnd always weir tbe key; You hav» already guessed, no doubt, One lover sent all three. And there he comes, a white-haired ._,,,■ man, , ~: Offd early sixty-n in e My, wedded spouse for forty years, And still my valentine. —Minna Irving. THE COMING OF THE WATILB. 1 "Valleys of green with gold ablaze, Breezes that faint in the rich perfume, Hills that swim in the shimmering haze; t When wattles bloom. "Back where the beart of the lone I bush .sleeps, And tbe iidge dips -down to the stretching plain; /And the shallow creek thro' the rank grass creeps; I oall again. 'Gold of the wattles; blue of the bills; *I have seen roan in his misery; Groping his way through his puny •i.£Llb;;,;,' ~.',; , '■ i Turn back to me. Seeking my (silent, gold-lamped screen, Graving for nought but nothingness; (Striving, .with death and the might have, been, . ', For my caress. ißaok where windeth tbe long bush path, And my shadows dance their fantasie; When the world swinas round to tbe • aftermath, Be comes to me. Who is it knows the wattle song, 'The ripple of musn in the trees, The dance of the golden fays along The perfumed breeze? 'Wbaknbweth best the wattle song, That which sleeps 'neatb the golden screen, With the sun elves dancing their dance among Tbe grim unseen? -Golden eyes with their tears of dew, Breezes that faint in the rich perfume, A chanson of life, and a dirge of death, When wattles bloom. —Oharles J. King in 'The New Idea."