ORIGINAL POETRY.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 7, 16 February 1867, Page 4

ORIGINAL POETRY.

TO KATE. And thou could’st see me maiden When all beside were blind, Though sad and sorrow laden, To weary care consigned ? And’thou in pitying sadness Could’st shed for me a tear? Ho cheering song of gladness Was ever half so dear!

The wounded soldier bleeding Upon the battle plain, His life and hopes receding In agonizing ,pain. Would deem a fountain’s springing, Though mum’ring from afar, More sweet than syren’s singing, More clear than trump of war !

And I, the sorely wounded And stricken in that strife, 'Where sharpest swords abounded, The battle-field of life, ■Could prize that drop of healing, More precious far than gold, Around me sweetly steading, Like Gileed’-s balm of old.

And though that transient greeting, May prove perchance our last, Hor o’er thy mind come fleeting, One vision of the past Yet deem not that I’ll sever Thyraem’ry from my heart, J Tis graven deep for ever, ‘Till feeling-shdUdepart!

Ah! thus in all our sorrows, Is woman ever near, Celestial balm she borrows, Our drooping hearts to cheer. ’Though man may vaunt his gloty, In proud ’heroic lays, Yet, read aright the story The nobler pert she jliays'!

Yes! woman's fond devotion Oft bears the olive love Across Life’s troubled ocean, Like Noah’s faithful dove. And on those stormy waters How often is she near, ‘To fate like Jeptha’s daughters, And from a hand as dear!

'Thy tear drop has not perished, Though none might mark its flow, In heaven it will be cherished, ‘ Twas shed for others’ woe While angels weep the blindness Which turns the heart to stone, They joy o’er acts of kindness, And pay them with their own ! E. g.

Wairarapa, Feb. 10, 1867.