poetry Mine Enemy.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2030, 11 July 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

poetry Mine Enemy.

Mine enemy, who tima and oft, Had tmitten me with words like awoids, And trampled on my aiißwer eoft, Till I too pmote with angry wcrds, Ii dead, and I am fairly quit. God give him rest ! Once well away, Swicg he loved me not a whit, No heart have I to bid him stay. Ani yet mothinka the God who framed Both him and me had made us such Tuat we were icarcely to be blamed For loving not each other much. Tho little good there was in mo, It was not his, nor in his way ; His good I hfcply might not see, ' Because he lacked one darling trait. We hLed not, and misliking lent Our virtues its own fatal sting. And many a shaft that auger sent Was feathered from a virtue's wing. Tho aggressor he, hia active life Commuted him to this or that ; flipped, but loath, into the strife, Where he was dog and I was cat. Sow, 'twixt the twain who lately clceed In contest on Time's petty stage, Eternity hath interposed The shadow of its dateless age. To day I saw his resting-place— A grave that friendship's flowers entwineAnd wondered, with a troubled face, If any hands would cherish mine. Tho gpfico about was kept, they said, For eome who wished their bones to lay As near as might be to the dead Whom I in life had wished away. God give him resi I The single crime, Mislike of me, should hardly blot His fame with one who many a time Can soothly say, " I like me not." Pdrhnpa we never fairly met That part in each God meant should live, And so incurred no lasting debt, And have but little to forgive. Thus entering at opposing gates— For heaven has many gates, they eay— We each may find a comrade waits Who quarreled with him by the way. In jarring notes that vex the ear Tbronghont life's feeble overture, 'Tis oft the tuning that we hear To make the after-concord sore. — London Spectator.