HUNGRY BIRDS SING BEST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2113, 23 January 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

HUNGRY BIRDS SING BEST.

A wee, yellow bird in the window, With the sunshine flooding it o'er ; Caged, forgotten and lunely, It can never hope to soar. No food has it or water, Or straw to build u nest : Yet list of it's clear, sweet niiteic. Hungry birds sing best. A ringer in richest apparel, Before a rapturous throng, Won tearful applause from every lieait By her magical jjower of song. Then she sped from the stage to an attic, Where a starving child she pressed Crying, "God in Heaven, spare him." Hungry birds sing best. A poet swept his harp strings, And his praise was on every tongue, For it seemed an angel's message That in their souls had rung. But he cried, as with fame they crowned him, " This is life's crucial test ! They dream not for love I am starving." Hungry birds sing best.

0 best beloved, will the time not coma When, soul to soul, we shall each know each? Under the glow of the summer dome Shall we learn the language the heart doth teach ? Or shall it not be till the winter's touch Hath frosted our hair and chilled the pan8108? She has known me long, but not overmuch, 1 have missed her love in a hundred fancies. But I know her worth at last ; at last I know that the world holds nought so dear. I have sifted the records of dayt> long past, I have searched the corners of each dead year And the more I search, the more I think, Though eyes be blind, that hearts are blinder ; Else why, when I wandered on the brink Of my life next hers was I slow to find her? God knoweth best, and it may be best For her dear sake that she loved me not, Sorrow the keenest and sad unrest Might have been hers, had she shaied my lot! What is is right, the Poet says, And we cannot divine God's secret measures She might have wandered in pleasant ways And bartered her future for earthly pleasures ! Tis sweet to believe that my darling slept Safe under the wing of the wakeful Dove ; Or ever she laughed, or ever she wept, God held her fast in His infinite love I h*ve known His mercy, and humbly claim That His love can cover the blackesferror ; And my darling hath known no hidden shame, No secret sin, no shadowy terror. With God and Heaven her future lie*. "So magic dial in human hands <Jan cast her horoscope, tell what prize May yet be hers in these lower lands ! Shall I speak, or leave it all unsaid ? Shall I keep my secret, or tell it wholty ? Hush ! let me be silent and softly tread, JCor break her peace so calm and holy.