Poetry.

Waikato Times, Volume 2537, Issue XXXI, 13 October 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poetry.

LITTLE WILLIE. Such n das?f> leave hiin, laid in his lonely grave : Hark how the nnrth wind whistles through the thunder of the wave ! Such a day to leave him, while the wind blast sweeps and swirls, With the cold rain splashing over him, and the sods ou his golden curls ! Just a short week since we watched hin.i down on thn sunny shore, And smiled to hear his ringing laugh blend with the breakers' roar; Just one short week—a start, a cry, a crash from the falling cliffAll, pretty lips closed dumb ond dead; light feet laid still and stiff ! Such a day to leave him ! How his blue eyes danced and shone, And the colour glowed in his round cool cheek but one brief week agmie ! Hard he fared, and cold he slept, and his little life was jny ; Spa, sand, and sunshine Naturo gave to bless our bonnie boy. Such a day to leave him ! What though the parson blest The black earth .vhere we put him down, what docs the child with rest ? He loved his life, and light, and play— they were all the boon he had ; Yet few the tears he ever shed, the bold and blithesome lad. It had not been so hard perhaps the narrow grave to make, If the seagulls had been floating where the waves showed like a lake ; If the daisies had been springing, and the kindly sunlight warm, And the green grass waiting for him like a mother's sheltering arm. But while the whole air thrills and throbs with thu great sea's angry tlmndor; And the Churchyard Head looks grimly on the white surf boiling under, With the palo rank grasses shivering 'neath stinging hail and snow, Our joyous, happy darling—it is hard to loave him so. Well, God took hiin in his merriment, our God whose ways are wise ; He is safe from cold and hunger, in his home there in the skies ; But, oh ! that the wild winds and waves would hush them for an hour. While up upon the Head we leave our early-gathered flower. —All tho Year Round.