Poetry.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2540, 20 October 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poetry.

GRAY HAIES. It cannot be ! Hold up the lightCloser— the other way; Yes; child, your laughing guess was right— My hair is turning gray. _ Among those tresses, long my pride, A thread of silvery sheen Has dared audaciously to hide Their rippling waves between. Ah ine ! when youth and childhood seem Scarce to have passed away, 'Tis hard to startle from one's dream, And feel one's hair is gray. I know the fire burns in my heart, Or flashes from my eye, As fiercely as it used to start In days so long gone by. I know, I feel, I love, 1 hate, As keenly as of yore; I had not deemed it was so lateChill age stood at the door. Life's hours seem more than ever full, And joy crowns every day ; Yet o'er their current comes a lull— My hair is turning gray. You offer comfort, datling say The Bilver lies alone; Companionless it will not stay Ere many months have flown. Gray hairs you think a circlet bright To crown a regal head ; One used to praise their raven light In halcyon evenings fled ; But ah ! that voice is silent now, That form is laid away. The lips are closed that used to vow Long ere my hair was gray. Well, let it come—the silver sign— I live again in thee ; Thy tresses are as surely mine, And still more fair to see; For morning's gold is glinting back, And morning's purples lie Along my darling's sunny track, Reflected in her eye. What matter, since her young life grows More brilliani, every day ? Her mother grieves not though she knows Her hair is turning gray. Ah, well! the clouds have open rifts Their masses dark between ; As suddenly the topmost lifts A silvery ray is seen. It may be God draws back the clouds And lets heaven's glories through In silver linos across the shrouds That bar it from my view. And I can hail His path of light Which marks my upward way, And so give thanks because this night My hair is turning gray.

THE KAISER AND THE CZA R

" You know I love you dearly," said the Kaiser to the Czar : "No human machinations can our deathless friendship mar. If Europe were our joint domain, the universe would see No squadrons, guns, or regiments, but only amity. I'm hound to keep an army, for you see there is a foe That's restless and aggressive ; so unlike yourself, you know. And as for this my navy, and my retinue of war, . I keep it just for visits," said the Kaiser to the Czar. Then once again the monarehs swore eternal friends to be : The Kaiser wopl, and kissed the Czar as oft ' as three times three ; Then afterwards he showed to him hia new repeating gun, And told him all the mighty things that with it could be done : How half a dozen Muscovites or Frenchmen in a row Might with a single bullet be despatched to realms below. " But then," lie added sweetly, and invoked his patron star, "I shouldn't think ot using it." "Of course not," said the Czar. So pleased, his mighty Majesty of all the Russian lands Shed tears of joy and wept aloud, and grasped his brother's hands: "I know you'd never injure me, our hearts are so allied." The Kaiser choked and sobbed, and said, •'I coaldn't if I tried." •'l've got a little army, and a gun or so, it's true." " I think," replied the Kaiser, " that I noticed one or two." Then after telling him that men were never meant to fight, That rifles should be never fired excepting in salute, And if Krupp meant hia guns to kill, then Krupp must be a brute, This unsophisticated Czar took William to a play, Where Cossacks in their myriads were marshalled in array— Where cannon roared and sabres flashed, and all the pomp of war Stretched far away as eye could reach along the Baltic shore, With heart inflamed he told his guest how this portentous power An Austro-German-Turkish force could smash in half an hour. " But, of course, I wouldn't use them,' said the reassuring Czar. " Of course not," said the Emperor, and winked his ocular. —C.D.C. in the St. James's Gazette.