Poetry.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2757, 15 March 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

Poetry.

lIEKOES. Thronging through tlie cloud rift, whoso are thevy the faces Fiii 11L revealed, yet sum divined, the famous ones of old ? " What," they smile, "our names, our deeds, so soon erase* t Time upon his tablet whore Life's glory hex enrolled. " Was it for more fool'a play, make believe, and mnmniiug So we battled it like men, nut, boy-like, Bulked and whined? Bach of us heard clang God's " Come 1 and each was coming: Soldier* nil to forward face, not sneaks to lag; behind 1 n How of the field's fortune ? That concerned our Leader! Led. we struck our stroke, nor cared for doings left and right; Each a*, on his sole head, failer or succeeder, Lay the blame or lit the praise : no care for cowards: fight." Then the cloud rift broadens, spanning earth that's under, . . , Wide our world displays its worth, man a strife and strife's success ; All the good and beauty, wonder, crowning wouder, ... Till my heart and aoul applaud perfection, nothing less. —Robert Bkowninc,

TO-MORROW. Throufh the valley of our smiling and our sorrow, Like an unimpeded ever-rolling river, Tn-morrojv, and to-morrow, and to-inor-row, Our liven are ebbing ooeanwards for ever I And and yesterday is flying In tho dimness of the deadne*s of the past:, Like a lake won a lake behind us lying While the darkness of the night iB fall* ing fust ! And to-day is ever owning, ever going, For the present is a fiu'fflint of the brain, And the river never turrien in it* flowing Nor a wave shall wash its former bank again. We live as if the world were ours for ever, We die as though we left the world a M ink ! But the landscape never lacks its ancient river, And the river never lacks its ancient bank. The bell upon the bar i« ever tolling, 4.nd xgiiin we hear the warning and ngain forgotten im the ri>er'» onward rollinir, Forgotten is i * melting in the main ! An 1 still niion th»* pre-mn) do we borrow. Though the present is the future, or the pant, And t>-mnrr)>w,< and to-morrow, and toni"rr"W, Shall land io ete ntv -it la.-t ! Philip Aoton.