Selected Verse

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20510, 28 May 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

Selected Verse

VALUES There is increasing value in kind deeds Which far outweighs a monetary wealth, For often this takes wing, and swiftly leads To irksome paths. With slow, insidious stealth, It spreads afar into the darkening night W T here shadows fall—foreboding utter gloom. Kind deeds live on—immortal in their flight. On, ever on—dispelling thoughts of doom. Thrice fortunate he whose vision reaches far; Who knows this life is immortality. . . . That every act is like a passing star, Returning with unerring certainty. There is increasing value in kind deeds— And he who lives to serve—the best' succeeds. —Eva Ashley Parslow. IN PRAISE OF WALKING Aeroplanes see country Like a checkered spread, Rainbow-patterned, distant, Covering earth’s bed. Motor-cars look closer, Road and town are heard; Wooded hill and meadow Scarcely say a word. Rut to know the country Walk a blossoming lane; Listen to earth singing, Touch spring’s counterpane. —Edith Lombard Squires.

FARM FEVER I must go back to the farm again, Back from the sea and the sky. And all I ask is a cottage small And a barn and a shed and a sty. And the horse’s neigh and the donkey’s bray And the rooster crowing, And the quiet hum from over the hill When the scythes are mowing. I must go back to the farm again, For the call of a quiet pond Is a sweet call and a clear call To which I must respond. And all 1 ask is a summer’s day With white clouds flying And scented fields and pungent hay And wild geese crying. —From “The Conning Tower” “ONE ANSWER” I know we walk in mrst, uncertainly; And all our way is clogged with doubt; We hate the past, a burden but to carry; Fear days to come, at sea without a compass; The present, a vanity to close our eyes against. Oh, “Yes,” to all of this! But is no courage left In human hearts to fare our pilgrim way? Are we the first to face the dark, And was misfortune never known Until the cup was given to our hands? O, summon courage, beat the cowardice out; And by the sheer hard steel-like will Convince the soul that we may still go on, And find the joy that nothing has denied To those who grasp life by the hand And will not loosen grasp until death comes. —George Lawrence Parker.