Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 40, 12 October 1922, Page 24

Selected Poetry

The Dissecting Room Here death and knowledge dwell:, no graveyard gloom Wakes such a bitter, secret shudder of dread As this long, empty room. Stone floored and sunlit, where the unwanted dead Lie robbed of death’s last dignity, denied Even the mercy of a swift decay. Yet here we live and work, here we dissect The limp and lifeless body—taught thereby To honor it with passionate respect With wondering hands lay bare muscle and nerve, . Moulded by service perfectly to serve, And, touched by wonder yet unsatisfied, Reach past the bounds of knowledge till we find A deeper wonder standing, veiled, behind. — Margaret Evans, in the London Spectator. ' The Wind is Blind “Eyeless, in Gaza, at the Mill, with Slaves.” The Wind is Blind. . The Earth sees sun and moon, the height Is watch-tower to the dawn; the plain ' Shines to the summer; visible light Is scattered in the drops of rain. The wind is blind. t The flashing billows are aware; . With open eyes the cities see; Light leaves the ether everywhere Known to the homing bird and bee. The wind is blind. Is blind alone. How has he hurled His ignorant lash, his aimless dart, - ' His eyeless rush upon the world, Unseeing, to break his unknown heart! The wind is blind. And the sail traps him, and the mill Captures him; and he can not save His swiftness and his desperate will , ■ From those blind uses of the slave. Alice Meynell, in the London Mercury. tf Renunciation ' . “Naked I saw thee, 0 beauty of beauty, And I blinded my eyes For fear I should fail. “I heard thy music 0 melody of melody, ‘ And I closed my ears For fear I should falter. • 'lv •: ■' ■ A • ' V ''V “I tasted thy mouth, ■- : 0 sweetness of sweetness, And I hardened my heart For fear of my slaying. “I blinded my eyes And I closed my ears, 1 hardened my heart i- And I smothered my desire. - ■ Padraic H. Pearse, in the Irish World.

y• . , ,Dublin, July, 1933. .■ Peace dwells in Dublin now; . Broken is the green bough; ■ ■ , , •f , The high gods have their will. . There are none left to kill; No more blood overflows ~ To darken a dead rose. Peace; in the clammy tomb ’T is well dead lips are dumb , ’Tis well that death-dimmed eyes See not, nor cold limbs rise. ’Tis well that the dead sleep Immeasurably deep. Peace; as the last shot falls Upon flame-gutted walls, , " Darkness and stillness spread Their requiem for the dead. Some bore their brows red-wreathed in thorns to-day, And others looked on them and turned away. —John Gould Fletcher, in the Nation and the 'Athenaeum. ‘ V-. ' ¥, , V Vista Del Mare [Genzano lies on the Appian Way running southward from Rome, and is celebrated for its wines and the beauty, of its women. It looks out from a spur of rock over the untilled plain stretching towards Civita Vecchia, the ancient port of the Emperor Trajan, with the sleek but scarcely visible Mediterranean beyond it.] Genzano wines are good wines, Genzano girls are chaste, Genzano from its hill-top looks out across the waste. And as you sip the white win© or as you sip the red, Far, far away a beam of light, A faint and furtive gleam of light As hazy as a dream of light, Shines forth and then is fled. I ; ' Genzano lads are brave lads, Genzano mules are strong; In painted carts, with nodding plumes they draw the wines along. And if the load be full casks or empty ones and light, The lads they drive their cattle on - Where Romans once did battle on The dusty road, and rattle on From morning until night. Genzano town has proud men in palaces they dwell, And gaze across the waste land below their citadel; And whether they be single or husband a good lass, The gladness all men ask of wine Is theirs in many a cask of wine Or wicker-waisted flask of wine They tilt into the glass. p Genzano girls have long locks and wavy locks and black That lie in coils upon the head or twisted down the back. Their eyes are shining darkness', a, mine that’s full of fire; .... ; Like fillies with their tails a-drift, They walk amid the males a-drift. And see them not. The sails a-drift Are all their eyes desire. Genzano girls are lovely. I know on what they muse, It isn’t on the wine-casks and whence they are or whose; But why they flaunt a red cheek or why they hide a pale Is that far-shining beam of light, The faint and furtive-gleam' of light . ‘ As hazy as a dream of light, J That shows a lover’s sail. , Wilfrid Thorlet, in the New Witness. '