Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 6, 11 February 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

MAN by himself. Because my grief is quiet and apart, Think not for such a reason it is less. True sorrow makes a silence in the heart; ’ Joy has its friends, but grief its loneliness. Ihe wound that tears too readily confess, Can mended bo by fortune or by art. But there are woes no medicine can dress, As there are wounds that from the spiritstart. < So do not wonder that I do not weep, Or say my anguish is too little shown'; There is a quiet here, there is a sleep, Iheie is a peace that I have made my own. Alan by himself goes down into the deep, Certain and unbefriended and alone. —Robert Nathan in the Century Magazine. Y BOG-LAND. I strayed within the bog-land brown And all its lure I felt, The cares I carried from the town Into its azure melt. The darkling pools, the faery flowers •Still lead me on and on, A- I I forgot the passing hours Nor saw that day was gone. AMieu darkness came, I know not whence. And whispered in her ear, The hog-land fettered till my sense And made me prisoner. No ray of light upon me fell, No shadow of a sound, Save that I felt my sentinel, The night-wind, on his round. The bog-land pitied my despair And gently rent my chain; Mho lured afar the wanderer Nor lured him home again. ~ A.M. in the Irish Itosury. Y for THE FALLEN. Mith proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Ilesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her . spirit, Fallen in the cause of " (lie free. •Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal •Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.— There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and . aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted. They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, that are left to grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar i aides at home ; They have no lot in our labor of Lire davtime: They sit beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and cur hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night. As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness. To the end. to the end, they remain. — Laurence Bin vox. in .1// Anthology of Modern Fcr.sr. IS WJ CROSS ROADS. I slood at the cross roads where the roads meet, And the sun was shining and the birds sang sweet, I saw the people passing by, and some were very old, And they shivered and they dithered as though the day was cold, For the sadness of the weight of years was on them like a coat —- They were tired of seeking Charon, and his overladen boat. I bade them sit a while and rest and take their ease, “No rest,” they cried, “for such as us.” No rest for such as these? Mien a young man came towards me; and oh, but lie was strong, And ns he came he whistled a stirring battle song. 1 said to him : “Good-morrow, and the day is fine and dry,” Then he said: “The rain is coming, though the crows were flying high.” I asked him where he came from—what took him on the road. He was off to find his fortune in the land of ■ flowing gold. He was tired of all their talking and their tales of Tir na nOge, Twas talks of war and striking, and the prices going up,

And many a little hungry child without a bit© or sup. i I said: “May God go with you and keep you on your way.” * But oh, my heart was heavy with the things G"’ I saw that day, A.L., in the Irish Weekly Independent. Y 0 SHIP OF STATE! “0 Ship of State! Our fathers budded thee in toil and pain, Met with a blood-red dew and bitter rain, Early and late, Neath heavens without: a star, While ill the shingled bar The wan tide call’d — ‘ Come —follow me Over the broad, deep sea, Finding, in service, life; And peace, past strife, Or death, in honor pall’d.’ “And so they went, In their wide seeking spent; And some sank down to sleep In the dim shadowy deep; And some return’d, With eyes that strangely burnVl, h or that they’d look’d through the dim veil divine 0 er life’s horizon line. But. oft they sail’d again, Returning weary men, Ragged, and battle-searr’d, and salt wind talin’d ; Vet bringing back to land Thoughts beyond mortal price, 01 high achievement born, and sacrifice. “W hither, 0 ship, away On what strange quests to-day— Weird writings on thy sails, Thy broad decks strewn with bales Of bitter words, and promises, and threats, So many that the weary heart forgets Half that is written ere thou leave the bay To the poor—money without toil for it: To allrewards unmeasured by man’s wit: Heights reach’d without an ache of climbing feet, And money—money —money*—all replete With happiness, as though that could be bought— As though one triumph without pain is got; Forgetting how our fathers, often poor, Sought peace, and found it, free from money’s lure In Honor’s pathway ever fearless trod. And touched in love the very feet of God. “0 Ship of State, Fro the grey hour grow late, Fling half those windy wallets to the wave, And write upon thy prow that Happiness Comes not by mere material More or Less, But by contentment sought Where honest men have wrought; And, when thou sailest .o’er the singing foam, ' Bring, back not Hate, but Love and Friendship, home.” Lattchlan Mac Lean Watt, in Glasgow Herald.