Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 25 February 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

SNAPSHOTS AND FIGURINES , Professor It was his lot to earn his daily bread In the oppressive tangles of routine. His eyes forgot the grails they had once seen When he was younger; so, uncomforted, He suffocated into greyness, shed Even his wit; his mind was a machine In time they sentenced him to be a DeanSome of him lives but most of him is ’dead. There is no hint about him of the man Who might with courage have created things Of a stupendous beauty under Heaven, — His only majesty is now the span Of pseudo-educative lecturings And letting Jones take English 97. in mortality In prose not always scorning comprehension, Professor John Plunk, Ph.D., Lift. D., Spent thirty years, ten months and twentythree Calendar days exposing his contention That idleness is due to inattention, And, with the same amazing novelty, Offered superb solutions' modestly To problems he was ( sic !) the first to mention. Life’s immortality is sometimes just, They named a hall for him and placed his bust Far from the loud, co-educated tread; - And, every week, a janitor’s robust Arm would dispel a quarter-inch of dust From the sleek surface of the savant head! Serene No words I say to her can break The calmness of her certitude, When I point out a slight mistake She makes me feel I am being rude. Serenity with a complete Lack of most ordinary sense, Hoist down my standard in defeat Before I marshal my defence. Too positive to be quite wise, Too negatively prim, One feels he should apologise While asking her to marry him. —Paul Tanaguie in Voices (Boston). St YOU COME IN SWEET DREAMS OF THE MORNING You come in sweet dreams of the morning Like a blossom the breezes have blown ; Your blue eyes with beauty do haunt me And all my dark sorrow has flown. Your smile's like the blush of the evening When the portals of glory unroll And shed o’er the hills and the valleys A. splendor that pleases the soul. Your beauty’s a pride and a pleasure, A dream void of pathos of tears; Your voice is as sweet as the music* That falls from ethereal spheres.

I lay me in sweet dreams of rapture Thus entwined in your arms of love, Your breath’s like the breathing of lilies - That’s wafted from yon crystal cove. Recalling those visions of beauty That from the soul never shall fade, They give me sweet comfort and pleasure As I view them in glory arrayed. — Thomas J. Donahoe in the Irish World. . y .■ : • a*' - - THE; KINGDOM ! . We saw the ■ Great', Sword .lifted '•AM it burned with love’s bold -flame; And .we ■ drew our swords Vof a kindred • , strength, , That were signed with a Living Name, And we, vowed, by our shields, they would never bo sheathed In the darkening night of shame. For a Great Star shone on our battle-camp— Shaped strong, like a Cross in form, Whose .deathless light was proof against death, - Til the shock of an earthly storm. And we .knew, ’though the hail of hell falls cold, , The rain of Heaven falls warm. 0 our feet were shod with the. steel of faith, And hope knit our- breasts of mail; And against the flame of the Great Bed Sword No enemy could prevail. And we knew that wo marched with a Groat White Chief, Whose leadership could not fail. By the light, of that Star on our battlecamp, And the flame of the Lifted Sword, We sang a saintly song in the night, And we marched with a clean accord. For the Name that was flung to the reeling hosts, Was the Name of the Lord. —J. Corson Miller in America. St SEASON’S END October’s dusk is whispering good-bye; Fast, fast now through the autumn’s windy sieves The leaves are sifted, color-drained and wry ;' Upon the summer’s loom a spider weaves Memorial web, bright jewelled in the rain; Across our dismal lawn the lonely birds Waver like leaves and bitterly complain; (We quiver at our own unuttered words.) Summer ended? "We do not dare to stir For fear the dream be reft, but closely lie, Pretending not to hear the ghostly whirr Of leaves and wings, and pitifully we try To grasp a. reassurance of our lot: That summer and her blossom fadeth not. — "William Spencer in the Arkansas Gazette.

“ON THE COLD HILLSIDE” ' I walked alone where once I walked with you; • ' \ • -’ O V [’ The privet hedge was silvered o’er With moonlight and the primrose lay Blanched by the rising moon. I heard your step fall lightly beside mine," I felt your lingers lightly clasp my wrist, Lightly your breathing sipped the . evening air. y.; We wandered mute down the hushed woodland ride, And where the copse runs out on to the down I saw a dog-fox drinking, and stood still, With finger raised. Three times be barked to the moon, ■ Then snuffed the air and knew us and was gone. ' Smiling, I turned to you, so that our eyes . Might share the secret. But I was alone; I was alone, smiling upon thin air, The shadow of a beech fell on the path, I heard the leaves sigh and I called your me, And the cries echoed back to me from the hill. I walked alone where once I walked with you. — George lands in the Nation and the . Athenaeum . St - • WINDFALLS. I filled my pail, and looked around; Apples littered all the ground, Pale, bright, up-ended, twig and stem Snatched from the tree along with them. Brought down from swinging overhead To lie with slugs and snails instead. I filled my pail,' I straightened up, I drank the morning like a. cup : Diminished sunlight flooding in Showed how leaves were getting thin, And the wind that whipped my hair Blew trees beautiful and bare. I saw a nest out on a bough I had never seen till now; Saw the paleness of the sky : Brushed with white, saw leaves blow by Gold and russet in a shoal - To heap the gully like a howl ; I. saw the poplar saplings lureh, Saw gold tags spinning on, the birch, Saw the tamarack tossing free, And knew them of one piece with me! Out whirled my heart and down the gale Like one more leaf set free to sail. I was a note like A or G In a rising harmony. “In this universe I fit !” ■. ■ I never was so sure of it; All my tangled lines slid free - And lay parallel in me : —0 golden world, you change and fly, And so do I — and so do I! At one beneath, too deep to 'mark, Our roots go twining in the dark; And, all in one, we slip—we move — Together down this shining groove Toward that hid Outlet, that sure Whole, That shall include us, clod and soul!” —Abbie Huston Evans, in the Measure:':