Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 45, 25 November 1925, Page 32

Selected Poetry

“BEHOLD, YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT.” How quiet is the house across the street — Bare and neglected till one year ago Two lovers lighted it with hopes aglow, And . made each inmost nook and corner sweet, A nest of peace, yet never quite complete. Young trees they set, persuaded shrubs to grow, 1 > Worked joyously till dusk descended -low, A nest of peace, yet never quite complete. How quiet is the little home to-day — Upon the wall her ‘ cherished rambler, red, The poppies blazing, the nasturtiums gay, The birds' that guard their nestlings overhead Are mocking him whoso skies are leaden gray— For she who loved it all is lying dead. —Mabel Bourqttin, in America. A THE LITTLE RED CALF. The little red calf For a. day and a half Has blinked in the light— His blue eyes adaze In the buttercup blaze, Ho fancies the world is one bright A world where a fellow, Fresh field, green and yellow, Whatever betide, May snuggle in safety his mother's warm side. Little brother, I, too, Once fancied as you ; The world was one fair Fresh meadow of flowers, Until the black hours Burst on me and stripped the mead bare. 0, little red brother, Keep close to your mother Whatever betide And snuggle as long as you may to her side. — Wilfred Gibson, in the Observer. SC PEACE. As time swings round upon its rusty hinges And years of doubt and yearning follow, one by one, 1 see an old land girt in silver fringes; Now tearfully despondent, and in srniHs anon. She rears her green shores o’er the voiceful • ocean That takes her in its full and free embrace, Like some devoted parent in its motion Caressing this dear child of more than matchless grace. Sad days were hers, almost from tho begin-, ning, Tho’ saintly lives were spent upon her fertile soil ; Ambition’s curse her ranks was ever thin- > ning, , As every age engendered its town luckless . broil. Partholan, Nemed, Firbolg; great De Danaan, Milesian and bold Norman— each her shores ,5 .v have tried. ■ ,

The choice is God’s, when all their lots have been drawn, j And peace and justice her ill-fated tears have dried. — Bernard Tansey, in the Irish World. * IN LONDON. When I look out on London’s teeming streets On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies, My courage fails me, and my hear! grows sick, And I remember that fair heritage Barter’d by me for what your London gives. This is not Nature’s city: I. am kin To whatsoever is of free and wild, And here I pine between these narrow walls, And London’s' smoke hides all the stars from me, Light from mine eyes, and Heaven from my heart. For in an island of those Southern seas That lie behind me, guided by the Cross That looks all night from out our splendid skies, I know a valley opening to the Fast. There, hour by hour, the lazy tide creeps in Upon the sands I shall not pace again— Save in a dream, —and, hour by hour, the tide Creeps lazily out, and I behold it not, Nor the young moon slow sinking to her rest Behind the hills; nor yet the dead white trees Glimmering in the starlight: they are ghosts Of what has been, and shall be never more. No, never more ! Nor shall I hear again The wind that rises' at the dead of night Suddenly, and sweeps inward from the sea, Rustling the tussock, nor the wekas’ wail Echoing at evening from the tawny hills. In that deserted garden that I lov’d, Day after day, my flowers drop unseen; And as your Summer slips away in tears, Spring wakes our lovely Lady of the Bush, The Kowhai, and site hastes to wrap herself All-in a mantle wrought of living gold; Then come the birds, who are her worshippers, To hover round her: tuis swift of wing, And bell-birds flashing sudden in the sun, Carolling: ah! what English nightingale, Heard in the stillness of a summer eve, From out the shadow- of historic elms, Sings sweeter than our Bell-bird of the Bush? And Spring is here; now the Veronica, Our Koromiko, whitens on the cliff, The honey-sweet Manuka buds, and bursts In bloom, and the divine Convolvulus, Most fair and frail of all our forest flowers, Stars every covert, running riotous. 0 quiet valley, opening to the East, How far from this thy peacefulness am, I! Ah me, how far! and far this stream of , Life' ■ From thy clear creek fast falling to the sea! Yet let me not lament that these things are In that lov’d country I shall see no more; All that has been is mine inviolate,

Lock’d in the secret book of memory. • L j ,« | And though I change, my valley knows no V > change. f I And when I look on London’s, teeming . | streets, ' j On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies, ( When speech seems but the babble of a crowd ! And music fails me, and my lamp of life Burns low, and Art, my mistress, turns from me, • ' ■ •,j Then do I pass beyond the Gate of Dreams 'I Into my kingdom, walking unconstrained By ways familiar under Southern skies; | Nor unaccompanied; the dear dumb things | I lov’d once, have their immortality. There loo" is all fulfilment of desire: In this the valley of my Paradise 1 find again lost, ideals, dreams too fair For lasting; then' I meet. more mine own • . , i Whom Death has stolen, or Life estranged from me; And thither, with the coming of the dark, Thou, comest, and the night is full of stars. —Dora Wilcox, in New Zealand Verse, v FORSAKEN HOMES AND GRAVES. These mountain wilds that rest so still, These woods and wastes so vast and deep, These ravines round each rocky hill, Where long-lost cattle roam at will Beneath the eagle’s ken and sweep. Far from the settlers’ haunts are found Rude vestiges of life and death, Forsaken home and burial mound Of those whose names still, sling, around, , i ' To circling wilderness and heath. V r Jh> I* n These olden walls, whose ruins low ' Are met in many a lonely ride, Deserted hearths whose fires did glow With homelight .in the long ago By Ti-tree flat or gully side. Round them the sheen of summer-day Falls drearisome and, desolate; Thin shadow lines of branches stray O'er .waifs of childhood’s: broken play, Untrodden path and fallen gate. The' notes of wild birds, that elsewhere Bring tones of gladness, seem to change To coronachs of sadness there; ■ . , The curlew’s cry upon tho air Sounds like a shriek along the range. 'The very dreariness seems rife With low and stealthy undertones, Footfall and voice of former life; Wraith-presences of sire and wife Ami children cling to wood and stones. , Some woman’s hand did plant and train That runner by the shattered door, Which clambered through the splintered pane And pallid turneth out again, As if from spectre on the floor. Once Life o’er Death hath made its moan; There hath been sorrow even here; In one small grave with weeds' o’ergrown A child sleeps in the wild alone, yWith only silence crooning near. f Here the night-zephyr, passing, wings j At midnight to that she-oak nigh, v. . Flays, harplike, on its drooping strings, And to its dreary cadence sings r ' ■ The Wildwood’s soothing lullaby. — H. H. Blackham, in Australian Ballads.