STRAY VERSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3669, 2 November 1912, Page 10

STRAY VERSE.

THE LITTLE GREEN GATE. There’s a little white house that I once used to know, In the far-away country that’s called Long Ago, AA ith a little green fence and a liUle green gate, Where Somebody once ’non a time used to wait.

Somebody once used to watch and to wait Every night between seven and eight, As timid and shv as a litvie grey mouse, At tlie little green gate of the little white house:

Lingering there in a state of suspense Till Somebody passing the little green fence— Sooner or later, as certain as fate — Paused for a while at the little green gate. Only a gate in a little greeu fence; Rut the words that were said—though they hadn’t much sense—• ALnde it seem—'tis a story so old and so new— The gate of a Paradise made for the two. —Ada Leonora Harris, in 1 ‘Chambers’ Journal.” THE GREAT AIISGIVING. "Not ours,” says some, ‘'the thought of death to dread ; Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hel!: Lire is a feast, and we have banquoted— Shall not the worms as well?

“The after-silence, when the feast is o’er, And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in nought from what hath heen before. And is nor ill nor good.”

Ah, but the Apparition—the dumb sign—• The beckoning finger bidding me forgo '.lhe fellowship, the converse, and the wine, The songs, the festai gioyi

And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, And while the purple joy is pass’d about, Whether ’tis ampler day divineli-er lit - Or homeless night without;

And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see New prospects, or fall sheer—a blinded thing! There is. O grave, thy hourly victory, And there, 0 death, tljy sting. —William Watson.