POETRY.
A WORD IN SEASON.
LAST year, I brought you, love, a gift of rhyme, The best I might bestow ; If bright, it stole the brightness of the time, The Spring's clear early glow.
Dashed were the glades of sycamore and birch With hyacinthine blue, Rich-throated cuckoos, from a changing perch, Thrilled the hushed thicket thro'.
The keen-eyed squirrel, safe on leafy height, Scampered. from pine to plane, The ringing tumult of the bird of night Filled the larch-scented lane.
We were glad wanderers then o'er wide hill-sides, Where Surrey's woodlands wave ; Now, track the charmed stream, that at Lalehasn glides Hard by the poet's grave.
Flickers of shadow through the sunlight float, The air of home is dim, The river moans, a sad and alien note Sighs in the robin's hymn.
A life, from our impoverished life, has past, Gentle, and pure, and free,
A soldier in the camp of light, right-fast,
With old-world chivalry : A mind that, frank, alert, inquisitive, Kept a saint's ardour still, Whose dauntless searching for the truths that live, Left no agnostic chill. Mourn we no more, 'twere wisest, and 'twere well, With the world's hope to blend ; What matters now the painful cloud that fell, And settled on the end !
O'er breathing earth, and through the moving air, A force resurgent rolls ; In realms invisible arises fair The Easter of all souls.
One day for us life's sombre veil will lift, A mighty light shall flow, And we no longer question, doubt, and drift, And fear, but find and know.
JOSEPH TRUMAN.
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