POETRY.
MEMORIES.
THE long expanse of shining sand
And the green links and ruined lane Of childhood's unforgotten land In happy dreams I see again; Again I hear the sounding main,
Just as I've heard it oft before, Unsleeping beat—and beat in vain—
Upon a far-off northern shore; A shore with grottoes dark and cool
And—'mid the rocks at ebb of tide— Full many a clear and salty pool
Where gentle currents whirl and glide; And little fishes love to hide 'Neath airy sea-born tracery, Whilst on a height, the shore beside, A grey house looks upon the sea.
There, in the evening's fading light, I loitered often by the brake,
Till stars—bright rulers of the night—
Gleamed tremulous on stream and lake, Where coot and snipe and duck and drake, Secluded in their reedy den, Made music with the noisy. crake Along the margin of the fen.
And here, in the bright, budding May, 'Twas sweet to roam by heath and wool, Where tufts of broom bestrewed the way In fair array of green and gold, With other beauties unextolled That lurked within the mossy dell, . Down which a laughing streamlet rolled 'Twixt banks fresh-robed in heather-bell.
The old grey house is there no more, The stream is shrunken in its bed; The wave still laps the sandy shore, The wild-fowl from the brake are fled. Alas, that with the years are sped So many things my childhood knew! The very tufts of broom are dead, The earth itself is changed in hue !
Tempe, Bloemfontein. D. M. 11.4e1t4E.
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