The Sphere.

This day is mine. The power is in my hands
To take it up, a shining fragile sphere
Of perfect hours, unflawed, untarnished,
And use it as I will.
If I were wise and pure of heart
Then could I take it unafraid,
A gift of golden light and shining sky
From God's own hands, with knowledge of my strength,
And when the shining globe at set of sun
Lies finished, cry “My work is perfect, and I sleep content.”
But I am weak in toil, unskilled in lovely works,
And fear to take and crush the precious thing,
Or worse, to mar its misty depths, where promise veiled lies,
With ugliness of thought and deed.
So now to Thee, my Lord and Guide,
I give this shining day.
Guide Thou my wavering hand upon
its curving wall
That I at evening may behold with
sweet content
The lovely day that I, through Thee,
have wrought.

—Marie Blomfield.

* * *

Pioneer.

Here, where the mighty winds go up
The wooded peaks that cleave the
sky;
Here, round heart's home, shall blow
the dust,
Return the spirit that was I.
Below, the white road winds away,
Through fields I knew as bracken
waste.
These hands hewed out a narrow track,
Where gleaming cars persuade man's
haste.
The toil was mine, the blood and
sweat,
That gave my sons rich heritage,
But, being human, they forget,
Before Time's hand has turned the
page.
Oh, earth was good and life ran high—
(Oh, strong and bitter-sweet!)
Earth back to earth my dust must lie,
To make a pathway for your feet.
I am not bitter at this last—
I, who loved every stick and stone
Of this, my land. Man comes to earth,
And lives, and leaves it, still alone.
His dust the cradle for his seed,
His life and love the torch and flame
That shall inspire, by thought and
deed,
His sons to follow down the same.
Uncharted ways, and leave their dust
Rich on the land. Oh, strong and
sweet
Life runs for him who holds in trust
New lands to tame for unborn feet.

—E. Mary Gurney.

The above two poems were awarded the 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively, in the recent competition announced over 1ZB.—[Ed.].

* * *

Return.

I'm aweary, I'm aweary of these
white cliffs dashing spray,
Of the Channel's hooting syrens as
the blind ships feel their way.
Here my spirit sinks to flatness with
the flatness of the town,
While my thoughts of sunlit paddocks
slinting up to bush-clad crown.
And though western lanes are leafy
and the wild flower lingers still,
Yet I yearn for mine own country,
where far mountains top the hill,
As I shiver in the east wind where the
summer's warmth is brief,
Where the glory of the autumn is the
falling of the leaf.
Blithe I'll leave the fields that bore
me, leave the shores so often
sung,
And I'll turn me home in gladness to
the land that's always young,
Where a glinting gold betrays a stolen
riot of the gorse
As the greenness of the hillside drops
to greener gully's course,
Where the papa stream runs brownly
and the grey roads turn and
twist,
Winding far from golden daylight into
evening's greyer mist.
Yes, I'll turn me home in gladness to
the land that's never bare,
Where the glory of the autumn is the
greenness everywhere.

—Edith Geddes.

* * *

You Came.

You came a-singing down the hills of
dawn.
A strange new song.
The heights stood sharply splendid
against skies
That thrilled with anguish of a golden
morn.
I only saw the morning in your eyes;
I only knew that glory swept your hair,
You came a-singing, and each bird that
sings
Flashed shining music on the golden air,
Wild strains of unimaginable things,
You came a-singing and my soul had
wings.
You came a-singing through the orchard
close.
A petalled song,
A gust of whirling blossom caught you
round.
Above, the sky bloomed softly like a
rose.
Half shy, I bent again unto the ground
Where the cool grasses spilled their
fragant shower.
And wild verbenas trailed with careless
art.
You came a-singing; softly like a flower
A strange, sweet beauty blossomed in
my heart.

—A. J. Diprose.

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