Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/257

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A Parable of Fiddles.
221

CLIII.

The Answer of the Days.

I sometimes turn from these dark days that beBackward unto the fair days once I knew—The far, fair days when all the world seemed true,Ere yet I learned that joy had wings to flee.“O Days,” I cry, “so wonderful and blue,Come back again; come back and bring to meThe silent laughter and the vanished glee;Come back, dear days, I swear to cherish you!”
Then back on me with sad, reproachful eyeEach old Day looks, and voices without soundCome from them: “Mortal, cease that bootless cry;We came to you bliss-laden, and we crownedYour soul with joys; and after all we foundYou blest us not, but smiled to see us die.”

C. J. O’Regan

CLIV.

A Parable of Fiddles.

Seeing we are as viols to His hand,I know not whether we should hope or fearThat He should smite a music out of us,As out of Lear, or Goriot, or Satan—A tangled wisp of music as from bellsWind-swung and angry, or a comet-blazeOf hell-hot harmonies grown slowly cool.
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