New Zealand Verse/Life's Vigil
CL.
Life’s Vigil.
A man kept vigil by a lonely fire,
Inscrutable the night on every side
Hung round. The ruddy glow now almost died,
Now, fanned by wandering winds, it flickered higher:
The watcher tended it with ceaseless care,
And ever as it waned he crept still higher,
Till, weary and o’er-watched, he ’gan to tire;
Then slept. He woke, and day was shining fair.
Inscrutable the night on every side
Hung round. The ruddy glow now almost died,
Now, fanned by wandering winds, it flickered higher:
The watcher tended it with ceaseless care,
And ever as it waned he crept still higher,
Till, weary and o’er-watched, he ’gan to tire;
Then slept. He woke, and day was shining fair.
Even thus a vigil do all mortals keep
Beside the fire of Life, whose fitful ray
Is girt with night wherethro’ no eyes may peep;
We tend its flickering flame as best we may,
Till weary grown we drowse, then fall asleep,
And when we waken up we find ’tis Day.
Beside the fire of Life, whose fitful ray
Is girt with night wherethro’ no eyes may peep;
We tend its flickering flame as best we may,
Till weary grown we drowse, then fall asleep,
And when we waken up we find ’tis Day.
C. J. O’Regan