The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1921-09-22

thought of you, the longing for you.
/ picked big handful of roses, and
in my mind gave them into your hands.
And / thought you smiled and said
"'Well done good and faithful
servant. Enter Paradise
$50 followed you to your home
in the Virginian country. 1t was
dream, all except the roses, and those
| laid in front OF the box where l keep
your letters and sketch | made OF
you when we were young and glad
when l was young and glad. For l
am an old man, Sheila, In all that
makes men old. My step is quick
still, my eye is sharp, and my brain
beats fast, but my heart is ancient.
l am an ancient of days, without hope
or pleasure, save what pleasure comes
in thinking Of one who must ever
be worshiped from afar. l wonder
why / seem to feel you very near to-
day!
Here at my window grows wild
aloe, and 1t is in flower. Once only
in fifty years does this aloe flower,
and / pick its sweet verdure now and
offer it to you. There 1t lies, beside
this letter that l am writing. 1t Is
typical of myself, for only once has
my heart lowered, and it will be only
once in fifty years. The perfume of
the flower is like an everlasting bud
from the last tree Of Time. See, my
Sheila, your drunken, reckless lover
pulls this sweet offering from his gar
den and offers 1t to you. He has no
virtues and yet he would have been
thousand times worse If you had
not come into his life. He had in
him the seeds of trouble, the sprout-
ings of shame, for even in the first
days of his love there in Dublin he
would not restrain himself. He drank.
he played cards, he fought and went
with bad company-not women, never
that; but he kept the company of those
through whom he came at last to
punishment for manslaughter.
yet, without you, who can tell what
ne might have been? He might have
fallen so low that not the wealth OF
ten thousand treasure-boxes could give
him even the appearance Of honesty.
And now he offers you what you can
not accept-can never accept-a love
as deep as the life from which he
came; love that would throttle the
world for you, that would force the
doors of hell TO bring you what you
want.
q .N.Iv rAPl1 Of
beauty and of heat l see the sheep
In hundreds on the far hills of pas
turage sheep with short hair, small
and sweet as any that ever came from
the South Downs. | see the natives
IN their madras handkerchiefs. l see
upon the road some planter in his
ketureen--a sort Of sedan chair: l see
negro funeral, with its strange cere-
mony and its gumbies of African
drums. | see 'yam-fed planters OF
their horses, making for the burning,
sandy streets of the capital. / see
the Scots grass growing five and six
feet high, food unsurpassed for horses
all the foliage, too-beautlful trop-
lcal trees and shrubs, and here and
there huge breeding farm. Yet !
know that out beyond my sight there
is the region known as Trelawney and
Trelawney town. the headquarters OF
the Maroons. the free negroes-they
who fled after the Spanish had been
conquered and the British came. and
who were later freed and secured by
the Trelawney treaty. ! know that
now they are ready to rise. that they
are working among the slaves; and N
they rise the danger Is great to the
white population Of the island, who
are outnumbered ten to one.