Night and morning, and other verses

Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel), Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, N.Z., 1927

This eBook is a reproduction produced by the National Library of New Zealand from source material that we believe has no known copyright. Additional physical and digital editions are available from the National Library of New Zealand.

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908328-87-1

PDF ISBN: 978-0-908331-83-3

The original publication details are as follows:

Title: Night and morning, and other verses

Author: Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel)

Published: Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, N.Z., 1927

Night and Morning and Other Verses

by O. N. Gillespie

Foreword

This Hide book should have proudly borne a foreword by Mr. Justice Alpers—but he will never read it now.

All I can do is to remember that he said that he was more than happy to lei me dedicate it to him.

As a schoolboy, I joined with all the others in giving him unstinted adoration, and these latter years of a precious friendship have shown me that we worshipped wisely.

His life n>as a poem of richer and nobler beauty than will ever he penned.

Most of the verses in this book have been published in the Sydney "Bulletin,” to whose k™dly generosity I am indebted for the right to reprint.

CONTENTS.

Page

Night and Morning—

The Sheep-stealer 7-8

The Singer 9-10

Justice 11,12,13

Molly-of-the-Wise-Eyes and the Others -

Evensong 15

The Specialist 16-17

When Mollie Sings 18

Baby Worship 19

Six-thirty 20

Smoke 21,22,23

The Bush and the Sea at Muritai—

The Reformer 25

The Avengers 26,27,28

Colour 29

Transmutation 30

Earth Music 31-32

Blue Ballad 33

Bondi Beachgold 34

Three Cinquains 35

August 1914 and After—

1914 37

The Night Raid 38-39

The Court of Arches 40-41

Flower of War 42

NIGHT AND MORNING

The Sheep-stealer.

Though the secret mirth

Of the wrinkled earth

Leaps lightly now and then,

There is rarer glee

When the night skies see

The queer night ways of men.

W 7ALLED by the silver dusted night

The hill sat hunched, a troglodyte

Giant and grim, whose frown was bent

"Where laughs of summer lightning went.

The blackness held no moving thing,

Nor lightest sound of whispering:

No colour showed except the far

Gleam of a homestead's window-star.

It paled at last, winked once and died,

Drowned in the eerie, lightless tide.

.... Suddenly, in the clotted dark

Awoke an impish, moving spark.

It swayed and halted, swerved and tacked,

A quick red sprite by mischief racked,

But climbing all the time with zest,

Until it reached the hooded crest.

Here two white rocks stared in surprise :

They were by day the hill's two eyes,

Forbidding, cold, insatiate.

The valley feared their stony hate

That made the height a shape of dread—

Some vast Jurassic monster's head,

And waveringly, beneath those eyes

Went talk of crops and market lies.

7

The red spark fluttered to one rock,

While rang an impudent, soft knock, —

Then the man stooped,—refilled his pipe,

Scored a thin phosphorescent stripe

With a sly match, and cupped the flame

In clever hands: as in a frame

There showed a lean and merry face

Whose wrinkles wore an outlaw grace.

"Laddie," he whispered to the ground

And with swift feet that made no sound,

A legged and jointed thing loped past;

It seemed a flake the night had cast

That snapped into the further dark,

Stifling a low exultant bark.

Soon near the man began to creep

The misty forms of huddled sheep

Like rounded drifts of silent snow

And though they shuddered to and fro

Crazed by that unseen grim pursuit,

Their idiot faces all were mute.

One more swift flame, a stealthy rush,

Brought back the hill's accustomed hush :

Like unreal shapes, half seen in sleep,

Faded the man and dog and sheep.

Forbidding, cold, the hill's two eyes

Stared at the faintly smiling skies.

8

NIGHT AND MORNING

The Singer

Though the secret mirth

Of the wrinkled earth

Leaps slyly now and then,

There is laughter clear

When the day-stars hear

The singing ways of men.

Slow wings of giant birds of white,

The gliding planes of morning light

Drove up the valley, mile on mile,

Till, like a ghostly silver pile,

The hill-top glowed against the sky

Of pearl and misted lazuli.

This is the hour of quietness:

It softly cancels all the stress

Of riot-life in leaf and limb:

The fire of blossom-flame is dim

And no beast stirs: even the grass

Is motionless as graven glass.

This is the lustral hour: a pool

Of healing moments, clear and cool

This is the hour of mystery:

The spinning world seems dreamingiy

To swim in pale enchantment, when

From day-time's drone of busy men,

To secret night's scarce-whispered calls,

This strange white bridge of silence falls.

Now the slip-rails of faery drop

And from the shadowy grey hill-top

Wind flocks of slow white thoughts that glow

In the pale radiance: they go

Softly from sight and show again,

Dream sheep that walk a magic lane

Where only follow those who long

To change this charmed hour to a song.

12

Steeped in the wonder of it all,

The singer passed the shadow wall,

And face towards the spreading light.

Steadily climbed the silver height.

There two white rocks stared in surprise:

They were by day the hill's two eyes,

Insatiate, forbidding, cold;

But now they seemed to smile, cajoled

As one light finger of the sun

Melted their gloom in soft sly fun.

The singer rested by one rock,

And then there rang a tiny knock,

As lazily, he cleared a splash

Of random grey tobacco ash.

Turning to watch the far—far, gold

That on the moving waters rolled,

He saw, in distant, jewelled spray.

The sea-birth of the singing day:

And ringing to his lips, a wave

Of rapture bore this little stave.

When lights of Port o' Morning gleam

And high clouds laugh to coloured foam,

My shining songs, my flocks of dri owi

Go down the sunways home.

10

JUSTICE.

"J" 1 HEY tramped the corridor, and turned

To where a petulant sunbeam burned

Upon the high door of the court.

The lumpish man stepped short,

And with a huge and hateful hand

He made her stand.

He had a broad and sticky face,

The course for an incessant race

Between swift grins and sudden stares.

Her eyes were like a broken hare's,

But, oh, so indiscreetly blue,

And this shone through:

We are two singing wells

Of waters of the seas of song,

And love and life and laughter-bells

King in us all day long.

Suddenly the swing-door creaked,

And, ashen-cheeked,

She faced the watching eyes

That quivered like black flies

Against the blur of saffron cloud

That was the faces of the crowd.

A high-backed chair bore one whose glance

Glittered with grim intolerance.

One day a week he smugly trod

To glorify a cold, far God,

And pray for keener power to find

The blemish in his fellow kind.

The rest, with prison filling pen

He scored his hate of men.

Deep in his eyes of grey

Stirred imps that seemed to say:

11

We spy foulness breeding

In hearts that are bleeding,

And after

We find souls are evil,

Worn through by the weevil

Of laughter.

With sputtering speed his swift pen ran,

And so the hideous game began.

Upon her bright soul's careless flames

He breathed, and they were livid shames.

In each inconsequential deed

He found a secret evil seed

That he could tell, with God-sent power,

Had fallen from the lecher-flower.

And, as he spoke, heads forward bent

Nodded an avid, pleased assent.

Such is the monstrous power of words;

They wing into our mind like birds

And roost, and let their droppings fall,

Till filth bespatters all.

And there are those who walk a track

Narrow and straight, and all seems black

Through fear-dimmed windows of their souls

In the wide fields where laughter rolls.

These keep a ledger sin-account,

Where nought's the only prized amount.

As though the convict, steel-barred in,

Were guiltless of the hopeless sin

He dreams of as his peering eye

Gloats on a maiden passing by.

Silence! the last dull word was sped ;

The high-backed chair, untenanted,

Stared at the paper-littered desk;

It seemed an altar—grim, grotesque,

Built in the market-place of pain,

Where souls must buy to sell again.

12

The blue eyes now were dark with fear.

The lumpish man stopped lirar.

And with a huge and hateful hand

He made her stand.

The sunbeam that had lost his way

Saw the bowed head. and. as in play.

Seeking to crown the one he chose,

Plaeed on her hair a golden rose.

It burgeoned to a glory; then

Died as they closed this work of men.

No rose of gold or red or whiti

Can flower within the awesome night

That brood* in the discreet small hell

Men call a prison cell.

is

Molly-of-the-Wise-eyes and the Others

EVENSONG.

QING a song of washing-up—shining clean plates

Chattering together like a crowd of old mates:

Buxom cups and saucers, and little white bowls

Purely and demurely bright like little girl-souls.

Hear the hymn to cosiness

The tinkling dishes chime.

Ringing in the doziness

Of evening time.

Mollie-of-the-wise-eyes leaves her hard sums,

In important apron she has swept the crumbs.

All of us are washing up: big and small folks

Sharing and comparing all the home-sweet jokes.

Hear the speech to cosiness

The doting kettle speaks.

Babbling of the rosiness

Of maiden cheeks.

Lamplight on the busy hands that fold the teacloths

Magically turns them into flitting gold moths.

Round me all the comfortable gods of home things

Flick away the busses of the day with blithe wings.

Ring the chimes for cosiness

And sweetly humdrum times,

Passing bells for prosiness

And high-flown rhymes.

15

THE SPECIALIST.

QO this was Death, this kindly, peering man,

Whose glasses hid the meaning of his eyes,

Whose voice was gentle, but aloofly wise.

His grave words ran:

"Where, little one, is the throb of pain?

Ah, yes, I know, this small blue vein?"

A gaunt tree stood upon the plot of green

Between the quiet room and the loud street;

Its branches, shaken by the traffic beat,

Stealthy, half-seen,

Wrote on the white walls of the room

Black, moving hieroglyphs of doom.

The trembling pallor in the girlish face

Misted my eyes; there seemed about my dear

Silent white wings, fluttering white moths

of fear

In death-white grace.

A blade of steel flashed in a far

Cabinet like a chill, swift star.

Somewhere a bell! Somewhere ringing of grief,

Ringing of flowers that die in the bud, die

In the shadow; life but a fleeting lie

From God, the Thief!

That tiny, broken curve of snow

Was my child's hand.. .kissed.. .long ago.

16

Then from remote and ringing distance came

The voice of God—a kindly, peering God,

Whose sounding words marched through all

doubting, shod

With joyous flame:

"There is no fear; as the years go,

To sure sweet strength your flower will grow."

This is the street again; the glowing sky

Is set with little suns for stars, and blent

With the faint smile, serene, indifferent,

Of the Most Hi

The lamps of human tending shine

And my child's hand is warm in mine.

IT

WHEN MOLLIE SINGS.

\Y/ HEN Mollie sings her birthday song

The little fingers tightly lace

Behind the snow-white party dress;

Her tiny throat is like a gong

That trembles in the ecstasy

Of making music and her face,

Upturned and glowing, bears a free

Delight and all unknowing grace

Of joy in her own loveliness;

When Mollie sings her birthday song.

And wears her snow-white party dress.

When Mollie sings her birthday song.

The soft piano-notes ring low

Like far-off bells that chime to bless;

For, newborn from that tender throng.

A tiny sound-child flutters in ;

As, thrilled beneath a loving bow,

The third on some old violin

Kindles an overtone aglow;

And glad airs melt in wistfulness

When Mollie sings her birthday song.

And wears her flowing party dress.

When Mollie sings her birthday song.

The thin, pure flame of melody

Heals the dull pain of day's distress;

Its burning beauty steals along

The listeners in the shaded room,

Till souls learn tongues of gentle glee

And lose their speech of ledger-gloom.

A glad new Pentecost they see

In the sweet fire of girlishness,

When Mollie sings her birthday song

And, radiant, wears her snow-white (.hiss.

IS

BABY WORSHIP.

-pOSS,—litle feet,

In twinkling mockery of eld's grimace

Till, sorely plagued, he veils with clumsy grace

From you, my sweet,

The grasping hunger of his careworn face.

Spin,—little hands

Your careless net of fairy threads that float

Enlacing grim old trouble's scraggy throat:

Those joyous strands

Turn into music each discordant note.

Smile—merry eyes

And send Death packing: for your busy glee

But fashions you to miniature of me;

That I may prize

A dimpled pledge of immortality.

0,—babe of mine

I know not templed priest nor sacrament,

But in your eyebrow's tiny trembling tent

I build my shrine,

And kneeling, hear God laugh in glad assent.

19

SIX-THIRTY.

npHE hilltop street lamp, suddenly in jest

Flicks out the pale flame of the climbing moon,

And twilight, dropping from a cloud balloon.

Sets off as postman with a bag of rest.

And I'm on the ferry where neighbourly fun,

Is sign that the day's drab flurry is done.

The hill-dames round the harbour sit and smile,

Green grannyhoods with earth-glee quivering;

They gossip slyly on the one droll thing—

That men must leave their ledgers for a while.

And both ferry funnels wave fat plumes of smoke.

To show they have fathomed the hill's fine joke.

The fond bay stretches out his warm brown arms.

And from them slips that ready flirt, the pier.

Coquettishly, as we draw slowly near,

She stirs to make parade of all her charms.

And home thoughts like stars dance in everyone's face,

As steamer and pier hug in shameless embrace.

Soon all the hills awink with window eyes.

Warm eyes that watch beside the waiting doors,

That hide joy-brimmed, ecstatic pinafores.

And so I 'm singing, swinging up the rise!

I 'll soon have one knuckle delightfully in

The tiny cleft curve of my baby's chin.

20

SMOKE.

1.

' I 11 K pipe for quiet comfort of the i

The cigarette tor riot of hot youth,

The brown cigar's a many leafed tome

Of sad and laughing weary-wise old Truth.

2.

Life's a cigar

Love is the taper.

Life's a cigar.

Life's a cigar

Lit at Love's star.

Life's a cigar.

Life's a cigar

Love is the taper

Puff! And we are

Ashes and vapour.

Life's a cigar.

3.

The dark draws to the cool recess.

My briar pipe smokes low,

As with a softly fierce caress

It's last rich embers glow.

Against the white porch rail my wife

Leans idly, eyes adream;

Through screen of smoke the thorns of life

But pointed petals seem.

21

We age—we two; but in the bowl

I see the fire deep lying,

And ardours of the fading coal

Grow stronger still in dying.

4.

My burning love for gay Lizette

Is lightly lit and lightly set,

As on her lips her cigarette

Tilts in a fashion airy:

And so it burns a little space.

Weaving about the dainty face

A cloud of ghostly light blue lace,

Ephemeral and fairy.

And as it slowly smoulders. I

Its progress watch and anguished sigh,

"Lizette, stay with me till I die,

"Be fortune fine or fleeting."

But she will say, '' Ow zat is triste,

"Le marriage it spoil ze feast

"of all zings gai";—l see the least

Cold fretful frown completing.

■22

And now the drifting vapour blue

Fades last, and so my hopes fade too.

There scarce remains to me a sou

On dear Lizette to spend—

"I/amour ees bete wizout ze 'oof"

"C'est tout fini as zis is"—"Pouf,"

And from her lips for final proof

There

Falls

The Bitter

End

23

The Bush and the Sea at Muritai

24

THE REFORMER.

' I 'UK harbour was a dreaming lake

Of quiet water brimming,

Where, all alone, a kittiwake

Was delicately swimming.

Her quick feet made a double fret,

Dark threads upon a coverlet,

Whose level blue was overset

With points of silver trimming.

The blue eye-; of the sleepy sea

Smiled lazily.

The kittiwake swam here and there

With purposeful endeavour;

Her dainty consequential air

Showed pride in being clever;

Her breast, she knew without a doubt

Had rubbed the ocean wrinkles out,

And all the waters round about

Would now be smooth for ever.

The gray eyes of the watching sea

Smiled thoughtfully.

The hurrying dawn was pale with pain.

Wind-furies, harshly crying,

Tossed on the pier a draggled skein

Of feathers, slaekly lying.

Like a street hag whose hideous sleep

Marks the drear end that high days reap,

The kittiwake lay still —a heap

Of brave dreams, drably dying.

The green eyes of the wanton sea

Smiled carelessly.

25

THE AVENGERS.

Tauwliinu and tall fern, ;'ox-glove and hutiwai,

Swarming up the long slopes, pouring through the

passes

On the flats the ragwort's yellow standards fly

"Vengeance for the slain trees; death to stranger

grasses."

Like some huge earth-god, sprawling motionless

And staring at the sea, the long hill lay.

While busy centuries wrought him a dress

Of splendid green to cloak the dingy clay.

So the wan Mist Maid in the evening times

Would find a forest glory in the height:

A monotone that made soft colour-rhymes

With green of trees and drifting robes of white.

The wind that moved about the hooded crest

Sighed laughingly to find the sombre gown

Of green bush beauty hid a secret zest,

A riot of quick life, a fairy town.

For down long colonnades of arching green

Where creekstones rang the low-toned river chimes,

The kiwi darted, silently, half seen,

A Polynesian sprite of olden times.

In companies the lesser trees would halt

To peer in awe, Was it a soaring spire?

Or a great rimu clutching at the vault

Of dim far blue with finders of green fire.

26

Tuis sat gravely, little singing nuns

Of some old pagan fane of long ago;

And swift small birds like tiny coloured suns

Plashed up from pools and sparkled to and fro.

Enduringly through root and bole and stem

The spirit of the bush distilled the earth,

Xow to rich fruit, now to a flower gem

And all was work and growth and life and birth.

In a distant shuttered room

A parchment rustled in the gloom

And straightway flocks of written words

Set out like black ill-omened birds:

And "Fell" they said, and "Burn" they said

"The green grass grows where trees are dead."

In toiling hands the spinning axes rang,

Till, crashing one by one, the great ranks fell:

Hark ! As they lay, a grim bush spirit sang:

"Brothers, the Bush . . Will take revenge . . Farewell."

Next at the reckless bidding of a fool,

The sunlight sunken in each dying leaf

Leapt to fierce flame that raged in mad misrule,

Leaving an ashen desert, grey as grief.

The timid alien grasses came at last,

Pliant and servile, dreading the strange land;

Faintly they heard, rustling with fear, aghast,

The warrior song of an attacking hand.

Tauwhinu and tall fern, fox-glove and hutiwai,

Swarming up the long slopes, pouring through the

passes

On the flats the ragworl 's yellow standards fly:

'' Vengeance for the slain trees; death to stranger

grasses.

High on the slopes comes down the ruthless fern;

.Mark his green lances tossing in the sun?

The marching fox-glove ranks are closed and stern,

And forward massed platoons of ragwort run.

27

The countless brown bombs of the hutiwai

In swift relentless broadsides fall and spill:

So ... as the sullen year goes sighing by

The craven grasses, routed, leave the hill.

Like some huge earth-god, wounded and aggrieved,

And staring at the sea, the long hill lay;

Then, as in agony, his shoulder heaved,

Toppled and crashed, a mass of ding)' clay.

In a distant shuttered room

A parchment chuckled in the gloom.

"Dead trees," it said, "Slain trees," it said.

'' I grow and grow where trees are dead.''

28

COLOUR.

O LACK is the master of the crowded hall

Where all the colours meet; he is the Head,

For mauve is tame, magenta badly bred,

Purple and brown to vapid languors fall,

And pink and meretricious yellow brawl;

Sly blue and lissom green and lazy red

Are only friends in some chance flower-bed;

Grey, but the toneless echo of them all.

Black is the regal, universal friend,

Who softly brings to humankind his store

Of quiet amity and comfort deep;

Who kisses mother night, and makes her lend

The sable fabric from her wardrobe door

To veil the sweet halfdeath that men call sleep.

29

TRANSMUTATION.

gleaming shuttle of the white moon flies

With cord aglow to slyly sew

About the world a silver net of lies.

The moonthreads through the night air spill

And magically float and spin,

They change the bulging massy hill

To one black sheet upright and thin,

Of painted tin.

A ribbon of the moonstuff lies

Against the rata's shadowed feet,

And black its scarlet flowers rise,

While on the hill the yellow wheat

Sways, white as sleet.

And there is knit a sorcery

On relics in the picnic place,

A gleaming jam jar dons in glee

A cozen-gown of jewelled lace

With tricksy grace.

I walk with Maud in ecstacy.

Her love-drenched eyes are lustral wells

That purely shine with modesty.

I seem to hear the tinkling swells

Of sanctus bells.

The creekstones ring like little gongs

Tapped softly by the fishes' fins,

And trees lilt airs of greenwood songs;—

The purl of pixy mandolins

Far-off begins.

And then I light a cigarette!—

The matchflame is a searing spark.

It burns away the moonlight net

And Maud's a drab—the park's a park!

Lord—where's the dark?

30

EARTH MUSIC.

"THE hill standing tall and stark

Stared over his shoulder,

And stolidly grinned;

Each wrinkle a furrow mark,

Each wart a grey boulder

Bared by the rough wind.

Knuckling tight, the fierce windfists

Beat thin the lastgreening;

The hill felt them not,

But watched through the swaying mists

With ominous meaning

One creeping dark spot.

Painfully the man went past

His wide-spreading acres,

Tilled all the years long.

The hill with a thunder vast

Like harsh winter breakers

Trolled this sounding song:

I have taken his heartflame for toll,

And the light of his eyes

Is a dimness; the dyes

Of my brewing disfigure his jowl.

I have twisted his sinews; his hands

Are but hooks for my soil;

With my harrow of toil

I have tattered his muscles to strands.

I have wasted his woman, and slain

Half his lubberly brood;

With my rack I have screwed

Every newborn in marrow and vein.

:;i

EARTH MUSlC—Continued.

Lo, he who once walked as a god

Is my chattel —a prone

Soulless mannikin, stone

Of my outcrop and clod of my clod!

But in a far booklined room

Lay, pliantly hellish,

A smooth mortgage draft.

Rustling its parchment womb

It captured with relish

The hill's boast and laughed:

The hill is a braggart! My fine

Black hieroglyphs lurk

Where this man-wrecking work

Is encompassed. The Glory is -Mine!

32

BLUE BALLAD.

r T"'HE black night-brats that whine about my pillow

Are weary company;

Bobbing with glee each swaying dream-negrillo

Grins wide at me.

But when the dawn, with pale lax fingers groping,

Limps through my window-pane,

I find myself incontinently hoping

For night again.

Dawn, bent to pull the plug with sloven slackness,

Lets out the tide of dark,

And, faint at first, from out the sinking blackness,

Stand objects stark.

That square-edged isle that holds the shape of sable,

Deep-curved and rising sheer,

Is only proof that on the dressing-table

Is last night's beer.

The dark grey ghost, in helpless posture sprawling,

As though in death grotesque,

Is but the coat in which I'm daily crawling

From stool to desk.

The brownish bluff that, growing clear, is knotted

With strange white-twisted hills,

Resolves itself into my washstand, dotted

With unpaid bills.

So, one by one as on a bigot mission,

The dawn drags in his gifts,

Each one a mark of workaday attrition

And mean drab shifts.

The black night-brats have flown, but in their places

Ī rise for work to glimpse

The sharp teeth, lancet claws and hatchet faces

Of Day's damned imps.

36

BONDI BEACH-GOLD.

A FAIRY park of colour-guns

Shatters the clouds of gray,

And, blazing like a hundred suns,

The fire of golden day

Burns down upon the sand for us.

Turning the creamy strand for us

To opalescent land for us

Who love the golden day.

The sun's wide parasol of blue

Rifts into roselit crannies where

A million tinted strings come through

And fill the golden air.

They lift and fall and sway for us,

And magic measures play for us,

Till, chiming clear, the spray for us

Kings out a golden air.

Below each string a bubble floats,

A crystal bright and frail;

Voyaging through the tide of motes

It lifts a golden sail.

This is the flashing sign for us

That life is fair and fine for us,

And joy will always shine for us

Who fly the golden sail.

A dropping bubble lightly breaks

To splash the sand with pearl,

And in the jewelled pool it makes

There stands a golden girl;

She bows before the sun for us,

The day-fires vestal nun for us,

This surf-girl posed in fun for us,

This golden, golden girl.

37

THREE CINQUAINS.

Morning Disillusion.

The sun

Rose-tints the murk

And moving- heiroglyphs

Break through in flame—then pale to skiffs

At work.

The Alchemist.

Blossom!

Your rich tints hold

My passion colour now,

Your subtle hues for me spin Gold!

Prize cow.

Phases of the Moon.

Her eyes

In moonwine steeped

Bred by Faith, but in my room

The lamp stared hardily: Outpeeped

Two lies.

38

August 1914 and after

36

1914.

OVE lounged with Death in that supernal bar

Where stand life essences in coloured line

Love's rosy smile was blandly enfantine

While Death was ponderously jocular.

''Partners," he said, "known to the House we are"

And bragged of comfort in his frosty wine :

"Each bubble soul in Love's liqueur ashine

Breaks at the brim into a death sweet star."

Love, sweetly fuddled, sleepily agreed

That they were drinking mates for all men's need,

When footsteps clanked outside; the jade bar door

Crashed open suddenly, and in slouched War.

He roared for drinks, belched like a drunken crone,

Sat down with Death, and now Love drinks alone.

40

THE NIGHT RAID.

In our office in Pitt-street

Smithson is working

On the March balance,

Blue-ticking the journal entries,

Crosschecking the eastings in his patient way,

Slipping

Midway in the morning to the corridor

For a cigarette,

Dragging his club foot furiously,

Loudly.

It is dull for Smithson,

But his dreams are whole.

London glows for Smithson,

Splendid traffic canyons

Bright with the living glances of passing armies,

Whereas

It is black —

Even its day is dull yellow,

Half-hiding sooty brick and stone monsters,

One of which

Squatting in Manly

Would frown the creamy cheeriness out of the sand.

France for Smithson

Calls up sparkling girls, cafes, high voices, talking

shoulders

And ribbons of coloured sunlight.

It is mud

Smoking with stenches

Trampled in endless marchings,

And it is only the Sun's

Sick brother

That lights this greyness

They call the Old World;

While for Smithson there blazes

In his hearty, persistent, golden way

The good Australian Sun.

This longed-for time

Has only come to me

To cancel my dreams

—There's the whistle.

38

How did it finish, Nurse I

1 was sure.

We outplayed that Bavarian team,

Went through them?

Good.

Oh, the dreams I'll always have!

I must get back to Smithson.

We'll only have one good leg apiece.

But dreams —my dreams!

Poor damned old Smithson!

Lame,

And no dreams,

No living dreams!

42

THE COURT OF ARCHES.

As a tree splintered on the heath

A Somme lagoon rocked underneath

The roaring ceiling of the world,

And noises hurled

About the air, set up a quaking,

Tilting the banks, till dried ooze flaking,

Spattered the swaying pool all over

And drove the gauzy flies to cover.

A sedgy corner thus far quiet

From work of that corroding riot,

Held frogs in council, earnest, rapt:

Portly and calm, their leader mapped

The course of their enquiry on

The 'Whence' and 'Why', the pro and con,

Whence came the noise, unequalled by

The imagined croak of all frogs? Why

The marshroof's turbulence?

Could He in truth be praised or blamed ?

An underfed and thin one claimed

The mystery brought punishment,

And all should speedily repent

Desertion of the old lagoon.

His croak of warning ceased, and soon

Another showed the obvious good,

The bounteous insect crop of food

That strewed the surface of the pool;

And one said "Pool"

'' This is the last that may befall'';

"This the end, the end of all";

'' Rich slime and waterweed and logs'';

"All ended even frogs."

And thus and thus they wrought,

Weighing each word, counting each thought;

When down the feeding rivulet.

By turn and deep and fret,

Slow tiny clots of red came drifting

Dissolving, spraying, rifting,

To scarlet filaments that laced

And writhed and broke in spectral haste.

43

Without surcease, the floeculent

And delicate masses glowed; and spent

Till all that smooth green water-lawn

Was tinted like a rosy dawn.

And joyously the Council saw

That wonder-change; and hushed in awe!

Their answer had evolved!

Enigma solved!

Forever now, their soft green sides

Would lave in graeions, soft pink tides.

Their loud full-throated anthem rang;

' 0 Great Suffuser! Hail!' they sang;

'Blessings Alway'

' Are Thine Non Nobis, Domine.'

■1!

FLOWER OF WAR.

soundless planes of trance

Had whirled me past a hundred sleeping years,

And dimly, far below, through haze of tears,

I saw the wound of France.

From little hill to town,

From road to river silver-string it ran—

An endless hurt: and, like a swooning man,

I drifted slowly down.

Lo, all the growing things

Were steeped in red, and red, and red again,

As though dead years still fanned their blooms of

pain

With unforgetting wings.

Here swayed red violets;

There grass was red, and marched with crimson

plumes,

To where tall scarlet lilies split perfumes

Above red mignonettes.

A daisy bowed its head

Vainly to hide its shapeless, bloodied spots

From eyes of jubilant forget-me-nots —

Forcet-mc-nots of red.

But, checkered on the sod

Among the flowers, stood rows of crosses white.

They wore no red: they flamed with living lighl

The glory-gold of God.

42