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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
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1927-9917503773502836-Night-and-morning--and-other-ver
Bibliographic details
APA: Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel). (1927). Night and morning, and other verses. Whitcombe and Tombs.
Chicago: Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel). Night and morning, and other verses. Wellington, N.Z.: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1927.
MLA: Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel). Night and morning, and other verses. Whitcombe and Tombs, 1927.
Word Count
5,141
Night and morning, and other verses Gillespie, O. N. (Olliver Noel), Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington, N.Z., 1927
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