POEM TO "M"

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 17

POEM TO "M"

Short Story

"THE car bumped down the steep, windinjr lane. The headlights picked out i thin, youthful iigu e in a shabby mackintosh a:id a battered felt hat. " That's Ithys,"' the fanner observed, "we'd better give him a lift.'' His hand was already on the brake when the girl at his side said, "Of course not, dad. Olive on. What will people think if we arrive with a hired boy in lhe ear?'' The man obeyed, but as soon a* they had passed the lad he turned angrily to the girl. "Why did you want to make me do that, Margery?" Margery tossed her head and did not reply. It would be unbearable to give lihys a lift in the car. Ho always smelt of pig food. But she knew that this was not the real reason. Ilhye was good-looking in a youthful wav, ai d when he had first conn to the farm s.ie had regarded him with interest. She had lured him on to making a stumbling confession of his love; then with a wintry s-mile and a deceptive lowness of voice she had tortured him with that thin, sharp tongue of hers. His poor position, his shabby clothes had been turned into searing irons that -he had used with feline ruthlcssncss. She had found an unholy pleasure in

the sight of his scarlet face, and then when his blue eyes hod suddenly filled with tears and he had turned away blindly to escape from her. she had felt that her triumph over him was complete. The next day she had kissed him, and lie had dapped her face. It was therefore right that she and her father should pass him in the car, leaving him to struggle on alone through the darkness. A man never thought anything of a girl too easily won. Tn the little chapel schoolroom two seats had ibeen kept for them in the front. Hhvs, the girl reflected, would have to stand among the crowd at the back. The eisteddfod had been going on all dav, but the girl and her father had come* onlv for the evening session, when the winner of the chair would be announced. Soon the people who had been a'; the eisteddfod all day returned to their seats and the rows of chairs were quickly filled, so that latecomers had to stand at the back and along the sides. The schoolroom at once became very hot and a film of moisture covered the tightlyclosed windows. There was a queer. sickly smell of peppermints, home-spun flannel and damp umbrellas. The competitions were over, but tonight the winners of the singing arid instrumental eonte** stood upon the uneven little platform, and with eyes «till bright from their recent successes sang or played while Miss .Tones-tie-school strummed energetically on the tinny little piano, her *harply-point»d nose shining with perspiration. Mar«erv. sitting in Hie front with her father, did not listen to the singing or the plavins. but found Amusement in the earnest voung man in their Sunday suits and unfamiliar collars, and the girls in their stiff, shapeless frocks with cheap trimmings. She thought of Rhys at the back and then tried to think of ■omeone else, for it wa« not right that a lured boy should have the power of intruding upon her thoughts in this way. He would come silently, while she was working, eating, reading or dreaming and when he had come it seemed that the more she tried to put him out of her mind the more persistently he stuck there. Three hours slipped by «ini«»tK*d. for time is unimportant at an Then the minister, who was the chairman of the poetry section and himself a bard, went on the platform. In hi« deep voice that forever rolled and rumbled dramatically but artific.allr as if he were reading the Bible in chapel, he announced that the poet who had won the chair was now to be called forth. Two stewards brought the deeplycarved, high-backed oak armchair, which had stood throughout the eisteddfod at the back of the platform, to the front where everybody could see it. Dafydd Huws. the "joiner, had made it, and a fine job it was. "The poem which has won the chair is called 'Hiraeth.' and it is by a poet who uses the pseudonym. Tdris.'" A wave of whispering and movement swept the hall. Kiraeth. longing, that was a good title for a poem. "Will Idris' come forward and claim » the chair?"

By H. B. Aldrich

A young man came, not from the front,*but from the back, where he had i been standing. It was Keys, and his face and neck turned scarlet when a storm of clapping greeted him. But as lie walked up the narrow centre aisle between the row<g of chairs there was a certain unconscious dignity in his bearing. "J have persuaded the poet, who is somewhat reluctant, to read us his poem," the minister announced. Then he left Rhys alone on the platform. In a low and unassuming voice. the lad in the shabby suit stripped away the dial) walls of the chapel schoolroom and led his listeners out on to the moorland where the wind fought eternally with the heather. He told them of a young and eager love that was like a stream, slipping first between banks of marshy moss, uncertain and bewildered, but later rushing headlong over a stony way. hurrying blindly on, ever searching for the joy that might lie behind the next corner. But there was nothing around the corner, but the emptiness of the silencehaunted spaces and the moaning of the wind in gnarled and cwisted trees. She had repulsed him. Breathlessly. her face alternately white and flushed, Margery IMened to the story of his frustrated love, cloaked

in strange and lovely imagery. She | felt her heart rush chokingly into her j throat, and she knew she loved this lad , she had tormented so unmercifully. | Rhys did not look in her direction, but his words were, she felt, for her ; alone. And then he actually referred J to the object of his longing and his love j as "M." | This final proof that the whole thing was true and not a mere imaginary : theme for a poem made Margery want to rush up to the platform and fling j her amis about the poet's neck —what I a fine sensation that would cause! —and tell him that she loved him and that the memory of how she had hurt him tortured her now. "She will come where I'll be waiting. And I need wait no more." After "Mae hen wlad fy nhadau" had been sung the crowd gathered round j the young poet. "Come on. Margery, we can congratulate him to-morrow," said the girl's father, and she went home with him willingly to watch for Rhys' return. She stood looking out of the kitchen window waiting for him, and at last she heard the pate and the sound of his footsteps on the yard. He did not come towards the farm, in which he slept above the kitchen, but turned towards the orchard. It was a moonlight night, and the watching girl saw him go through the little wicket gate and under the apple trees. "She will come where I'll be waiting. And I need wait no more." Slipping a coat over her shoulders, the girl crossed the yard, which looked strange and ethereal in the moonlight. She went quietly through the gate into the orchard, and her feet made no sound on the uncut grass. There, beneath one of the trees. Rhys was standing. But he was not waiting now. In his arms was the pale-faced Margiad from the next farm.