MIDWINTER DAWN

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20956, 9 September 1933, Page 15

MIDWINTER DAWN

Sloth held me fast in pillowed nest, But the ascetic birds would not let me rest. Such joy their clamorous hymns and praises voiced, I got me up to see why they rejoiced. A world of pallid blue with flecks of gold, And blue-white snowy ranges \/ ; :"ttry-cold! Eastward a minim wraith of silver light— Forespent Selene and the Julian night! But on the horizon o'er the sapphire sea A radiance and a growing red advised me Of the pre-eminent and primal flame Whence all our mirth and all our music came. Anon forth-tolling bells confirm the quire That first had warned me of the signal fire. This is a new day! a new day! A new sunrise! birds, bells proclaim; My soul concurs. There never was a day. Nor ever will again be one, the same. —E.H. July 24, 1930. of language, which spurs on these beings to their formidable labours. Drudges they may be, but not harmless drudges. See how Dr. John Bullaker turns from the cringing, placatory note of his foreword, to insult his readers with a curt sneer. "Have a care," says he, "to search for Phoenix in the letter P, not in F." And that, all the time, beneath his soapy manner, is what he really thinks of us, what all lexicographers really think of us. Harmless drudges, forsooth!