THE LAMENT FOR LANIS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 15

THE LAMENT FOR LANIS

[By ROBIN HYDE.]

O life so squandered, O young brows bearing The winged helmet Past mortal daring, Bearing beyond All pain and quarrel The white, insufferable Laurel .... High on the hills She stays for breath And fills her lungs With sparkling Death, And his dark wine A-crisp with stars . Brims'her new being Like a vase. But looking back Companionless, She takes the city's Old duress, Takes the spent bird, The broken clod,. And brings them in Her breast to God; But if He sleep In young gold rain That washes Zion Clean of pain, Lanis with eyes Inscrutable Shall pass from where The blessed dwell, Pressing her white foot Underneath The dark and thymey Slopes of Death, Leaning like moonlight Out of cloud, Stilling the bird That sings too loud; Under slim trees Shall she draw down, And wait, the knower Of our town. And young men speeding As arrows through The milky-vialled Even-blue, Laughing and awed Shall summon up Courage to quench them At her cup, And in the bay The restless guests, The anchored vessels, Touch her breasts, And thus fall calm, As the white gull Swings on his curve Of ocean-lull. No human wrong, No clotted fur, But in the dusk May creep to her; And her hair growing Past her knees. Enfolds our city's Destinies.