SAND MAN TIME

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 11 September 1926, Page 18

SAND MAN TIME

When the bats peek out of the bamboo reeds, I And the goblins move in the long wet. grass; Where the- red gum tree from its old wound bleeds, I .see from my door tho Sand Man pass: He carries a load on his rounded back, And he bends quite low as he creeps along, ’Tis a weight of sand in a ped’iar’s pack And his feet make rhythm to Sleepy 1 Song.

Sleepy Song has a tune of dream, Of pixv story and fairy rhyme, Of pale undine and the sea-green stream, Dick Whittington and his bells achime : But every -story is broken short Like the c-lose-clipt grass on a wellkept lawn, For the ship of fancy has come to port With the closing eye and the open yawn : You could see the gum boughs across the moon, The jostling hi ¥,& that had made her rise; But the Sand Man .crept with hi* noiseJe.ss slioon, And flirted dust in your wakeful eyes!

Till lied Hiding Hood was lost in mist: Cinderella waited her shoe to find : And the Sleeping Beauty had not been kist: And the moon was hidden behind the blind: l

You wanted the end of the tale ,so much: But you lost the need in a • pillow’*; hush: You went down at onc-e to the Sand Man’s- touch As lie sprang on you from the haunted bush: For no child can see the Sand Man come. Only the grown-ups, old and wise. Find the tale unfinished —the fairies dumb — As they long for dust in their sleepless eyes! —M Forrest in the Australasian.