A Quiet Corner

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22030, 9 February 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

A Quiet Corner

NEW ZEALAND POET The following is one .'of the.two poems specially marked out for notice by the Poet Laureate, John 'Masefield, when commenting on the work of Miss Phyllis Duncan-Brown, a young New Zealand writer whose stories and verses have ..attracted much attention in Australia: — : . RETURN Yon came suddenly into the room Of long shadows and firelit gloom; iAnd watched me knitting in the flickering light ... I knew you had been walking in the wet night; • : ■ . ' And I knew why. My heart within me died ... > Had I not loved you so I would have cried. I waited until you knelt beside my chair. The fire gleamed on your wind-ruffled j? air ; Your face was damp with rain, And furrowed deep with pain . . . You did not speak, but I ... I knew Another woman held the heart of you. Your hurt eyes told me so. I should have said . . . "Then go. I do not want you if your love is or.dead" ... I only sighed and turned away my head [You knelt there while the unfed fire burned low: And cotild you think a woman would

not know That love and duty tore your heart in

two, " The young, impulsive heart of you? I understood The passions that drove you walking in

the rain. And the stronger tie that turned you

home again To where. 1 sat in the firelit room Knitting with tired hands Those wee, white garments in the gloom. „