VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 20666, 23 April 1929, Page 6

VAGRANT VERSE

UNRESTING TREES

(Written for the Southland Times.) Summer is past and gone and the wrinkled

old leaves, Living in dreams of the gold and the green that was Spring, Are jostled and torn by the wind as it carelessly weaves A torn russet coat for the naked brown earth. On the wing A skylark sings notes, half forgotten; the gaunt, blackened boughs Of half-somnolent trees are an alien thing. Is Life dead? After months of black death, can the Spring sap, the sleeper arouse To the pangs of a premature birth from its cold lethal bed ? Nature's a driver whose whip often favours a few From his composite team; birds and animals, insects and Man All rejoice that the toil-worn old trees bud unresting anew— But the trees’ sleep is rendered ephemeral by Nature’s stern ban. —By Manceb. Invercargill, April 22, 1929.