FROM THE POETS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19512, 10 June 1933, Page 13

FROM THE POETS

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks. Beautiful, comical things. Sleeping or curled. Their heads beneath white wings By water cool. Or finding curious things To eat in various musks Beneath the pool, Tails uppermost, or waddling. Sailor-like, on the shores Of ponds, or paddling —Left! right!—with fanlike feet Which are for steady oars When they (white galleys) float Each bird a boat Rippling at will the sweet, Wide waterway . . .

When night is fallen you creep Upstairs, but drakes and dillies Nest with pale water-stars, Moonbeams and shadow bars, And water-lilies; Fearful too much to sleep, Since they’ve no locks To click against the teeth Of weasel and fox. And warm beneath Are eggs of cloudy green Whence hungry rats and lean Would steadily suck New life, but for the mien, The bold ferocious mien Of the mother-duck. Yes, ducks are valiant things On nests of twigs and straws, And ducks are soothy things And lovely on the lake When that the sunlight draws Thereon their pictures dim In colours cool. And when beneath the pool They dabble, and when they And make their rippling rings, O ducks are beautiful things! But ducks are comical things:— As comical as you. Quack! They waddle round, they do. They eat all sorts of things, And then they quack. By barn and stable end stack They wander at their will. But If you go too near They look at you through black Small topaz-tinted eyes And wish you ill. Triangular and clear They leave them curious track