ROOKS.

New Zealand Tablet, 26 August 1920, Page 13

ROOKS.

Like tattered "scraps of paper they are fluttering and rising, ' • - And the jargon of their clamoring is very loud and shrill ;=».'.' " .. , ; The ebon rooks of England are swift planning . and capsizing On the current of the silver wind that whistles from the hill. Hills of jade and silver wind and rain across the ridges, Slim alders by the river, like a finely pencilled frieze; The chuckling mirth of water under little rustic bridges, And ricks and roofs and chimney smoke within' a cloud of trees. And over all the ebon rooks are tumbling and whirring, And a phrase is whispered, whispered from the tips of ragged wings, Till deep within my being I can feel a longing stirring For the sea's words and the white birds and the heart-remembered things.

Ships and spars of amber, the flowing out of bunting; the lift, the sag, the lurching as the grounder meets the prow; The loping leagues to windward where the ocean gulls are hunting, - And here a coaster trudging home, and there a scudding scow !

Oh ! not for me the quiet roof, the firelight in the ingle, Where men may wander drowsing down the easy ways of earth J Full brother to the ocean, I have felt my pulses tingle, Fox the broad phrase of the sea’s ways has spoken of her worth. 1

Race, of wind and smash of sea, the scuppers rolling under: » * The rush and wash of waters when the green is in tiie waist ; Tho zz: h &rz n taffrail and comes ™ ti »i

StleSS fly f in- rmy Weather and thß tan§ ' of spindrift The creak groan of bulkheads that are straining to the roil—. & Oh ! daytimes worth the dawning ! Oh ! the task well worth the trying ! The hand that rules "the ocean has the ruling of my And daughter thG with its l ™ and mellow 1 0 . 11 the Wat6rS lappin S' round the ma ™ And ' Ml£ is: wanders outward ' yet my Fancy Till the ebon, rooks of England are a flock of silver -Boyce Bowden, -in the Sydney, Bulletin.