Part 33 (1/2)

The blue smoke leaps Like swirling clouds of birds vanis.h.i.+ng.

So my love leaps forth toward you, Vanishes and is renewed.

III

A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky When the sunset is faint vermilion In the mist among the tree-boughs Art thou to me, my beloved.

IV

A young beech tree on the edge of the forest Stands still in the evening, Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air And seems to fear the stars-- So are you still and so tremble.

V

The red deer are high on the mountain, They are beyond the last pine trees.

And my desires have run with them.

VI

The flower which the wind has shaken Is soon filled again with rain; So does my heart fill slowly with tears, O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards, Until you return.

AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

I turn the page and read: ”I dream of silent verses where the rhyme Glides noiseless as an oar.”

The heavy musty air, the black desks, The bent heads and the rustling noises In the great dome Vanish ...

And The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky, The boat drifts over the lake shallows, The fishes skim like umber shades through the undulating weeds, The oleanders drop their rosy petals on the lawns, And the swallows dive and swirl and whistle About the cleft battlements of Can Grande's castle....

_Edward Shanks_

Edward Shanks was born in London in 1892 and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He has reviewed verse and _belles lettres_ for several years for various English publications, and is at present a.s.sistant editor of _The London Mercury_. His _The Queen of China and Other Poems_ appeared late in 1919.

COMPLAINT

When in the mines of dark and silent thought Sometimes I delve and find strange fancies there, With heavy labour to the surface brought That lie and mock me in the brighter air, Poor ores from starved lodes of poverty, Unfit for working or to be refined, That in the darkness cheat the miner's eye, I turn away from that base cave, the mind.

Yet had I but the power to crush the stone There are strange metals hid in flakes therein, Each flake a spark sole-hidden and alone, That only cunning, toilsome chemists win.

All this I know, and yet my chemistry Fails and the pregnant treasures useless lie.

_Osbert Sitwell_