II

At the great water's edge
Golden Narcissus lies;
Hand propped under his chin;
Bees at his thighs;
His eyes fixed on nothing
Where his image lies.
O Echo, Echo.

Like the neck of a swan,
In the indifferent stream
The other hand trails;
Sleek as cream
Are his dimpled cheeks;
His plump mouth dreams.
O Echo, Echo.

The bruised flower of his mouth,
The honey-bee stings;
Rain in his small delicious ears,
Like a dragonfly sings
At noon; between his toes
The grasshopper springs.
O Echo, Echo.

Closes a blue-veined lid
On velvet eyes;
Falls the sleek hand; falls
The hand from the thighs;
From the brimming mirror dim,
The image flies.
O Echo, Echo.

In his great golden helmet
The small wren builds;
To the bee his rotten rich mouth
Sweet honey yields:
This proud young man like a stage
Once trod these fields.
O Echo, Echo.

For this is great Narcissus
Who moulders here;
Watercress grows from his eyes
And grass from his ears;
From his thigh a honey-sleek flower
At its image stares.
O Echo, Echo.

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XIV

(a)
Girls in bright frocks
Will never be done
With laughing; the rocks
Hum like a gramophone

To the electric pulse
Of the sea; the tired
Crafts slowly waltz
On the distending tide.

A dog barks at the waves;
Brilliant naked thighs
Flash as a yielding grave
Closes on her; surprise

Upon her; field of veil-white
Flowers drifting seaward,
Drifting seaward. Bird alights
On sand, cruel eyes seaward.

(b)
Face downward on the flood,
My true love lies;
Like a swan with not a word to say,
My true love lies.

Fish leap at her crumbling mouth
Where my kisses lay;
The waves roll her body over and over
Forever and a day.

Eyes look your last, hand touch,
Mouth you may seek;
Heart, break into a thousand pieces:
She sleeps, she sleeps.

(c)
O great black dog on the sand
Trembling exquisite with fear;
Bark, bark at the down-crumbling waves:
She may hear, she may hear.

But your tail is between your legs,
Your whining fills me with fear;
And my words lie bruised on the waves,
And the seawind blinds me with tears.

XV

(for Sonia)

Warm heart, warm mouth,
Lie still; lie beautiful.
page 23 You have no need to stir
Anymore, today;
You have no other function to fulfil.

Was it like this you
Lay, cool in your frock,
When your lover came
And kissed you
In the grass, and you lay still as a rock?

Is this white hand
A dove, that the small
Wind seems to lift it from
The grass, lady
In the frock that half from the shoulder falls?

Are your eyes flowers?
Do they call you Rose,
May or Elizabeth? And are
Your limbs always
So white they show like snowflakes on the grass?

Warm heart, warm mouth,
Lie still; lie beautiful.
You have no need to stir
Anymore, today;
You have no other function to fulfil.

XXI

I should have met you at the outskirts
Of your populous childhood, emerging
With your blonde face exquisite with wonder
Out of the golden shadows that used
To romp and whisper like silk about you,
And invite you into their marvellous
Intrigues. O love, I should have seen you then,
Sleek head golden with wonder, stepping
Like Venus out of the rustling folds
Of your childhood. Not now. Not now.

Now you are constantly
Foolish; constantly smiling in drink.
The freshness has worn (someone has taken
The sun!) The mask slips away from the face
At a ridiculous angle when you least
Expect it to; and the face underneath
Is waxen with blown-out bulbs for eyes.

The Mediator

W. H. Oliver (Heaven on her shoulders, Earth beneath her feet.)

I met this great girl in the premature
Idyll of a summer evening. There she stood
Her hands folded like portents, dress like embers
That the fire has left, hair as brown as grass.

And, as the day dropped, she became
The pause that preludes night, the grey caress
That smoothes all shapes and shades into one wide
Anonymous appeal for clammy sleep.

Though she had taken all the city's grief
She had no voice to tell the pain she bore;
She felt the dead rank air run through her limbs
Without a hand to help their fever pass;

So she contained men's sadness in her eyes,
Became the world of sense though made impure
By days and nights of loving when they tore
Her soul apart for momentary joy:

Only as gods love could she breed and bless.
Slowly she sent to heaven like a prayer
Hot tentacles of wind to name her need
That sung like shafts of light bent from no sun

The earth knows. Savage to save
The cool white bars of heaven stretched to her.
And struck her, statuesque in heat, to melt
Her grief through the air as the rain falls.

I lost this great girl as the rain came down.
And soon the air was full of tenderness.
The twilight's ghost had fled, and cool night came
To make her lovely in the eyes of men;

Then she was beauty's self, with long black hair.
And cool and firm her body like a cloud
That bursts in falls of love and makes us one
With earth and life and all above our sense.

An Eccentric Autumn

I
Leaves are a largess granted each year
By the god of seasons, hid and perpetual
Over the rain-clouds and under the warm earth,
Puissant in frost and fire, slayer and saviour.

page break page break page 25

Leaves are also a veil dropped at this time
By a kindly god over the fretful
Face of old age, making the mourner seem
Beautiful and bountiful, young out of season.

So now are given in due time, lavishly,
Yellow for a gentle grief, and red for pain,
To mask the solitude of death in clothes
As some would dress a body, sad and splendid.

So with the season we mourn. But we
Are also the body thus committed in beauty
To the dark earth where winter cannot touch
Our peace, and where our death is kind.

II
Sometimes in autumn I have watched the leaves
Settle in street and gateway, make each door and path
A place where feet can walk in majesty and say,
In passing by we've walked the way of grief
And found all beauty mingled in the season.

And as the leaves have drifted slowly down
I've seen them swell into a rolling cloud
And drown the city under me in colour:
Render all passion forfeit in that place
And smother up the breath of urgency.

And then autumnal city, clad in grace
Before this fugitive in places where
A dull grey litter was no cloak of peace
And dressed not joy nor grief, for neither life
Nor death was here triumphant: city,

Then would you not know oneness and devotion
Though it were your final state, and even
While death filled your corners, could you not say,
Peace and salvation are the gifts sent from
The throne of grace uplifted in my midst.

Autumn

E. W. Entrican

I walked in the garden in Autumn, and the trees
Were infinitely sad and tender, and strangely at ease,
And old with knowledge of the seasons, buried under their bark
Deep in the deep dead yellow of a wood heart.
Wind woke in the night, and blew the rain under my door
And kneeling at my prayers to morning. I felt on the damp floor
page 26 The tears of the trees at the year's mourning, their pain—
And the spirit of Autumn touched my heart with the touch of rain.

Spring—Nga Tawa

Spring stood singing at my window, and lighting
My eyes with the fire that burns on the green altar—
The lawns touched with sun, after the shower's magic
Sweeping briefly the sky on the first morning.

I laughed, spring careless, tramping the straight road, treading
Is rain-black gloss and the pools of the sky, cloud broken,
And finding at last white flowers on the wild plum trees
Leaning, now with, green lips, over the fences
In a tangle of pussy willows; and, dearest, flaunting
Its gold above bare boughs of the waking apples,
My wattle of spring, on a bed of blue periwinkle.

Wanton, I plucked those blossoms of spring, standing
Heedless my shone shoes in the rain wet grass,
Breathing only the wattle scent, and the white perfumes of the clouds—
And the blossoms I flung with youth's hand into the vase of my heart.

The City Shepherd

P. S. Wilson

If I was waiting for a tram
By judge's Corner or at the Bay
And you came by,
We'd go together down the street
And watch the hours fly.

page 28

In a myriad travellers' features,
Various as my mind's sight,
The hours would pass,
And each small second have meaning
Or a joy for us.

And my coin would then be honoured
By the quick and sudden glances
You would not see,
Though through me you'd know truly
We had come safely through.

The Unhurried Thought

When the painter takes his brush,
When the heart its colours knows
And then the sounds begin to weave
The harmonies of their intent,
When the pallid mother-clay
Is fastened on the potter's wheel
And the poet of the world
Finds his golden, motiveless phrase,—
These signs of craft and worldly skill,—
The tiny pursing of the lips,
The small, created pause in choice,—
Make all things at home again,
At home, and in final safety
And in earned joy.

Little Verses

If it began by candlelight
Then it will end when the great sun
Glows down the east side of the river
And the birds begin and small waves rise.
As music it was soft in the dark,
Stretched, like the sparse, bright rays
Of candlelight, through the perceiving mind.
Then darkness turns to the waves' ripples
And the birds' song is the bright ending,
Just like my love shall always be.
A raising of the spirit in love
Is a bare, bright, joyful light;
If it began by candlelight
Then it will live by the sun at the end.

page 29

A Little Pattern

A twilight by the beach
When the tide is low
And a seaside radio
Sentimentalizes each
Impulse of gratitude,
The far-off water,
The great, bare beach,
Make their quiet vicissitude.
Hearing may falter
While they come down to our reach.

A Christmas Carol

With faith unto our Lord
We sing this chilly eve,
For on this night we celebrate
What we at least believe.

And you in your warm houses
Built in a modern time,
Lining streets in a modern way,
May note our verses rhyme,

Our tune is bold and clear,
Our scansion carefully made,
And our voices true and high
And all our words well said.

And will you find our faith is good?
You cannot know or care:
The wind comes down this chilly street
And frost is in the air

And our words rise in clouds to the sky,
And when you raise your head
And hand us benediction
You think that's all we get;

But there you are wrong, my lords,
Wrong as a telling tongue;
For even as you raise your head
You grace the song we've sung.