From The Poets

Southland Times, Issue 21091, 24 May 1930, Page 23

From The Poets

STORY BOOKS. In summer, in the sunlight, The open air is best, And playthings are neglected, And stories have a rest. But when the dreary winter comes, With foggy days and rain, The hearthrug and the bookshelves call Their patrons back again. O then for Ali Baba, O then for Jackanapes, Dolittle, Mowgli, Moby Dick, > And Tarzan of the Apes; For Little Claus and Little Men, Man Friday and Legree, For Hereward and for Hercules, Tom Brown and Tweedledee. —E. V. Lucas. LA PROVENCE. Green and red, ah! green and red, The acres of Provence, The little hills like pyramids,Forever “en avance.” ; Groups of solemn cypresses, Plane trees by the way ; Foxgloves and meadow-irises, On the road to Trouves.

At Saint Maximine, in flower, A pretty chestnut square; And houses pink in quaint Le Luc With grey-blue shutters there. On the level-windowed walls, Of each little old town, The dear French names,—faded and soft, — Like patterns in a gown. —Vere Latham Baillieu. FROM THE DECK OF AN INCOMING SHIP. We have plowed a furrow across the ocean. True to her course through the dark and light, The ship has held to the charted highway Through fog and storm and the gloom of night. And we make our landfall in gray of twilight ; A blur to westward the dark shores rise, With a flying squadron of wildfowl heading Out into the south as the daylight dies. Out into the south on a course uncharted, With nothing aiding but sight and sound; From us who are safe at our journey’s ending Goes warm Godspeed to the outward bound! —Blanche A. Sawyer.