THE FOUNTAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 185, 26 October 1927, Page 6

THE FOUNTAIN

Down in the garden there is , tain which stands in the cent. !?Unlily pool. Above it lsa“?, e o£ the boy playing pipes. It of 3 since the fountain was made ■>rfi Uri< ‘ s no water falls in tiny rivulets^ 1 ?° w between the lilies. There pl * ys of course, but somehow it i<° ~TL poo! - stil . The little stone boy with age and mosses irrnw feet. Dragon-flies his leaves, butterflies flit lay?w V* e iily sunlight, birds sing in there is a hum of bees the fountain there is silence is where the lavender grows rhls Long ago, a blue-clad child' , through the grasses and sailed SS? upon the pool, while beside her little lame boy. r 5534 3 “See!" she would cry. --tee h the wind catches the'sails”' then: “You won’t ever forget' me. you > I shall never forget you— nev - —never. ‘ er But the lame boy would smile sa<u v and shake lus head. -

Then there was a day when he came no more to the tountain where ts lavender rustled in everv passing and only the blue-clad child cam or the pool. e To

Time passed, she grew up. left th* garden and went her way. She forgot the lame boy and found another plav mate. .. . All this was years ago’” Sometimes when the moon is full and the night is silent, a small figure come* stealing back to s>it beside the pool Just as the moon reaches the high est point in the sky the stone boy stir* and begins to play his pipes. ‘Alone tho terrace and through the moonlit grasses dances a blue-clad child.

"See!” she cries. "See how the moonbeams play upon the pool and how the moths flutter in the light The stars are smiling down on us. . I shall never forget you—never.” ’ ’

But the lame boy smiles sadly and turns away.

The stone boy is still once more. The child dances away into the shadows. The lame boy disappears.

The moon shines down upon the fountain, but somehow forgets to loci; beside it, where the wind is passing There in faint shadow lie some gleam ing drops of dew. Dew. men call it but the wind and the stone boy remember one who sat at the rim of the lily pool and left his tears where the lavender grows.

—Harvest Moon (Alma Chamberlain, aged 17).