AN OLD-YOUNG GUEST

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 765, 11 September 1929, Page 15

AN OLD-YOUNG GUEST

I AST evening the Spirit of Song stole in at the Wigwam on « sandalled feet. Have you ever met the Spirit of Song? Ilis Jiair is grey like that of Father Time, and he carries a lute. At first glance he seems very old, but, when he turns his head, you discover his face to be that of a youth, and his eyes ar.e bright "dll thoughts yet to be told. A mute guest, he sat in a shadowy corner and watched Redfeather read the competition poems, then, I'luui the last page had been turned, he vanished as strangely as lie had come. But all at once the trees commenced singing, or perhaps his fingers were stealing across the strings of his lute. Who knows? Little Swift Canoe has won pride of place in this competifinii. Her p 0( “Whin,” calls up a golden picture of gorse-clad hillsides. One can almost smell the fragrance that inspired her fo take up her pen. Harvest Moon has given us an imaginative study, “Green Candles,” with a quite unusual theme. These verses are written round a memory of her childhood when she used to spend her holidays in a little country town nestling in a fold of the hills. ! ' i he writes: “Sometimes when the wind was warm and the stars '■'ere out, and electric light seemed too hard, we used to light green candles. You can imagine the feelings of a schoolgirl on seeing the reflections of green candles in a black, polished table, "ith little green mats instead of a white tablecloth, and outside fhe darkness, the hills, the mountains and a warm wind. . . .” The Spirit of Song moves hither and thither on sandalled , e L Sometimes he pauses in an attitude of listening, but always his eyes are voung. REDFEATHER.