RICHARD III.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 485, 8 October 1948, Page 9

RICHARD III.

NO-men and women never loomed so large ; And the sky, harried only by hawks and falcons Crouched closer to their heads than it dare press on ours, Yet in that low space between earth and sky Could each of these scarred lives quiver in turn Like bell, and gong, and klaxon? And burn in all the known brightnesses Almost extinguished, like the last red spark on a candlewick Or like a blue-white star in a small room Or like a fire won free from what it feeds on And roaring with its gale-voice where it wills? Was there room for curses of such swelling fury ‘As would will to lift the monuments of the dead To dash them down on the cursed one living- ; we Room for prayers like a heart planted in a garden and bearing flower? s UT these men tower beyond the size of humans Speak as if they would burst out from the stage And devour the whole world in one great stride, The sky is gone-has fled beyond their widest reach To give space to their gaze like a speeding javelin To let the curses well in a bell mouth wide enough To let the wafted prayers drift higher : Still unstirred from the sweet shape the lips gave it To make room for their voices that fling the air and light aside, N22 they were humans, and the sky crowded closer to their heads, But the Blaze of Avon ; Took the memory of each one to his own fire and warmed it And fed justice even to its jagged men and women; He saw them clear, and unpérplexing, and fully worded, and explained And renewed them all. Why should he not say . "Put on these my people like a robe, brother-actors, And show each one. I think I have smashed Time in the boca ald dazed him here.

4ie will reel a little when you act my play."

Henry

Brennan