Decembre 1914

Sommaire

• The carver in stone

  Because an owl blinked on the beam of his barn.
  One, hoarse with crying gospels in the street,
  Praised most the ram, because the common folk
  Wore breeches made of ram's wool. One declared
  The tiger pleased him best, —the man who carved
  The tiger-god was halt out of the womb—
  A man to praise, being so pitiful.

  par John Drinkzoater
• The treasure

  When colour goes home into the eyes,
  And lights that shine are shut again
  With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries
  Behind the gateways of the brain;
  And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
  The rainbow and the rose:—

  par Rupert Brooke
• The staircase

  A small room in an empty cottage, without furniture. Stone floor; dirty ragged paper on walls. The room is littered with bits of sawn wood, shavings, tools ; a joiner's frail lies on the floor. Door to the open air on right; in the back wall an old kitchen range, with a good fire burning. A young joiner is alone in the room; he has been putting in a new staircase, which is all but finished; the new wood, clean and white, shows up amid the dingy room.

  par Lascelles Abercrombie
• The orphans

  At five o'clock one April morn
  I met them making tracks,
  Young Benjamin and Abel Horn,
  With bundles on their backs.

  par Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• The pessimist

  His body bulged with puppies—little eyes
  Peeped out of every pocket, black and bright;
  And with as innocent, round-eyed surprise
  He watched the glittering traffic of the night.

  par Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• Girl’s song

  I saw three black pigs riding
  In a blue and yellow cart—
  Three black pigs riding to the fair
  Behind the old grey dappled mare—
  But it wasn't black pigs riding
  In a gay and gaudy cart
  That sent me into hiding
  With a flutter in my heart.

  par Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• The old nail-shop

  I dreamt of wings,—and waked to hear
  Through the low sloping ceiling clear
  The nesting starlings flutter and scratch
  Among the rafters of the thatch,
  Not twenty inches from my head;
  And lay, half-dreaming, in my bed,
  Watching the far elms, bolt-upright
  Black towers of silence in a night

  par Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• The shaft

  He must have lost his way, somehow. 'Twould seem
  He'd taken the wrong turning, back a bit,
  After his lamp ... Or was it all a dream
  That he'd nigh reached the cage—his new lamp lit
  And swinging in his hand, and whistling, glad
  To think the shift was over—when he'd tripped
  And stumbled, like the daft, club-footed lad

  par Wilfrid Wilson Gibson