15 NOVEMBER 1924, Page 15
POETRY.
NARCISSUS.
TUE secrets which Narcissus drowned In mirrored mud and waste morasses, Were Edens his dream dragons sowed With mandrakes and with deadly grasses.
Narcissus, too, like Rimbaud, Donne, Had not the spells to exorcize The clutching forests, or the jinn Who lurks and lours behind the eyes.
Our adolescent discontents Wander in sullen corridors With white reluctant Proserpincs ; We mock the jaguar's lonely roars
In starry canyons, thronging still To Nimuii and the satyr dances, Sad incantations in the caves, Memory, a brooding centaur, prances;
Abysses never never bright With fiery birds or tinkling pearls, Always the sirens only, gasps Of naked laughing naiad girls.
F. W. B.ATESON.
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