15 NOVEMBER 1986, Page 36

Up the Arts!

Shall we make legends of our silly selves? The lies invented by the semi-great, By Yeats for example, cut no ice; After a few years the truth shows through And where is folly or invention then? The folly heightened, the invention fallen, The bright surface cracks, and underneath The muddy water slinks away to sea Or lurks still be to lost below the weeds. All nature will resume her homely sway; What grew will grow, what was invented, die. C. H. Sisson