16 FEBRUARY 1924, Page 14

POETRY.

DESERT.

No hawthorn spray For the robin's red-rust throat ; No green gloom of hillside cell To darken the note Of the home-come nightingale ; No thicket for shy voiced wren And wren to answer again.

The birds that had sung Flit all songless away : No green and no deep in the heart That's burning alway With wild Love's hate or despair, And pain's old embers that smoulder While Time's ruins moulder.

Iwirr FREIMAN.