17 AUGUST 1929, Page 18

Poetry

Rainbow

OUT of the greyness

Shone this lovely thing . . So on dead boughs

Do the nightingales sing, And from a drab earth Sweetest roses spring...

Suddenly it came, But I could not see Where it had begun Or where its end could be ; Suddenly it shone there Beautiful, for me. . . .

Someone stole the yellow Of the daffodils, And the misty blue From the far fading hills, And caught up the green The ripening apple spills ; Someone snatched the red Of a sunset's glow, The blushes from the thrift And the sun-warmed sloe, And robbed the woods Where the violets grow ; And spun of them a dream, And hung it high Between the dead stars And the clouds that swing by, Hung it in the grey