17 MARCH 1923, Page 14

MUSIC.

AT music's word still-life quietly Shivers its four transparent walls, And I am borne, giddily swaying, Solid through her receding halls.

The stirred singers of nerve and memory Move with me then in regions where Chaos resolves old atoms and The ecstatic eagle broods in air.

It is a whirling, mad country, Dense with those dark and dispossessed Spirits which sang too wild and lovely When earth shuddered and craved for rest.

The shafts of each deep and vivid sorrow Seem deeper there for all lack of sighing, Whence golden forms of joy slant up Like thinned Valkyries, shrilly crying, Waving warm light till rock, beast, flower, Bewitched to a universal mood,

Sleep fast in music—save I, who fear

Sure cold and the surging quietude.

Branum HIGGINS.