18 NOVEMBER 1949, Page 18

London

THE meter's heart-beat stills. The red flam.: leaves the spines Like prehistoric bones Reared in meticukus lines.

The shilling, then, is spent. The fireless, darkened room Hangs like a small stone nest Above the surging town.

Bells, waves and broken song Flow through the brittle wall Of room and heart and mind ; The shattered bastions fall.

Exposed, the coiled nerve leaps In sharp exquisite pain, Bared to the City's touch. The world flows back again.

None but the lonely know, Locked in their trees of stone, How wild, sad tides of night Break on the heart like doom.

ELLODE COLLINS.