23 AUGUST 1946, Page 9

OVER THAT LINE OF HILL

Over that line of hill Is nothing at all ; and the dove Of imagination old And cunning in failure will Not fly from the hand of love To signal a new world.

Is nothing : for playing God As we all do in thought We still obliterate All but ourselves by flood Before we consider what Or how we can re-create.

Over that line of hill Is everything ; and the dove Brings back a newspaper Headlined with human ill In continents which starve Upon the fruits of war.

Is everything : paradise And plenty for everyone—

Yet nothing, strange as the fed Upon war-blinded eyes Of a cloud crossing the sun Over that line of hill.

PATRIC DICKINSON.