24 DECEMBER 1988, Page 64

Shadow on the Snow

The old man wore a gown of morning light. Through silvery translucence and against Smooth ermine hiding wintry grass from sight He felt his scarecrow body, gaunt and flensed.

He looked up at the sky, as cleansed and blue As on the morning of its making; no Smudge of cloud or wink of wing; a new World fashioned by the legerdemain of snow.

But he was old: the same warped gallows frame; Yet, on the white before him, strode the tall Figure, soldierly, erect; not lame; i Impervious to pain; not aged at all. Vernon Scannell