27 AUGUST 1948, Page 14

CORMORANTS

THE gulls like traders sally forth,

Screaming of ships and food and earth.

Like monks in their rock monastery The cormorants wait quietly.

This at the world's end Rock their temple is, where they Punctiliously attend The old, green dragon called the sea.

They are the acolytes that watch The inmost shrine Whose immobility and silence catch, In such a long repose Of unchanged attitude,

Meanings of space and time

To which thought only can come close That broods and broods in the one mood.

ELIZABETH MELDRUM.