27 JANUARY 1917, Page 15

POETRY.

THE LOOM.

Emma bask from Caudebec through autumn night and rain, Through colonnades of Norway pine that fringe the Norman Seine, I heard a wild-boar grouting, I heard a lone stag bray, Andā€”I heard the muffled mutter of the great guns far away.

The clitter-clock of the horse's hoofs along the forest trail, The sawing of a withered branch that felt the rising gale, The creak and groan of leatherā€”and over, under all That never-ending murmur with its half-heard rise and fall.

Then, as a wan and watery moon gleamed thro' the driving rain, The forest turned upon itself like a woman in her pain.

The shadows gathered shape and form, and, monstrous, in the gloom Of groves that knew the Elder Gods, I saw and heardā€”The Loom.

Its whirring wheel from earth to sky bore warp and woof of weird, Its distaff wove the dooms of men, its phantom spindle veered, While the wandering wind that walks the world came wailing thro' the trees And the hair upon my head stood up, the horse flinched 'neath my knees, For I knew the Gods behind the Gods, the Gods of an older day, The Norns who were ere Odin was, whom Ragnarok cannot slay : And I was the child of an ordered world and followed the Nazarene, But their spindle-song sang " Christ is dead with all that He seemed to mean."

And the old fierce Gods have come again, the Gods of pride and might, Whose lips are slow and feeble to bless, but whose hands are heavy to smite, Who, desperate, rule the world for a while in dread by fear of the sword, With the hopeless fates behind their power and doom at their council board.

The White Christ wails in Nibelbeim and never shall rise again. His Saints are dumb and in their stead ride the " Choosers of the Slain "1 And my heart grew cold within my breast as the shapeless shuttle whirred, For ever the whisper of distant guns was their songs' over-word.

But, as I shook in the saddle there, I signed myself with the sign, And a new heart grew within my breast and my blood warmed as with wine, I tightened my knees on the saddle-flaps and straightened my back and called : " For all the weight and woo of your weird I am not yet appalled, For I have been in the Ditches of Death and I have seen men die, Your warp and woof may darken the earth but they cannot hide the sky, Ye may grind men's bones and rive their flesh and pound their works into dust, But Christ on the Cross of Calvary is the sword our souls shall trust "1 The black boughs swung against the sky, a sudden rain squall blurred The half-seen vistas of the pinesā€”At speaking of the Word The Sight had passedā€”and as I rode I saw by Mailleraie A road-side Calvary stand clear against the dawning day.

J. H. KNIGUI-ADED4 Capt. Glos. Regt.