2 FEBRUARY 1934, Page 14

Arctic Rose

Sirrme with her back to a lace-curtained window, waiting, Wearing the faint sun like a silver shawl,

A woman saw nothing hour after hour but the invisible world of her love : Towering cliff without foothold, and fathomless fall.

Day settled, like a sick person among dingy pillows, into evening ; Sighing she turned, sighing lifted the lace curtain.

Opposite, above the chimney pots, the washed sky opened like an arctic rose, ice-green :

Infinite labyrinth of glory, and harbourage certain. Wakening she knew how perishable death had been.

LILIAN BOWES LYON.