2 JULY 1937, Page 17

IN THE SOUTH

WHAT solitary sail leans to the wind

Upon my steady sea ? What summer light Paints my horizon's taut and silver line ?

Mediterranean vision—in the pause Between tomorrow of the perfected arch

And yesterday of ruined, friable stone—

Corrects the northern mind, straightens the eye, And mends again to speech the broken sob.

Plain-song of columns, trireme, siren's hair". :

These are the signs at sunset, these the lines Which weld the mended speech, which make the life From age to age unaltered, and redeem The Gothic north's inordinate desire.

Let us go home to this—only to this : Accept the image of the simple house ; Ghost-shadow of the olive ; cork-tree twist ; The deadly cypress and blue-sprinkled vine ; Snake in the stone and swallow on the sea ; The heavy-lidded eave ; the blind white wall.

Exist alone in light, forswear the hour Of northern ghosts, the zero hour of fear, That nadir of the spirit which destroys Eternally present immortality, Fashioned with hands, near to the roots of life.

EDWARD SACKVILLE-WEST.