29 MAY 1941, Page 11

COCK-CROW

THIS is the day, the cock has crowed the passing of dreams, the death-cold dawn, the setting of the star of Bethlehem behind a brow of stone.

This is the day the cock crows in, crows out the night, and lovers straying beyond the body's grasp, now must return, each entering his dimension like a tomb.

This is the hour of cock-crow, and the men whose night was out of bounds, clock in again (as innocent in sleep as plant or stone), wake to do wrong, grow old, and suffer pain. The cock crows out the night, and we remain outside eternity, the lover's dream, the so".dier's sleep, the locked gates of the tomb, ghosts of our days, longing for night again.

KATHLEEN RAINE.