30 MAY 1958, Page 31

Dead Bird

Then with a final repetition, forced From acid tastes of thin remembrances, To flop from fence or paling stob to be A clod with clods, a smirching of the grass.

Mirrors of weather wildly vanishing In startling circles, flashing away, away From the great act, small death, clump on the ground, Will take its message through the farthest sky.

And it, with worlds to trouble with and become, With sourest frictions to resolve, with last Emergencies to palliate, will take them With coldest colours and serene distaste.

Until these feathers crumple into what Once bred a bird, in a blue cage of chalk, That died in a blue cage of summer and Will always be a way for time to speak.

. NORMAN MCCAIG