3 MAY 1963, Page 24

Grand Canal

Your hair that makes the most of vines, Blue shirt against the trellis, and goggles Like insect's eyes, reflecting the lagoon.

That's all the Kodacolour yields To which I add a table Where Negronis glint, a liquid air That melts between view-finder and the view. The lap of gondolas, of subdued jazz, Great domes that squeeze the sun, The biscuit palaces, exist without, BeYond the edges of the fading print.

It was a time of meeting elsewhere soon, Of brief goodbyes in golden afternoon. I look again and feel the first Faint smears of rust in autumn's deadly tune.

ALAN ROSS