5 FEBRUARY 1943, Page 9

STALINGRAD : 1942

The broken sandstone slabs litter the shore Like gingerbread ; the shingle, pink and grey, Slants to the runnels of the rocky floor Where seaweed greens the red edge of the sea.

The tide rides up from Ireland, and a peel Of sun curls round the axels of the waves ; The rough tongue of the water like the steel Tongue of a limpet strops the kerb of caves.

Stalingrad now has stood the flood of fire, Three moons of tide, for more than eighty days ; And this for more than eighty hundred year Has borne the barrage of the western seas.

Whatever names wash over Stalingrad, Or salt corrodes its stone, or torrents shock Its cliffs, the city will not change, though blood Settle like ore in the red veins of rock.

NORMAN NICHOLSON.