5 FEBRUARY 1965, Page 24

The Hare

In the split woods a broken sapling, Cold catkins that I stoop below. Explosion of a blackbird's wings Kicks up exclamatory snow.

Silence, the burden of the song, Resumes where winds have blasted through. The white fields swell to the dark sky, The matrix they are frozen to.

Stopped in my fiftieth winter's track

I see the maze a March hare ran. This wilderness supports a hare; It also may support a man.

SYDNEY TREMAYNE