15 DECEMBER 1939, Page 15

I am reminded of all this by a poem of

Louis MacNeice which is to be published in the first number of a new periodical, edited by Cyril Connolly, and called Horizon. Mr. MacNeice records an experience similar to my own: it was in a soft and gentle place that he heard, upon the wire- less, the news of coming war:

" Forgetfulness : brass lamps and copper jugs And home-made bread and the smell of turf or flax And the air a glove and the water lathering easy And convolvulus in the hedge.

Only in the dark green room beside the fire With the curtains drawn against the wind and waves There is a little box with a well-bred voice ; What a place to talk of War."