15 SEPTEMBER 1928, Page 12

Poetry

Bats

IN labyrinthic charcoal lines the casuarina branches lie across the carmine-mottled sky where float the fat cloud-celandinee.

And nothing else is in the air to stir that still'mosaic scene black-traced against the opaline of the late sunset smouldering there*

but impish bats that twist and twine their crazy patterns as they fly, like giant bees that drunkenly reel round the wizard eglantine.

- A; ft, U.