16 DECEMBER 1949, Page 7

Winter Moonlight

Ir is not snow under which the downs are sleeping Or a frost that has touched the valley So that the fields are like ghosts In their deep rest, And their girdles loose and unstirred.

I know, I know, but what is it ?

For the moon, they .ay, is dead, And can death be like this, As radiant as this, And as still ? H. H. BASHFORD.