18 OCTOBER 1913, Page 18

POETRY.

ON THE BACK VELD.

THE red flame-flowers bloom and die, The embers puff a golden spark, Now and again a horse's eye Shines like a topaz in the dark.

A distant jackal jars the hush, The drowsy oxen chump and sigh, The ghost moon peers above the bush And creeps across the starry sky.

Low in the South the Cross is bright, And sleep conies dreamless, undefiled, Here in the blue and silver night, In the Star-Chamber of the Wild.

CEOSBIE GARSTIN.