20 NOVEMBER 1942, Page 11

MYSELF AS INDIAN

THERE is a boyhood photograph

In which I stand, a mighty Indian chief With feathers in my cap and in my hand A deadly tomahawk of painted wood.

The throne of the Incas? It is mine by right,

A kingdom fool grown-ups not understand—

No, never—where, myself as Indian, I rule a people that is just and good And for its eminence does not need might.

Now, looking on this photograph, what follows?

Do I who stand, the merest Englishman, With such a past behind me, suffer sin Now, who once romped amid the grassy hollows Shooting my pointless arrows at the swallows?

Am I no longer such—a lonely chief Encaptured in a boyhood photograph?

The throne of the Incas? 0, I have grown since then, Become a man ; but not an Indian.

NICHOLAS MOORE.