24 FEBRUARY 1933, Page 18

Poetry

Dead Leaves

(Suggested by the music of " Feuilles Mortes," by Debussy.) I Am the mood of Death

I steal the twilight away And come with the darkness To gather the leaves to my breast, For I am the winds that play On the trees for an instrument, Rocking a song.

We are the dance of death : See how we sway and swing, Reluctantly ; Caught in the winds' embrace, Now bete, now there, they fling Us down to the mouldy earth And up again.

So the winds sound and the leaves Dance to the ritual tune And flutter down, Silently one by one, Red in their beautiful ruin, Their last cadence drawn From the strings of the grass.

IRENE Henan.