30 APRIL 1927, Page 16

Poetry

San Lazzaro

IsLED in the silver-washing, Silent seas, Float San Lazzaro's Green cypresses.

Rose-red the monastery burns Through olives grey, Rosy the oleander leans To the salt spray, Here sun-hushed gardens dose, Where cloistered flowers Swing golden censers to the winds And the slow hours.

Grave monks chant litanies, Their souls to keep, Telling their beads or tendirg herbs Before they sleep.

Sea, sunset, perfumed prayer So faint in breath, It seems a little thing will bless Them into death, And a forgotten isle In the moon gleam Only the tenuous shadow

a Ii

Of a dream.

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