31 DECEMBER 1943, Page 9

ON A DUTCH FLOWER-PICTURE

DARKEST December, when the flowers fail

And empty tables lack their lucent lading, And far beyond the window's rainy veil The landscape stretches, into twilight fading, And all seems misted, moribund, and pale, The past too far away for recollection, The present vacuous, forlorn, and stale, The future far for hope of resurrection, —Look, then, upon this feast, your eyes regale On this impossible nimble tossed together, This freak of Flora's fancy, this all-hail Regardless of the calendar or weather.

Here is the daffodil, the iris frail, The paeony as blowsy as a strumpet, The fringed pink, a summer's draggle-tail, The gentian funnelled as a tiny trumpet.

Here is the hundred-petalled rose, the hale Straight streaked tulip curving like a chalice, The lily gallant as a ship in sail, The sinister fritillary of malice, All towzled in a crazy fairy-tale That never blew together in one season Save where romances over sense prevail, —Yet even here behold the hint of treason : The small, the exquisite, the brindled snail Creeping with horny threat towards the foison, Leaving a glistening, an opal trail, A smear of evil, signature of poison. . . .

V. SACKVILLE-WEST.