4 JULY 1931, Page 24

Poetry

To a Returned Traveller

WISE with your wanderings, you thought to find

Us somehow altered too ; but in amaze Found us contented with the very ways, The thoughts, the projects that you left behind. And in our littleness we were so blind.

Unshaken by the splendour of your days We talked of them as of a finished phase, And then forgot, nor knew we were unkind.

Then, in the grip of swift reaction held, You kept yourself apart ; we thought you strange, Unconscious of the worlds dividing us.

We did not guess how fiercely you rebelled To think that you must take in poor exchange Our hobby horses for your Pegasus.

DIANA CARROLL.