Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly, Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees, Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days, And music scrolls its lightning calm and bright On the pale sky where thunder cannot come. Into that world no ship has ever sailed, No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyes Has ever seen its shore whiten the waves. But to that land the Nightingale has flown, Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown. W. J. TURNER _Early Chronology_ Slowly the daylight left our listening faces. * * * * * Professor Brown with level baritone Discoursed into the dusk. Five thousand years He guided us through scientific spaces Of excavated History; till the lone Roads of research grew blurred; and in our ears Time was the rumoured tongues of vanished races, And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone. * * * * * The story ended. Then the darkened air Flowered as he lit his pipe; an aureole glowed Enwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light showed His rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair, Backed by the crowded book-shelves. In his wake An archæologist began to make Assumptions about aqueducts (he quoted Professor Sandstorm's book); and soon they floated Through desiccated forests; mangled myths; And argued easily round megaliths. * * * * * Beyond the college garden something glinted; A copper moon climbed clear above the trees. Some Lydian coin?... Professor Brown agrees That copper coins _were_ in that culture minted; But, as her whitening way aloft she took, I thought she had a pre-dynastic look. SIEGFRIED SASSOON _The Rock Pool_ (_To Miss Alice Warrender_) This is the sea. In these uneven walls A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away, Outward to ocean as the slow tide falls, Her sisters, through the capes that hold the bay, Dancing in lovely liberty recede. Yet lovely in captivity she lies, Filled with soft colours, where the waving weed Moves gently and discloses to our eyes Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells Under the light-shot water; and here repose Small quiet fish and the dimly glowing bells Of sleeping sea-anemones that close Their tender fronds and will not now awake Till on these rocks the waves returning break. EDWARD SHANKS _The Evening Sky in March_