Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 3, No. 1. 1940

Literary Columns

Literary Columns

LITERARY COLUMNS

Orongorongos.

From splintered green of forest depths
rise cloud-nymphs dancing their eternal ballet, swift and graceful,
an invocation to the Sky-God.

White-laced seas clad in grey satin
shot with deep-sea green
applaud with thunderous roar beneath the pale grey dome.

But aloof and disdainful
intent upon their own delight
the cloud-nymphs rise and sway and fall,
embrace, and flee,
weaving and interweaving intricate patterns of a formal dance
in grace that, effortless and true,
holds all the magic of the hidden sky.

a.

Book Review.

Day and Night ( Caxton Press) seems to be the most original verse (I feel like saying poetry) written in this country in recent years. The words are clear, musical, and replet with new and beautiful ideas. The forms are harmonious and well modulated, and are used to express thoughts of a splendid maturity.

Spring Snow and Tui.

We said: there will surely be hawthorn out
down in the sun-holding folds of the sea;
but suddenly snow had forestalled the thorns there,
death-white and cold on their boughs hung the festival wreaths.

It is all one. The same hand scatters the blossoms
of winter and spring-time. The black-robed psalmodist,
traversing swiftly the silent landscape like Azrael,
echoed in clear repetition his well-tuned antiphon;
a waking bugle it might be, a passing bell,
of life, death, life, life telling: it is all one.

From Day and Night ( Caxton Press)

The peculiar people who think that sexuality
Is an abnormality,
Invariably speak with great abhorrence
Of the works of D.H. Lawrence,

X.Y.Z.

Book Review.

Oriflamme - A literary journal of youth and the fine arts,so runs the title of this new ship on the troubled waters of literature. If it maintains the interest which has been stimulated by the first issue, it will be a valuable addition to the small list of New Zealand periodicals featuring original verse and prose. Copies may be obtained free on application to the editor, 27 Bowen street, and contributions of verse or prose will be welcomed.