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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 9, No. 3. April 13, 1946

Literary Page

Literary Page

Poem

Beyond the coming hill lies a lost girl
Pictured against the grass, a shade in the night,
Holdened her oldened heart to the grey earth rising,
Crying the dead cry that has come for company,
Over the hill that I find, and beside a rock.

The pairs fulfilled that I passed, lost in their own,
And the null ground that I triad, there for taking
But who can find what is offend? the stump shrubs
Chewed to a ball by sheep, only the core,
And even the trees, dini and diffused and wet . . .
Beyond my rising hill and beside a rock.

Would I find my path by moonlight, and by stars?
Would I follow the sheeps' tracks and deepen my tread?
Would I feel where dew is thickest, taste my way
And finding the bitterness of rock then know
The place of release that touched my cried dead cry?
How have our hearts been dried in the sun of others
And torn in the trees of the sea, snags of the mind?
Old stray youths have smiled in a faint mockery
And laughing girts have flaunted infertile death.
Others have cried my cry, but I could not find them.

Then take my rising hill and grant me rock,
Grant me a little way to left or right
And the neuter night as a catalyst, grant me the hint
Only that eyes have caught, and been doors
That I strike through to I know not where, beyond death.

—P.S.W.

Attack At Noon

The lizard lies tongue poised
On the twig's dull gold;
Settling, the butterfly's
Brown velvet wings fold.

The while noon sun burns dim;
No jungle birds sound,
Leaves heavy fall with heat
Down to the swamp ground.

Men wan and damp with sweat
In the green vines tense;
Life is utterly dead,
But the guns commence.

Alun Falconer.

The Last Camp

The candle is a smear of war,
Thought guttered out,
And I wake weary as the creaking door.

Thrushes in the rain-soaked tree Call lazily.
Faint echo losing in the misty hills.

The calm indifferent smoke
Adds blue to grey.
Roll up the blankets for another day.

Alun Falconer.

Call the apocalyptic urge
To these strange circumstances.
Evoke resentfully
The vengeance-harbingers
Warriors of the black evening, their sable horses
Trampling the mind's inconsequence.

Bring sheer annihilation on this place,
Descend from the thunder-clouds with shouting
And the clash of unappeasable anger, Destroy, destroy.

Strain the established interest of mind
To absolute extinction,
Reduce each aspiration to its embers Dying, dying.

Reft from the enterprising hand
The brush and pen,
Place scalpel-point on the indifference.
Killing, killing.

W.H.O..