The Poetry Corner

Procne (A Fragment)

By Peter Courtney Quennell, Sir

So she became a bird, and bird-like danced On a long sloe-bough, treading the silver blossom With a bird's lovely feet; And shaken blossoms fell into the hands Of Sunlight. And he held them for a moment And let them drop. And in the autumn Procne came again And leapt upon the crooked sloe-bough singing, And the dark berries winked like earth-dimmed beads, As the branch swung beneath her dancing feet.