Volume 158 — WATER-BABIES.

In a limbo of desolate waters, In the void of a flood-stricken plain, You will find them—the sons and the daughters Of tropical rain. For when rivers are one with the ocean, When the ricefields and roads are no more, There's a feeling of magic, a notion Of fairyland lore; And the babies of Burma can revel In a nursery of whirlpool and slime, Where it thunders and rains like the devil For weeks at a time. They paddle their rafts through the jungle; They swim through a network of leaves; They clamber with never a bungle To dive from the eaves. 'Tis an orgy of goblins, an image Of nudity flouting the flood, Of shorn-headed brownies who scrimmage And splash in the mud. As we row neath a tamarind, one'll Roll off with a gesture of fright, Bobbing up like a cork at our gunwale And gurgling delight. But never a stanza shall measure The joy of that desperate crew Of four-year-olds scouring for treasure Astride a bamboo. Their fathers smoke, huddled in sorrow, Their mothers chew betel and fret, And the pariahs howl for a morrow Which shall not be wet; The plovers wheel o'er them complaining, And it's only the babies who pray That the skies may be raining and raining For ever and aye. J.M.S.