I saw it like a lovely purple gem
Lying between green glooms of gentle trees
A pool, which, when the little shadowy breeze
Swept it, glowed like a fairy diadem.
And, over it, a reed bent its brown stem.
Even a lily bloomed there. On my knees
I knelt; and, busied with old memories,
Touched the still waters, idly stirring them.
God's tears! What odour vile arose! What gnats!
What filthy hordes of living beastly things!
I sickened, as I saw my hand, my wrist
Blacken: and a thick stench of plague-limp rats
Polluted me. For, poet I, my wings
Had brushed the foulest toad -- a Communist.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 1931
