Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SCHOOL, by FRANK WILMOT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SCHOOL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Pale opal summits of far mountains peeped
Last Line: And, from her own shadow, a brown cow sucking her fill.
Alternate Author Name(s): Maurice, Furnley
Subject(s): Vision


PALE opal summits of far mountains peeped
Behind the slope's broad green and the rising track;
Along the ridge, in evening silence steeped,
The she-oaks stood like hearse-plumes, still and black.

Past hoof-holes and washed stones my great boots crashed;
Except for this tramping clamour the world was stilled;
Sun slanted over the slope and faintly flashed
Along the line of wheel ruts, water-filled.

From over the farther side some vision unbound
Was calling me, a dim bell in a beyond;
I kept on, sturdily tramping the squelching ground,
Until I crossed the slope and saw that pond.

A pond by a wall of banksia stemmed my haste;
Seven trees a side were grouped in a chancel-arch,
While under and over the hurrying sunlight laced
The boles, the boughs, the leaves and the stunted larch.

'Twas like a bell calling my heart to school:
Grey water and grey trees in a grey hill,
Two mottled patches of old gold on a pool
And, from her own shadow, a brown cow sucking her fill.





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