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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MELBOURNE AND MEMORY: MEMORY by FRANK WILMOT

First Line: THOUGHTS FLUTTER LIKE BUTTERFLY WINGS
Last Line: WITH COOLING FINGERS.
Subject(s): MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA; MEMORY;

THOUGHTS flutter like butterfly wings
In Memory's folding web;
And, like some timeless Angelus,
An old bell tolls and brings
The clanking pole-bars of a spectral bus,
Hooves on the cobbles, the old 'Keb, sir? Keb?'
Old houses with ringed horse-poles and the chains,
The sky-deep puddles and torrential drains;
But Whelan wrecked the years of strange content
When old Miss Burton's blue-stone cottage went.

Loving new things newly,
Loving old things in an old measure!
Time alters deeply, truly,
The hues of deathless treasure.
Depriving, yet restoring,
Old things to our imploring,
Some exquisite loss still lingers
When Time has stroked our adoring
With cooling fingers.



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