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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


PRAISE by FRANK WILMOT

First Line: I WILL PRAISE HER SWEET GENTLENESS,' I SAID
Last Line: IN SHOWERS AND A SLIM TRACK LOST IN GREY.
Subject(s): PRAISE;

'I WILL praise her sweet gentleness,' I said,
And wandered out toward the approaching moon;
I wandered out remembering how red
The sunset was, how sweltering the noon.

A soft grey slip of bush track turned between
Two lonely houses and a sawyer's shed
Into a clump of beech I knew was green
And, rising, lost itself at the spurhead.

'It is her gentleness,' I said aloud --
Or thought sounds noisy in a buried day --
The groaning summer hills screened in a cloud
Of cooling showers had hidden the moon away.

Like leaves in sunlight, rustled words in thought
Trembling upon disclosure. Her sweet worth
Eluded every lead. The slow wind brought
An odour of rain that sunk in the parched earth.

'Her goodness!' Why in vanity pursue
That baulk? ... But I remember to this day
The thirsty ranges fading from my view
In showers and a slim track lost in grey.



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