The Rolling Stream bears all of us away.
And with us, memories of years gone by,
Which, faded in substantial pageants though they be,
Live yet, their transient being in the mind's own world.
A world which re-enacts a thousand different things
And magnifies their triumph, failure, laughter or distress.
The winning try,
The dropped catch,
The broken chair,
The Greek exam,
And most of all, those somnolent, happy days,
When the chalk dust hung contented in the sunlight,
And everything went right, and always had, and always would.
Each one of us will go - to be by years, reduced to nothing but a name.
Yet, though forgetful time their memory blurs,
Those fleeting moments, ghost-like, linger on,
Retaining, in intangible reality, the smell of blackboard, asphalt, grass and mud.
A N Connell
Heathen Magazine - 1965 |
