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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 11, No. 10, August 18th, 1948

Girl at the Philosophy Club

Girl at the Philosophy Club

My downcast eyes the guerdon hold
Like the radiance of falling rain on the bright pavement
And the bright elusive perfume in the dust it raises.
Like the radiance of one who receives a gift,
And the quick remembrance of a new-found friend.

Your reasons shall not gain the guerdon.
But something in the intent for which you say them
To which I raise my eyes—not to your words
But with the first blush of spring
And the first warmth in sunlight suddenly near.

Not that the swarthy care of phrase
Nor the frowning eagerness of the young.
Nor the quiet smile of the woebegone
All these are void and trembling air.
While sweetly here the guerdon still I prize.

My downcast eyes the guerdon hold
And it is lost and utterly foregone
When from the light of your innumerable senses
You turn to that practised phrase, which calls
For only words from me of an old world.

—P.S.W.