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

The City Allegory

The City Allegory

Past city towers, grey parapets of stone,
Through wide streets that lead by the water's edge,
I took my way, down by the city parks
And grassy furnishings by empty walks,
My thoughts the doves, grey wings of felling
And posturings, and cooings and sudden beauties
All the quiet Sunday, day of rest
In the covered halls and tapestries of mind.

And she sat on the bench in the Sunday sun,
Her face pale and her black hair blown in the wind,
The city girl in her bright Sunday colours.
The doves gather by her feet—they are mine no more.
She looks past at any minute interest
To hold her still while things shift and return.
Go away and back to her in adoration.
The perfume-point, impenetrable locus of feeling.

Distance holds no features: innocence
Lives just by impressions: the death of rest
Has no sights to show the habitually curious.
Even a city Sunday is not forever.
But the herald of death comes from away off
Bringing the new vision and the new truth,
And never more than the distant figure away
At the end of the hall, always approaching towards,
Moving behind tomorrow's new life.

P.S.W.