MICHAELMAS TERM BEGINS

Posted by Admin on 20 April 2008, 12:00 am

Evening on Solent’s now indolent tide;
red-funnelled ferry approaching the Isle
carries a covey of boarding-school bairns,
bound for the Upper Chine’s scholastic pile.
Ladies in miniature, pecking at topics,
rising like pigeons to settle anew;
juvenile forum, observing decorum,
calling no censure from public or crew.
Bright-eyed and eager to tell of adventures,
ranging from beauty to toothy ‘Plain Jane’,
cobalt-blue costumed, elastic retaining
‘boaters’ of straw – no two tilted the same.
Blithely they face their impending seclusion,
save for one senior, lone by the rail,
moodily watching the waves – her exclusion
firstly suggesting authority’s bail:
further hypotheses alter one’s views –
homesick young woman, or (serious phase)
introvert poetess seeking her muse,
sighing for Erato’s rhythmic ukase?
Thoughtless and happy the junior band,
innocent yet, not expected to feel
tremors and travail that menace our land –
heedless of skeletons under the keel