July 1963 School Magazine

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Maqazine

July, 1963

Brisbane Girls' Grcmmar School Magazine

July, 1963

'THE JOURNALS OF ·DOROTHY WORDSWORTH' Do you like the Wordsworth's poetry ? If you do you would be interested, as I was, to read a little book called 'The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth' edited by Helen Darbishire. This charming and candid study of the poet at work and play with his beloved sister will delight all Wordsworth lovers. Dorothy has a beautiful style of her own. She describes fully, but quite simply and with great observance the common things around her. She was the inspiration for many of her famous brother's poems for example 'Daffodils' about which she wrote: 'I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness, and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing.' She also inspired Coleridge, who spent much of his time with the Wordsworths, in his poem, 'Christobel.' Dorothy wrote : :·one leaf only upon the top of a tree - the sole remaining leaf - danced round and round like a rag blown by the wind.' Coleridge converted this to :

SOLITUDE He wandered along the shore which stretched far away to the point where sea and sky merged into misty obscurity. He was only a small boy, idly kicking a shell, but his elongated shadow danced gro:tesquely away from the cruel sun, cruel in the intensity of its dying rays,. as it licked the whole of the western sky with orange flames. The shadow grew to gigantic proportions, and still the small foot kicked the shell, and the crabs scuttled away to the security of the damp, dark sand. The gold-tipped water gurgled in and sucked greedily at the sand. The sea was frothy today, and the wind had started to whip it up into rearing white heads. A dark cloud banked up steadily in the east and began to spread its threatening fingers across the sky to where the sun was bowing out of day like a ballerina in her final performance. The little boy kept walking, forgetting about his shell in the radiant beauty of the sunset. Then, suddenly, like a candle being snuffed, the · sun sank, the wind whipped up and the great clouds raced across the sky. With a sob, the boy realized his solitude and missed the comforting presence of his shell, and ran in the eerie green light before the storm, and stumbled. The sobs caught in his throat, choking hirh, and his eyes dilated with fear as the first huge drops splashed on his face, and the first thunder rent the sky, and he ran, and fell. Then two loving arms closed round him - and-he was safe - and he wept.

'The one red leaf, the last of its clan, that dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up to the sky.'

CAROLYN KELLY, VIA.

THE UNHEEDED ECHO With a persistent drumming, on it falls As if driven by some unknown force That cannot - will not - stop. The dark clouds lower as a gus t of wind Brings more of this invincible agent of Both Death and Life . The muddy water careers down gutters, Spills out onto the road - To form a minature river cascading over rapids To meet its tributary at the intersection, Sweeping all before it in its increasing rush Drowning or disintegrating all in its path. All this goes on while we sit and stare And wish it would stop. In its rushed course we see ourselves Anq the unheeded echo of our civilization.

Lovers of descriptive prose should find this an extremely delightful book. It is not forced prose not written for the public; but highly inspired and inspiring observations of the beautiful English countryside in simple, but very descriptive language. -JENNIFER WINTEN, IVE.

A THOUGHT People are like roses : They bud, blossom, flourish and fall HELEN BURKE, IVA. 36

-ANWYL BURFEIN, VA.

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