Ageing Schoolmaster Analysis

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From "Ten Contemporary Poets" compiled and edited by Maurice Wollman, Harrap 1963And now another autumn morning finds me

With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath,

Preoccupied with vague, habitual speculation

On the huge inevitability of death.Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely

That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy,

I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality

And think of when I rolled, a gormless boy,And rollicked round the playground of my hours,

And wonder when precisely tolled the bell

Which summoned me from summer liberties

And brought me to this chill autumnal cellFrom which I gaze upon the april faces

That gleam before me, like apples ranged on shelves,

And yet I feel no pinch or prick of envy

Nor would I have them know their sentenced selves.With careful effort I can separate the faces,

The dull, the clever, the various shapes and sizes,

But in the autumn shades I find I only

Brood upon death, who carries off all the prizes.

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