The Schoolhouse On The Plain
(From 'An Idyll of the Wimmera.')
On the geodetic line, where the parish boundaries join
At a level and interminable lane
You can see it there, alone, standing calmly on its own,
Like an iceberg in a solitary main.
It's a topographic base, and each near or distant place
Is located from the Schoolhouse on the Plain.
It lies open to the road, in the usual country mode,
With a few old waster posts to bridge the drain;
The reserve is clean and dry, being several inches high,
The building standing back about a chain.
Nothing could excel the stand, and it's worth its bit of land,
That inexpensive Schoolhouse on the Plain.
It requires a lick of paint, to correct the weather-taint,
And its windows should have here and there a pane;
The open-jointed floor swallows pencils by the score,
And the veteran desks are inked with many a stain;
Still it's proof against the wet, and there's lots of service yet
In that unpretentious Schoolhouse on the Plain.
Such eventual wear and tear, with contingent disrepair,
Is appointed unto everything mundane —
Bear in mind it braves with ease the fanatic and the breeze,
Spreading influence that nothing can restrain —
Think how superstitions yield, and sectarian feuds are heal'd,
In that nation-building Schoolhouse on the Plain.
All the district, far and near, has a postal centre here,
So suitable that no one can complain;
Here the local Rechabites, on alternate Thursday nights,
Renew their solemn davy to abstain;
Also that improvement class, call'd the Literary Ass,
Holds its meetings at the Schoolhouse on the Plain.
When election time draws near, then the hayseeds rally here,
To catechise the candidate urbane;
To demand a cockspur line, and an open port for twine,
With reduction of the railway freight on grain.
Here on polling day they meet, to discomfort Lygon Street,
No nonsense with the Schoolhouse on the Plain!
Here the missionary man, fresh from Indian or Japan,
Unblushingly takes on him to maintain
That he labours day and night in a harvest field that's white,
With other statements shaky and inane;
But his magic-lantern show makes the entertainment go,
Till applauses fill the Schoolhouse on the Plain.
[...] Read more
poem by Joseph Furphy
Added by Poetry Lover
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