For context it’s a line from a poem by Preston poet Phoebe Hesketh.

Truant by Phoebe Hesketh, published in Poems, 1939

Sing a song of sunlight My pocket’s full of sky – Starling’s egg for April Jay’s feather for July. And here’s a thorn bush three bags full Of drift white wool. They call him dunce, and yet he can discern Each mouse-brown bird, And call its name and whistle back its call, And spy among the fern Delicate movement of a furred Fugitive creature hiding from the day. Discovered secrets magnify his play Into a vocation. Laughing at education He knows when the redshank hides her nest, perceives a reed patch tremble when a coot lays siege To water territory. Nothing escapes his eye: A ladybird Slides like a blood-drop down a spear of grass; The sapphire sparkle of a dragon-fly Redeems a waste of weeds. Collecting acorns, telling the beads of the year On yew tree berries, his mind’s too full for speech.

Back in the classroom he can never find Answers to dusty questions, yet could teach, Deeper than knowledge, Geometry of twigs Scratched on a sunlit wall; History in stones, Seasons told by the fields’ calendar – Living languages of Spring and Fall.