sky

Dawn coming in over the fields
of darkness takes me by surprise
and I look up from my solitary road
pleased not to be alone, the birds
now choiring from the orange groves
huddling to the low hills. But sorry
that this night has ended, a night
in which you spoke of how little love
we seemed to have known and all of it
going from one of us to the other.
You could tell the words took me
by surprise, as they often will, and you
grew shy and held me away for a while,

'Tis not the beam of her bright blue eye,
Nor the smile of her lip of rosy dye,
Nor the dark brown wreaths of her glossy hair,
Nor her changing cheek, so rich and rare.
Oh! these are the sweets of a fairy dream,
The changing hues of an April sky.
They fade like dew in the morning beam,
Or the passing zephyr's odour'd sigh.

'Tis a dearer spell that bids me kneel,
'Tis the heart to love, and the soul to feel:
'Tis the mind of light, and the spirit free,
And the bosom that heaves alone for me.

Thy form was fair, thine eye was bright,

Thy voice was melody;

Around thee beam'd the purest light

Of love's own sky.

Each word that trembled on thy tongue

Was sweet, was dear to me;

A spell in those soft numbers hung

That drew my soul to thee.

Thy form, thy voice, thine eyes are now

As beauteous and as fair;

But though still blooming is thy brow,

Love is not there.

And though as sweet thy voice be yet,

Oh! had I ne'er beheld thee
How calm my life had flown!
As cold, as pure and tranquil
As some fair vale unknown;

Where never yet the footsteps
Of wand'ring man has stray'd;
That smiles in lonely beauty
Unheeded—unsurve'd.

How cheerfully the moments
In sweet content went by,
When sorrow's cloud pass'd swiftly
Across a placid sky:

The charm of peace is broken—
Can nought its dream restore?
That sky, obscured by sadness,
Shall ne'er be cloudless more.

A thousand million souls arise
Out of the cradle of to-day,
And, like a living storm, beneath the skies
Go thundering on their fatal way!
But ere to-morrow’s sun
His ancient round hath run,
That storm is past—and Where are they?
Is asked of Faith by pale Dismay:
“Where—where are they?”
And Faith—even Faith herself—hath not a word to say.
With her serene assurance thrown
Like moonlight into the Unknown
And all her clasping tendrils curled

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.

Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
With parents who feed and clothe him.
Their lips are sticky with pride and praise,
But I have begun to loathe him.

We have sung the song of the droving days,
Of the march of the travelling sheep;
By silent stages and lonely ways
Thin, white battalions creep.
But the man who now by the land would thrive
Must his spurs to a plough-share beat.
Is there ever a man in the world alive
To sing the song of the Wheat!
It's west by south of the Great Divide
The grim grey plains run out,
Where the old flock-masters lived and died
In a ceaseless fight with drought.
Weary with waiting and hope deferred

1

WE are the Trees.
Our dark and leafy glade
Bands the bright earth with softer mysteries.
Beneath us changed and tamed the seasons run:
In burning zones, we build against the sun
Long centuries of shade.

2

We are the Trees,
Who grow for man’s desire,
Heat in our faithful hearts, and fruits that please.
Dwelling beneath our tents, he lightly gains
The few sufficiencies his life attains—
Shelter, and food, and fire.

3

IN dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
And the dingoes nightly yell—
Where the curlew’s cry goes floating by,
We splitters of shingles dwell.
And all day through, from the time of the dew
To the hour when the mopoke calls,
Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing
Sweet hymns by the waterfalls.
And all night long we are lulled by the song
Of gales in the grand old trees;
And in the breaks we can hear the lakes
And the moan of the distant seas.

When the sun sets over the long blue wave
I spring from my couch of rest,
And I hurtle and boom over leagues of foam
That toss in the weltering west,
I pipe a hymn to the headlands high,
My comrades forevermore,
And I chase the tricksy curls of foam
O'er the glimmering sandy shore.

The moon is my friend on clear, white nights
When I ripple her silver way,
And whistle blithely about the rocks
Like an elfin thing at play;
But anon I ravin with cloud and mist
And wail 'neath a curdled sky,