sky

Fresh fields and woods! the Earth's fair face,
God's foot-stool, and man's dwelling-place.
I ask not why the first Believer
Did love to be a country liver?
Who to secure pious content
Did pitch by groves and wells his tent;
Where he might view the boundless sky,
And all those glorious lights on high;
With flying meteors, mists and show'rs,
Subjected hills, trees, meads and flow'rs;
And ev'ry minute bless the King
And wise Creator of each thing.
I ask not why he did remove

All rank on rank the tall white lillies stood,
The graceful palms against the rose-flushed sky
Showed gemmed with dew-drops, and red poppies glowed
Through the rank grass near by.

All hushed the air was - rapt and clear and still
The earth, late racked with pain
Felt it's insensate form with rapture thrill
And hope was born again

But in that garden there was silence deep,
All nature waited - till a ringing cry
'Rabboni! Master!' cleft the dewey air,
And swift the listening sky

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
"Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

Ten minutes now I have been looking at this.
I have gone by here before and wondered about it.
This is a bronze memorial of a famous general
Riding horseback with a flag and a sword and a revolver
on him.
I want to smash the whole thing into a pile of junk to be
hauled away to the scrap yard.
I put it straight to you,
After the farmer, the miner, the shop man, the factory
hand, the fireman and the teamster,
Have all been remembered with bronze memorials,
Shaping them on the job of getting all of us

I looked down on a daisied lawn
To where a host of tiny eyes
Of snow and gold from velvet shone
And made me think of starry skies.

I looked up to the vasty night
Where stars were very small indeed,
And in their galaxy of light
They made me think of daised mead.

I took a daisy in my hold;
Its snowy rays were tipped with rose,
And with its tiny boss of gold
I thought--how like a star it glows!

I dreamt I plucked from Heaven's field
A star and held it in my hand.

Poets may praise a wattle thatch
Doubtfully waterproof;
Let me uplift my lowly latch
Beneath a rose-tiled roof.
Let it be gay and rich in hue,
Soft bleached by burning days,
Where skies ineffably are blue,
And seas a golden glaze.

But set me in the surly North
Beneath a roof of slate,
And as I sourly sally forth
My heart will hum with hate;
And I will brood beneath a pine
Where Nature seldom smiles,
Heart-longing for a starry vine
And roof of ruddy tiles.

We're marching along, we're gath'ring strong'
We place on our right reliance,
We fling in the air, for all who care,
Our first loud notes of defiance!
We fling in the air,
For all who care,
Our first loud notes of defiance!

Laugh long and loud, you toady crowd,
At the men you call benighted,
In spite of your sneers, we are pioneers
Of "Australian States United"!
In spite of your sneers, We are pioneers
Of "Australian States United"!

Not long we'll stand as an outlaw band,

Ten miles down Reedy River
A pool of water lies,
And all the year it mirrors
The changes in the skies,
And in that pool's broad bosom
Is room for all the stars;
Its bed of sand has drifted
O'er countless rocky bars.

Around the lower edges
There waves a bed of reeds,
Where water rats are hidden
And where the wild duck breeds;
And grassy slopes rise gently
To ridges long and low,
Where groves of wattle flourish
And native bluebells grow.

Beneath the granite ridges

Tonight my love is sleeping cold
Where none may see and none shall pass.
The daisies quicken in the mold,
And richer fares the meadow grass.

The warding cypress pleads the skies,
The mound goes level in the rain.
My love all cold and silent lies-
Pray God it will not rise again!

In lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.

Strange ghostly banners o’er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.

The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.

Dear Christ, who reign’st above the flood