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
The eye may just discern

I.

Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken
Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers,
Pass, and the flames of remembered fires requicken
Years upon years.

Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears
Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken
Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.

Ah, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken,
Yearning for love that the veil of death endears,
Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken -
Years upon years.

II.

To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and
'Mirage')


I.


A year ago I breathed the Italian air, -
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet's gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire

From earth I seem to wing my flight,
And sun myself in Heaven's pure light,
When thy sweet gaze meets mine
I dream I quaff ethereal dew,
When my own form I mirrored view
In those blue eyes divine!

Blest notes from Paradise afar,
Or strains from some benignant star
Enchant my ravished ear:
My Muse feels then the shepherd's hour
When silvery tones of magic power
Escape those lips so dear!

Young Loves around thee fan their wings--
Behind, the maddened fir-tree springs,
As when by Orpheus fired:

Here at the roots of the mountains,
Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks,
The rapids charge the ravine:
A little light, cast by foam under starlight,
Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches:
Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle,
Immense and mournful.
Far above curves the great dome of darkness
Drawn with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets.
Deep at the core of the tumult,
Deeper than all the voices that cry at the surface,
Dwells one fathomless sound,

Blest be the dawn, the luminous blue-slate,
the arch transfused by the glorious sun,
and blackbirds chanting hymnals in prickly bushes,
and rooks high over fields coughing up love.

Blest be the winds about the furrowed brow,
and the joyful whispers of dying leaves,
the maples staggered blissfully behind barbed fences
above the tombs of the newly redeemed.

Blest be pain that comes like a stark beggar,
the thorn-tree that has its roots in a star,
the sweet massacred gourds tethered to the rusting gate,

All my life's short years had been stern and sterile --
   I stood like one whom the blasts blow back --
As with shipmen whirled through the straits of Peril,
   So fierce foes menaced my every track.

But I steeled my soul to a strong endeavour,
   I bared my brow as the sharp strokes fell,
And I said to my heart -- "Hope on! Hope ever:
   Have Courage -- Courage, and all is well."

Then, bright as the blood in my heart's rich chalice,

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.

i look into your eyes
and see the stars
burning quietly
in a midnight sky
and i am humbled.

what hope have i
to rein a winged foal
dancing on a distant cloud
chasing the maiden moon
as she scatters her delicate veils
of luminous dust
on the sleeping earth below.

what hope have i
disfigured and alone
who cannot speak
and dare not feel
you will not hear the silent voice
that clamors in a trembling heart
you will not see the man
imprisoned by the shackles of his soul
you will not know
me.

As he lies mid his retinue of rats,
oblivious to the trickling water
and the maelstrom in the babbling sewer,
one might think his nose a hovel for flies
in the low and oppressive August heat,
but gladly he sleeps the sleep of the just,
like a foetus double-crossed in the womb.

Who but the passing ethereal white clouds,
or the bent proprietress of a dive
in those drunken days before her passing,
ever noticed to care by whim or chance
how he resembled a pigeon walking
in the ocean of misery and mud