Fickle Summer's fled away,
Shall we see her face again?
Hearken to the weeping rain,
Never sunbeam greets the day.
More inconstant than the May,
She cares nothing for our pain,
Nor will hear the birds complain
In their bowers that once were gay.
Summer, Summer, come once more,
Drive the shadows from the field,
All thy radiance round thee fling,
Be our lady as of yore;
Then the earth her fruits shall yield,
Then the morning stars shall sing.
The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
  ; Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying: 'To me at least
&nbs p; The grass is green.
'There was no star that I forgot to fear
  ; With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me'; but no answer came --
One day we notice that the sun
needs feeding. Immediately
a crash program begins: we fill rockets
with wheat, smoke-rings, razorblades, then,
after long aiming
--they're off. Hulls specially alloyed
so as not to melt before the stuff
gets delivered we pour cattle rivers windmills,
aborigines etcet into the sun which
however, grows stubbornly
smaller, paler. Finally
of course we run out of things to feed the thing,
start shipping ourselves. By now
all the planets-moons-asteroids and
so on have been shoveled in though they're
I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.
Brookong station lay half-asleep
Dozed in the waning western glare
('Twas before the run had stocked with sheep
And only cattle depastured there)
As the Bluccap mob reined up at the door
And loudly saluted Featherstonhaugh.
"My saintly preacher," the leader cried,
"I stand no nonsense, as you're aware,
I've a word for you if you'll step outside,
just drop that pistol and have a care;
I'll trouble you, too, for the key of the store,
For we're short of tucker, friend Featherstonhaugh."
The muscular Christian showed no fear,
Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,
Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
Bow down my head lest I behold a star.
Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,
Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences
Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.
Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late
And a whisper "Father Riley -- come across!"
So his Rev'rence in pyjamas trotted softly to the gate
And admitted Andy Regan -- and a horse!
"Now, it's listen, Father Riley, to the words I've got to say,
For it's close upon my death I am tonight.
'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
And long for day.
Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,
Nor visits my dull chamber with her light,
To guide my senses into her sweet rest
And leave me blest.
Long hours since the city rocked and sung
Itself to slumber: only the stars swung
Aloft their torches in the midnight skies
With watchful eyes.
No sound awakes; I, even, breathe no sigh,
The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits
in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How
pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she
scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach
And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out
in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish." He scratched
I LEAVE the world to-morrow,—
What news for Fairyland?
I’m tired of dust and sorrow
And folk on every hand.
A moon more calm and splendid
Moves there through deeper skies,
By maiden stars attended
She peaces goddes-wise.
And there no wrath oppresses,
And there no teardrops start,
There cool winds breathe caresses,
That soothe the weary heart.
The wealth the mad world follows
Turns ashes in the hand
Of him who sees the hollows