On The Plains

Half-lost in film of faintest lawn,

A single star in armour white

Upon the dreamy heights of dawn

Guards dim frontier of the night,

Till plumed ray

And golden spray

Have washed its trembling light away.

The sun has peeped above the blue;

His level lances as they pass

Have shot the dew-drops thro' and thro',

And dashed with rubies all the grass,

And silver sound

Of horse-bells round

Floats softly o'er the jewelled ground.

The sunbeam and the wanton wind,

Among the feathery tufts at play,

Sing to the earth: "The night is blind,

But we will kiss your tears away."

With broad'ning glow

And rippling flow

Adown the laughing leagues they go.

The vagrant lark on wayward winds

Is fluttering low, is floating high;

No Northern trill of rapture rings

Tho' the vast temple of the sky;

But not in vain

Thy southern strain,

Thou brown-winged angel of the plain!

Here, where the days are dull and grey,

And youth has stilled his joyous song,

In fancy yet I love to stray

By creek, and plain, and billabong,

To the curlew's call

And the noiseless fall

Of the unshod hoof 'neath the gum-trees tall.

I hear one more the plovers "peet:"

The grey hawk wheels in dizzy height,

And swift beneath my horse's feet

The brown quail rises in his fright,

And the galahs fly

With pink breasts high,

A rosy cloud in a cloudless sky.

Afar I mark the emu's run;

The bustard slow, in motley clad;

And, basking in his bath of sun,

The brown snake on the cattle-pad,

And the reddish black

Of a dingo's back

As he loit'ring slinks on my horse's track.

And now I watch, with slackened rein,

The scattered cattle, hundreds strong,

As slowly moving home again

The lazy vanguard feeds along

To the waters cool

Of the tree-fringed pool

In the distant creek when the noon is full.

Slip girth and let the old horse graze;

The noon grows heavy on the air.

Kindle the tiny camp-fire's blaze,

And neath the shade, as monarch there,

Take thou thine ease:

For hours like these

A king had bartered satrapies!

Here lie and watch, thro' smoke-wreaths cool,

By yon sunk log and floating wrack,

The emporer of the silent pool,

The stately heron, white and black,

Afar from heat,

Upon his beat,

Knee-deep in shallowy retreat.

O mellow air! O sunny light!

O hope and youth that pass away!

Inscribe in letters of delight

Upon each heart one golden day -

To be there set

When we forget

There is a joy in living yet!