Adrift: A Brisbane River Reverie

An amphitheatre of purple hills

And emerald slopes where nestling villas gleam,

Flooded with golden light that crowns and fills

Height, vale, and stream.

The clouds float motionless like isles of snow

Set in the sapphire of the summer sky,

The river, like a ribbon, far below

Winds rippling by;

As, like a creeping snake, with curve and sweep

The languid current steals past mead and scar,

To the dark mangrove fringing on the deep

Abreast the bar.

Slow drifts the boat past homestead, town, and lea;

The waters laugh and sob against the side

As down the murmuring river to the sea,

Dreaming, I glide.

Past meadowy marshland and gray limestone bluff,

Low mangrove fens and waste lantana heights,

Long reaches where the tides and winds are rough,

And sheltered bights.

Now wider spread the waters to the eyes;

Now sparser grow the homesteads, scarcely seen,

Save where some roof or gaunt gray trunk may rise

Against the green.

And salter on the cheek the breezes blow;

And in a deeper key the river sings;

And from the viewless sea move to and fro

Swift snow-like wings.

These are the harbingers from voyaged seas

Who knows what seas of thought man yet may sail

As science slowly sifts Life’s mysteries—

And lifts the veil?