O to go out once more and see the moon’s clear shining
Break on the waters into silver bars,
Hear the curlew and plover call in lonely pining
Under the spearpoints often thousand stars;
To stand where opening spaces show the heath’s low level,
And watch the gold of early morning rim the sedge,
Where, in the long lagoon, the rippling wavelets bevel,
As the black swan swings downward to the water’s edge!
Once more to see the Blue Lake like a sapphire shimmer
In the deep heart of steep descents of green;
To watch again in winter nights the stars’ faint glimmer
Tremble in waterpools where rain has been;
To feel across Strathdownie heaths, in distance risen,
The soft, susurrant wind climb upward to the hill,
And hear the sunny bees, in some fair flowering prison,
Murmur of sweets where eucalyptine perfumes spill!
O to pull rein on one clear height, and there, in wonder,
Mark the far summit of Mount Gambier rise
Above the faint and misty veils, the heavens under,
Like some great finger pointing to the skies!
For there in quick, courageous hours of youth, high-hearted,
Life stood immortal in its own immortal dreams,
E’en though it saw where, from on high, the falcon darted,
And heard the dying leveret perish in its screams!
Once, there, through a night I drove, with the moon high sailing,
Naught heard but the sound of the trace, the hoof,
When came the cry of a child, like a ghostly wailing,
From the pallid shield of a frost-bound roof;
Only that, and the crackle of frore in its breaking,
Under the firm strong shoes and the turn of the wheel;
Only the click of ice as it sprang in the making,
Where the splash of the waters lay under its seal!
. . . I dream I hear in Cawker’s paddocks the hoof-beats flying,
Where the foals string out like pennons that sway behind;
I hear the whinnying mares make answer to their crying,
And stirs, as of old, a thought long kept in mind;
And I have written it here that others may read it,
And seal with the seal of love what all should keep,
For memory starves, if never comes one to feed it,
When they, whom the land first knew, in its bosom sleep!
(Dame Mary Gilmore DBE)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Life Poems, Night Poems, Mind Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Youth Poems, Fairness Poems, Dreams Poems, Cry Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Sleep PoemsBased on Keywords: hoof-beats, frore, starves, pennons, heaths, high-hearted, mares, whinnying, frost-bound, leveret, foals