Back From Australia

Related poetry:

1. The Heart of Australia When the wars of the world seemed ended, and silent the distant drum, Ten years ago in Australia, I wrote of a war to come: And I pictured Australians fighting as their fathers fought of old For the old things, pride or country, for God or the Devil or gold. And they lounged on the […]...
2. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
3. Australia's Peril We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son, For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done. Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb, For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children […]...
4. Australia A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey In the field uniform of modern wars, Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away. They call her a young country, but they lie: She is the last of lands, the emptiest, A woman beyond her change of life, […]...
5. Evening in a Sugar Orchard From where I lingered in a lull in march Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: ‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’ I thought a few might […]...
6. Business Girls From the geyser ventilators Autumn winds are blowing down On a thousand business women Having baths in Camden Town Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, Steam’s escaping here and there, Morning trains through Camden cutting Shake the Crescent and the Square. Early nip of changeful autumn, Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors, At the back precarious bathrooms […]...
7. To Sunnydale There lies the trail to Sunnydale, Amid the lure of laughter. Oh, how can we unhappy be Beneath its leafy rafter! Each perfect hour is like a flower, Each day is like a posy. How can you say the skies are grey? You’re wrong, my friend, they’re rosy. With right good will let’s climb the […]...
8. The Belltower the weighing is done in autumn And the sifting What is to be threshed Is threshed in autumn What is to be gathered is taken The wind does not die in autumn The moon Shifts endlessly thru flying clouds In autumn the sea is high & a golden light plays everywhere Making it harder To […]...
9. Summer in the Mountains Gently I stir a white feather fan, With open shirt sitting in a green wood. I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone; A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head....
10. Australia Today 1916 They came from the lower levels Deep down in the Brilliant mine; From the wastes where the whirlwind revels, Whirling the leaves of pine. On the western plains, where the Darling flows, And the dust storms wheel and shift, The teamster loosened his yokes and bows, And turned his team adrift. On the western stations, […]...
11. Nurse's Song (Innocence) When voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still Then come home my children the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Come come leave off play, and let us away Till […]...
12. The Little Hill Oh, here the air is sweet and still, And soft’s the grass to lie on; And far away’s the little hill They took for Christ to die on. And there’s a hill across the brook, And down the brook’s another; But, oh, the little hill they took,- I think I am its mother! The moon […]...
13. The Song of Australia The centuries found me to nations unknown – My people have crowned me and made me a throne; My royal regalia is love, truth, and light – A girl called Australia – I’ve come to my right. Though no fields of conquest grew red at my birth, My dead were the noblest and bravest on […]...
14. For Australia Now, with the wars of the world begun, they’ll listen to you and me, Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy, Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right – All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White! “Get the people – no matter […]...
15. The Wilderness Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes, And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water; There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us. There […]...
16. A Sweltering Day In Australia The Bombola faints in the hot Bowral tree, Where fierce Mullengudgery’s smothering fires Far from the breezes of Coolgardie Burn ghastly and blue as the day expires; And Murriwillumba complaineth in song For the garlanded bowers of Woolloomooloo, And the Ballarat Fly and the lone Wollongong They dream of the gardens of Jamberoo; The wallabi […]...
17. Wide Lies Australia Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her Flow for her unity – all states in one. Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her – Never was conquest so peacefully won. Fair lies Australia! with all things within her Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be: Free to the White Man to woo and […]...
18. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
19. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
20. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
21. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
22. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
23. Going for Water The well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook if still it ran; Not loth to have excuse to go, Because the autumn eve was fair (Though chill), because the fields were ours, And by the brook our woods […]...
24. WINTERLIGHT Let us, this December night, leave the ring Of heat, the lapping flames around the fire’s heart, Move with bodies tensed against the light Towards the moon’s pull and the cloud’s hand. Arms of angels hold us, lend our bodies Height of stars and the planets’ whirl, Grant us sufficiency of light so we may […]...
25. Moon Song A child saw in the morning skies The dissipated-looking moon, And opened wide her big blue eyes, And cried: “Look, look, my lost balloon!” And clapped her rosy hands with glee: “Quick, mother! Bring it back to me.” A poet in a lilied pond Espied the moon’s reflected charms, And ravished by that beauty blonde, […]...
26. Four Haiku Spring: A hill without a name Veiled in morning mist. The beginning of autumn: Sea and emerald paddy Both the same green. The winds of autumn Blow: yet still green The chestnut husks. A flash of lightning: Into the gloom Goes the heron’s cry....
27. Ziyi Song Chang-an one slip of moon; In ten thousand houses, the sound of fulling mallets. Autumn winds keep on blowing, All things make me think of Jade Pass! When will they put down the barbarians And my good man come home from his far campaign?...
28. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
29. Snowbanks North of the House Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six Feet from the house… Thoughts that go so far. The boy gets out of high school and reads no more Books; The son stops calling home. The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no More bread. And the wife looks at her husband one […]...
30. ASTROPOETRY ON THE PEAK cocooned in thermal underwear Thick overcoat, scarf and woolly hat To withstand the biting mountain air In the valley below we see the lights Of little houses twinkling in the dark And beyond the next peak The glow from a distant city We scale to these dizzy heights Ignore the pain in our necks Gaze […]...
31. Lily Magnolia Enclosure Autumn hill gather surplus shine Fly bird chase before companion. Colour green moment bright, Sunset mist no fixed place. The autumn hill gathers remaining light, A flying bird chases its companion before. The green colour is momentarily bright, Sunset mist has no fixed place....
32. Trebetherick We used to picnic where the thrift Grew deep and tufted to the edge; We saw the yellow foam flakes drift In trembling sponges on the ledge Below us, till the wind would lift Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge. Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea, Sun on our bathing dresses […]...
33. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
34. Come down, O Maid COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love […]...
35. Autumn Daybreak Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud At dawn, a fortnight overdue, Jostling the doors, and tearing through My bedroom to rejoin the cloud, I know-for I can hear the hiss And scrape of leaves along the floor- How may boughs, lashed bare by this, Will rake the cluttered sky once more. Tardy, and somewhat south […]...
36. Everything That Acts Is Actual From the tawny light From the rainy nights From the imagination finding Itself and more than itself Alone and more than alone At the bottom of the well where the moon lives, Can you pull me Into December? a lowland Of space, perception of space Towering of shadows of clouds blown upon Clouds over new […]...
37. The Song of the Darling River The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere And all that is left of the last year’s flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud; The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver, And this is the dirge of the Darling River: ‘I rise in the drought from the […]...
38. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
39. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
40. A Man Young And Old: VI. His Memories We should be hidden from their eyes, Being but holy shows And bodies broken like a thorn Whereon the bleak north blows, To think of buried Hector And that none living knows. The women take so little stock In what I do or say They’d sooner leave their cosseting To hear a jackass bray; My […]...