South Country
After the whey-faced anonymity
Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush,
After the rubbing and the hit of brush,
You come to the South Country
As if the argument of trees were done,
The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains,
All ended by these clear and gliding planes
Like an abrupt solution.
And over the flat earth of empty farms
The monstrous continent of air floats back
Coloured with rotting sunlight and the black,
Bruised flesh of thunderstorms:
Air arched, enormous, pounding the bony ridge,
Ditches and hutches, with a drench of light,
So huge, from such infinities of height,
You walk on the sky’s beach
While even the dwindled hills are small and bare,
As if, rebellious, buried, pitiful,
Something below pushed up a knob of skull,
Feeling its way to air.
Related poetry:
- Hilaire Belloc – The South Country When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind. The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it’s there walking in the […]...
- South of my Days South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country, Rises that tableland, high delicate outline Of bony slopes wincing under the winter, Low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite – Clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced, Willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple Branching over and under, blotched with a […]...
- Mariana In The South With one black shadow at its feet, The house thro’ all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines: A faint-blue ridge upon the right, An empty river-bed before, And shallows on a distant shore, In glaring sand and inlets bright. But “Aye Mary,” made she moan, And “Aye […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
- North Country North Country, filled with gesturing wood, With trees that fence, like archers’ volleys, The flanks of hidden valleys Where nothing’s left to hide But verticals and perpendiculars, Like rain gone wooden, fixed in falling, Or fingers blindly feeling For what nobody cares; Or trunks of pewter, bangled by greedy death, Stuck with black staghorns, quietly […]...
- The Never-Never Country By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, By railroad, coach, and track By lonely graves of our brave dead, Up-Country and Out-Back: To where ‘neath glorious the clustered stars The dreamy plains expand My home lies wide a thousand miles In the Never-Never Land. It lies beyond the farming belt, Wide wastes of scrub and plain, A […]...
- A Letter from Artemesia in the Town to Chloe in the Country Chloe, In verse by your command I write. Shortly you’ll bid me ride astride, and fight: These talents better with our sex agree Than lofty flights of dangerous poetry. Amongst the men, I mean the men of wit (At least they passed for such before they writ), How many bold adventureers for the bays, Proudly […]...
- For The Country THE DREAM This has nothing to do with war Or the end of the world. She Dreams there are gray starlings On the winter lawn and the buds Of next year’s oranges alongside This year’s oranges, and the sun Is still up, a watery circle Of fire settling into the sky At dinner time, but […]...
- South Hill Light boat south hill go North hill vast expanse hard reach Separate bank see person home Long way off not recognise A light boat sets off from the southern hill, The north is hard to reach across the vastness. On the other bank, I look for my home, It cannot be recognised so far off....
- Summer in the South The Oriole sings in the greening grove As if he were half-way waiting, The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green, Timid, and hesitating. The rain comes down in a torrent sweep And the nights smell warm and pinety, The garden thrives, but the tender shoots Are yellow-green and tiny. Then a flash of sun […]...
- North and South O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along. There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song, Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies, And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling […]...
- To Ellen, At The South The green grass is growing, The morning wind is in it, ‘Tis a tune worth the knowing, Though it change every minute. ‘Tis a tune of the spring, Every year plays it over, To the robin on the wing, To the pausing lover. O’er ten thousand thousand acres Goes light the nimble zephyr, The flowers, […]...
- South Africa 1903 Lived a woman wonderful, (May the Lord amend her!) Neither simple, kind, nor true, But her Pagan beauty drew Christian gentlemen a few Hotly to attend her. Christian gentlemen a few From Berwick unto Dover; For she was South Africa, Ana she was South Africa, She was Our South Africa, Africa all over! Half […]...
- Spring in the South Now in the oak the sap of life is welling, Tho’ to the bough the rusty leafage clings; Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling, See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings; Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying, Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass, Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying, Who has […]...
- The South Wind Say So IF the oriole calls like last year When the south wind sings in the oats, If the leaves climb and climb on a bean pole Saying over a song learnt from the south wind, If the crickets send up the same old lessons Found when the south wind keeps on coming, We will get by, […]...
- South Wind Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,- With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow, Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket? Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley; Your ruffian haste shook the young, blossoming orchards; You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney, And white your pennons […]...
- A South Wind has a pathos A South Wind has a pathos Of individual Voice As One detect on Landings An Emigrant’s address. A Hint of Ports and Peoples And much not understood The fairer for the farness And for the foreignhood....
- Her south china sea eyes young girl With her south china sea Eyes Where an ocean wind Sighs Stands as she tries. In the silence Between day and night Between hope and dreaming, Water is carved Deep In where a poet grows In where a child to woman Perceives. A young girl dares To paint Her colors true To dance […]...
- South London Sketch From Bermondsey to Wandsworth So many churches are, Some with apsidal chancels, Some Perpendicular And schools by E. R. Robson In the style of Norman Shaw Where blue-serged adolescence learn’d To model and to draw. Oh, in among the houses, The viaduct below, Stood the Coffee Essence Factory Of Robinson and Co. Burnt and brown […]...
- GAUGUIN IN THE SOUTH SEAS They have my own fear of the dark, Tupapau – spirits of the dead they call it; Returning late with oil I found fear of it Had spread my vabine naked on the bed. Manao-Taipapau means ‘she thinks of the spectre’ Or ‘the spectre is thinking of her’, either way She is afraid; I marvel […]...
- Clinton South of Polk I WANDER down on Clinton street south of Polk And listen to the voices of Italian children quarreling. It is a cataract of coloratura And I could sleep to their musical threats and accusations....
- South Winds jostle them South Winds jostle them Bumblebees come Hover hesitate Drink, and are gone Butterflies pause On their passage Cashmere I softly plucking, Present them here!...
- The Birds reported from the South The Birds reported from the South A News express to Me A spicy Charge, My little Posts But I am deaf Today The Flowers appealed a timid Throng I reinforced the Door Go blossom for the Bees I said And trouble Me no More The Summer Grace, for Notice strove Remote Her best Array The […]...
- Two south coast poems (a) this morning i came within sound of the sea for a man whose eyes till now were a bed of rock Whose hands were drier than deserts The sea’s voice drove fear up through the valley The tributaries meandering inside me longing for outlet Shrivelled even as their own courses became straight My demand for ocean died now the ocean approached The clouds put […]...
- A COUNTRY LIFE:TO HIS BROTHER, MR THOMAS HERRICK Thrice, and above, blest, my soul’s half, art thou, In thy both last and better vow; Could’st leave the city, for exchange, to see The country’s sweet simplicity; And it to know and practise, with intent To grow the sooner innocent; By studying to know virtue, and to aim More at her nature than her […]...
- Christmas party at the South Danbury Church December twenty-first We gather at the white Church festooned Red and green, the tree flashing Green-red lights beside the altar. After the children of Sunday School Recite Scripture, sing songs, And scrape out solos, They retire to dress for the finale, To perform the pageant Again: Mary and Joseph kneeling Cradleside, Three Kings, Shepherds and […]...
- Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina GEORGE AUGUSTUS CLOUGH A NATIVE OF LIVERPOOL, DIED SUDDENLY OF “STRANGER’S FEVER” NOV’R 5th 1843 AGED 22 He died of “Stranger’s Fever” when his youth Had scarcely melted into manhood, so The chiselled legend runs; a brother’s woe Laid bare for epitaph. The savage ruth Of a sunny, bright, but alien land, uncouth With cruel […]...
- Suzanne Brother Paul! look! -but he rushes to a different Window. The moon! I heard shrieks and thought: What’s that? That’s just Suzanne Talking to the moon! Pounding on the window With both fists: Paul! Paul! -and talking to the moon. Shrieking And pounding the glass With both fists! Brother Paul! the moon!...
- In the Country This life is sweetest; in this wood I hear no children cry for food; I see no woman, white with care; No man, with muscled wasting here. No doubt it is a selfish thing To fly from human suffering; No doubt he is a selfish man, Who shuns poor creatures, sad and wan. But ’tis […]...
- Up The Country I am back from up the country very sorry that I went Seeking for the Southern poets’ land whereon to pitch my tent; I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I’m glad that I am back. Further out may be the pleasant […]...
- My Country in Darkness After the wolves and before the elms The bardic order ended in Ireland. Only a few remained to continue A dead art in a dying land: This is a man On the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle. He has no comfort, no food and no future. He has no fire to recite his friendless measures […]...
- Buffalo Country Out where the grey streams glide, Sullen and deep and slow, And the alligators slide From the mud to the depths below Or drift on the stream like a floating death, Where the fever comes on the south wind’s breath, There is the buffalo. Out of the big lagoons, Where the Regia lilies float, And […]...
- Winter in the Country Sweet life! how lovely to be here And feel the soft sea-laden breeze Strike my flushed face, the spruce’s fair Free limbs to see, the lesser trees’ Bare hands to touch, the sparrow’s cheep To heed, and watch his nimble flight Above the short brown grass asleep. Love glorious in his friendly might, Music that […]...
- On the Ruins of a Country Inn WHERE now these mingled ruins lie A temple once to Bacchus rose, Beneath whose roof, aspiring high, Full many a guest forgot his woes. No more this dome, by tempests torn, Affords a social safe retreat; But ravens here, with eye forlorn, And clustering bats henceforth will meet. The Priestess of this ruined shrine, Unable […]...
- The Country Of Marriage I. I dream of you walking at night along the streams Of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs Of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep. II. This comes after silence. Was it something I said That bound me […]...
- The Country Justice TWO lawyers to their cause so well adhered, A country justice quite confused appeared, By them the facts were rendered so obscure With which the truth remained he was not sure. At length, completely tired, two straws he sought Of diff’rent lengths, and to the parties brought. These in his hand he held: the plaintiff […]...
- THE COUNTRY LIFE TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY Sweet country life, to such unknown, Whose lives are others’, not their own! But serving courts and cities, be Less happy, less enjoying thee. Thou never plough’st the ocean’s foam To seek and bring rough pepper home: Nor to the Eastern Ind […]...
- The Country Clown Bred in distant woods, the clown Brings all his country airs to town; The odd address, with awkward grace, That bows with half-averted face; The half-heard compliments, whose note Is swallow’d in the trembling throat; The stiffen’d gait, the drawling tone, By which his native place is known; The blush, that looks by vast degrees, […]...
- THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER I. A MASTER of a country school Jump’d up one day from off his stool, Inspired with firm resolve to try To gain the best society; So to the nearest baths he walk’d, And into the saloon he stalk’d. He felt quite. startled at the door, Ne’er having seen the like before. To the first […]...