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.

A vagrant lark on wayward wings
    Is fluttering low, is floating high;
No Northern trill of rapture rings
    Thro’ 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 once more the plover’s “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 emperor 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!

Satrapies—Persian provinces, ruled by a satrap or viceroy; hence any large tract of country.    [back]