[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869).]
III.
By a River.
By red ripe mouth and brown luxurious eyes
Of her I love, by all your sweetness shed
In far fair days, on one whose memory flies
To faithless lights and gracious speech gainsaid,
I pray you, when yon river-path I tread,
Make with the woodlands some soft compromise
Lest they should vex me into fruitless sighs
With visions of a woman’s gleaming head!
For every green and golden-hearted thing
That gathers beauty in that shining place
Beloved of beams and wooed by wind and wing,
Is rife with glimpses of her marvellous face;
And in the whispers of the lips of Spring
The music of her lute-like voice I trace.
Source:
Henry Kendall, Leaves from Australian Forests, Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869, page 105
Leave a Reply