[Editor: This poem by Charles Harpur was published in The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853).]
Morning.
How beautiful that earliest burst of light
Which floodeth from the opening eyes of morn,
When like a fairy palace dew-bedight
Bough storying over bough upspreads the thorn,
And sweet the melodies which tow’rd the corn
In tassel, or the orchard these invite,
And that most love-like ever fresh delight
Which breathes of many a bloomy thing new born —
Breathes from vine clumps in the moist dells appearing,
Rich meads and river banks. And cheering then
The voice of cattle to their pasture steering,
And the full speech of fieldward hastening men! —
My very boyhood seems renew’d again
’Mid these delights like a delight careering!
Source:
Charles Harpur, The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems, Sydney: W. R. Piddington, 1853, page 96
Editor’s notes:
bedight = bedeck, adorn, dress, equip
mead = meadow (especially used in a literary context) (may also refer to an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey with water)
’mid = an abbreviation of “amid” or “amidst”: of or in the middle of an area, group, position, etc.
morn = morning
Old spelling in the original text:
floodeth (floods)
Vernacular spelling in the original text:
tow’rd (toward)
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