Sydney Harbour [poem by Agnes L. Storrie]

[Editor: This poem by Agnes L. Storrie was published in Poems, 1909.]

Sydney Harbour.

To love thee, and to leave thee ! Joy and pain
True balanced, for thy regal beauty lies
Not throned a day-queen in my passing eyes,
But bedded in my heart. A golden lane
Of memory leads me to thy shores again,
I see thy heaving purple breast that sighs
Its amorous waves against the shore and tries
To kiss the flowers that overhang, in vain,
I used to love thy gleaming garments best
When trailing through the dipping woods they lay
And caught the saffron glamour of the west,
Until I saw thee decked in soft array
Of ebon shadows, and thy glittering crest
Grown pensive ’neath the young moon’s silver sway.

Source:
Agnes L. Storrie. Poems, J. W. Kettlewell, Sydney, 1909, page 238

Editor’s notes:
ebon = dark brown or black; ebony

pensive = meditative, reflective, thoughtful, or wistful