[Editor: This poem by Grant Hervey was published in Australians Yet and Other Verses, 1913.]
The Girls Of The Morning
We have sung our songs of the Girls of Night —
The belles of the blazing bar ;
Let us sing how bright, how pure and white
The Girls of the Morning are !
Let the hansom swirl with its midnight girl
Leave the dude with his wine-flushed dove ;
For the girls of noon are a gracious boon,
And they are the best to love !
Aye, the Girls of the Morning shine like stars
Hung out in a cloudless sky ;
Leave the scented bars and the stale cigars
For the Girls of the Morn go by !
Lo, the full red lip, like a carmine strip
Laid light on a field of cream ;
The eyes that flash, and the skirts that plash
Like the waves of a wanton stream !
They are lithe and tall, and are straight withal,
Like the stems of the soaring trees ;
’Tis a splendid fate that would haply mate
All men with girls like these !
And a warm, rich life if each man’s wife
Had the grace of the waving corn
If each, like wheat, curved soft and sweet,
Like the Blessed Girls of Morn !
Lo, their voices thrill with a deep, rich trill,
Most gentle and debonnair ;
Each breast is a throne for a King to own
And bronze are their wastes of hair.
We have sung too much of the Girls of Night
The belles of the blazing bar ;
Let us sing how bright how pure and white
The Girls of the Morning are !
Source:
Grant Hervey. Australians Yet and Other Verses, Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne, 1913, pages 227-228
Editor’s notes:
hansom = a hansom cab; a low-hung two-wheeled covered carriage for two passengers, drawn by one horse, with the driver’s seat mounted high to the rear outside of the cab, with the reins running over the roof; often used as the taxi of its day
haply = by accident, by chance, or by luck
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