A Mountain Spring [poem by Henry Kendall]

[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869). This is the first in a set of twelve sonnets.]

Twelve Sonnets.

I.

A Mountain Spring.

Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder, and the ’wildering wings of rain,
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;
But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,
Year after year, the days of tender heat,
And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,
And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain.
A still bright pool. To men I may not tell
The secret that its heart of water knows —
The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff, and close-leaved dell:
A fitful Spirit haunts yon limpid well,
Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.

Source:
Henry Kendall, Leaves from Australian Forests, Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869, page 103