[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in The Sydney Morning Herald (14 July 1862). It was also published in Poems and Songs (1862).]
Amongst the Roses.
I walkt through a forest, beneath the hot noon,
On Etheline calling and calling!
One said, “She will hear you and come to you soon,
When the coolness, my brother, is falling!”
But I whispered, “O Darling, I falter with pain!” —
And the thirsty leaves rustled, and hissed for the rain
Where a wayfarer halted and slept on the plain,
And dreamt of a garden of roses!
Of a cool sweet place,
And a nestling face
In a dance and a dazzle of roses.
In the drouth of a desert, outwearied, I wept,
O, Etheline, darkened with dolours!
But, folded in sunset, how long have you slept,
By the roses all reeling with colours?
A tree from its tresses a leaf did shake,
It fell on her face, and I feared she would wake,
So I brushed it away for her sweet sake;
In that garden of beautiful roses!
In the dreamy perfumes
From rich red blooms
In a dance and a dazzle of roses.
Henry Kendall.
Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 14 July 1862, p. 10
Also published (with some minor differences) in:
Henry Kendall, Poems and Songs, J. R. Clarke, Sydney, 1862, pages 131-132
Editor’s notes:
dolour = (also spelt “dolor”) anguish, grief, sorrow
drouth = drought (a prolonged period of no rain or an abnormally low amount of rain); or, in general terms, a prolonged shortage or lack of something
walkt = walked
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