[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901.]
Dark Moments
There is a deep calm now
Within my breast ;
Song on the summer’s bough
Pleads for a rest.
Truly the sheen fast fades
Of passing day,
’Neath swift-gathering shades
All now is grey.
High on the purple peak —
My folded wing ;
Tired — unable to seek
Its love — to sing —
Bends with my head to dawn,
Waiting for light ;
But, ’stead of coming morn,
Continues night.
Riseth a lone, wild cry
From mourning thought ;
I ask then, can love die
I fondly sought ?
But in the ev’ning rays
Receding fast
My mind — while light decays —
Turns to the past.
Safe in my heart a flower
Looketh to me ;
Gift from spring’s early hour
Longs to be free,
Where Life will never know
Or hear the strain,
Uttered in evening’s glow, —
Earth’s wail of pain.
Yet ere mine eyes can close
New scenes appear,
Stranger than all of those
That awe them here.
I hear a note sweet-sung,
But far away ;
High — with another tongue
Than that of clay.
Song flings her dark robes down
For bridal wreaths ;
Her mouth, a rose full-blown
In beauty, breathes ;
Another dawn unbars
A crystal sky,
Where suns are all the stars —
Eternity !
Camden, October 12, 1891.
Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, pages 130-132
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