Departing From My Cave [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901.]

Departing From My Cave

To-day over hills I have wandered away
From my cave, my own quiet abode,
Morn saw me go forth with a bright wattle spray,
While my feet unconsentingly strode.
I’ve left the long range, and the lone valleys where
In the day I loved often to roam,
Where the kingfishers dip their bright wings in the glare
That contrasts with the peace of my home.

Whatever is hid in the future for me,
In those calms where my mind cannot dwell,
I’ve gathered my hopes full contented to be
For a time far away from the dell
That stretches and twines round the base of the hills,
Where the waters are crowned with their foam
That is, veil-like, spread over the rush of the rills
At the foot of my beautiful home.

I wear in my bosom a garland of flowers
Which I planted and trained in the Spring,
To cheer me along in those dreary, sad hours
When the Muse might deny me her wing,
When the gloom of the night might o’ershadow my breast,
Like the clouds o’er the face of the dome
That sweetly is fringed with the blue when I rest
With the wind in the calms of my home.

Engraved on my heart is the Waratah’s gleam.
As it opens its chalice in morn,
I carry it there, that my raptures may stream
On its wonderful hue ev’ry dawn.
’Twill gather my hopes when a down-hearted thought
May be tingeing my hairs with the foam
That’s white on the tide as it follows my lot
When I stray from my beautiful home.

Cowra, October 22, 1892.

Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, pages 192-193