[Editor: This poem by Rex Ingamells was published in Gumtops (1935).]
Forlorn Beauty
O I have seen one flaming peak at dawn
Across a sea of sand. Alone it stood,
And bare of all but colour; no great wood
Had up its sides a shaggy mantle drawn.
Seared by the desert winds, by hot suns shorn
Of Nature’s tenderest gifts, it seemed to brood,
As if it knew its beauty never could
Bring joy, forever mighty and forlorn.
There was nought else in that vast lonely place
To breathe of Beauty; and I gazed in awe,
To think that even there she held her sway;
To think that, her staunch slave, with such fierce grace
That peak at dawn blazed centuries before,
And so blazed now, and so should blaze for aye.
Source:
Rex Ingamells. Gumtops, F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide, 1935, page 5
Editor’s notes:
aye = always, forever
[Editor: Corrected “sered” to “seared”.]
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