[Editor: Mary E. Richmond was a New Zealander who visited Australia in 1897, and wrote several poems about the places she visited, later published in her book Poems (1903).]
Leura
(Blue Mountains.)
Dark cleft of Leura ! how the sunlight gleams
Athwart thy dim tree trunks, and clinging ferns ;
Fiercely above, the sun of summer burns,
But here is shade and pleasant sound of streams.
Thy children, strong Australia, dream no dreams,
New and astounding land, where labour earns
Her full and fair reward, and each one learns
To face the fact, and scorn the thing that seems.
Country of earnest prose, deep in thy heart
Are hidden strange romances, fairies peep
Amid thy ferns, O Leura ; spirits start
From all thy rocky nooks and blossoming trees ;
They roll thy tiny torrents down the steep,
And toss the diamond drops upon the breeze.
Source:
Mary E. Richmond. Poems, Elkin Mathews, London, 1903, pages 81-82
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