[Editor: This poem by C. J. Dennis was published in The Singing Garden (1935).]
Morning Glory
Singing morning has begun.
Where the wooded ranges run
To far summits, there the snow
Lingers yet. But down below
In the quiet, green-girt places,
Where full many a swift creek races
From the snow-lands to the sea,
Now breaks sudden harmony.
Where this tree-walled clearing dreams,
First a rosy promise beams
As a young dawn steals up the sky
Where the frozen ramparts lie.
Now from dew-wet leaves a-glitter,
Comes a little drowsy twitter,
And the first swift spear of light
Wounds at last the stubborn night.
Flashing now, bright javelins
Pierce the murk; and now begins —
As day’s gleaming ranks deploy —
Morning’s canticle of joy.
First a sleepy chuckle, breaking,
Tells of Laughing Jack awaking,
Pausing; then, from tree to tree,
Leaps unbound hilarity.
Here’s the signal. . . . Morning’s hush
Sweetness shatters, as grey thrush,
Vieing with the seraphim,
Lifts his liquid matin hymn.
Golden whistler joins him then,
Now red robin, now blue wren;
Magpie’s clarion, sounding, swelling,
Caps the eager chorus welling,
As a wealth of varied notes
Pouring from these tuneful throats,
Lifting, drifting, soars on high,
Up to greet morn’s glowing sky.
Source:
C. J. Dennis, The Singing Garden, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1935, pages 18-19
Editor’s notes:
girt = encircled, surrounded, encircled or bound with a band or belt (past tense and past participle of “gird”)
Laughing Jack = a kookaburra (a bird also known as a “laughing jackass” due to the sound of its call)
morn = morning
seraphim = angels which are regarded as a highly-ranked order of angel (the Seraphim are mentioned in the Bible, in Isaiah 6: “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne . . . Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings”)
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