[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901.]
Nature’s Child
Where the waters murmur swiftly,
And the ripples gently play,
In the joyous gleams of sunshine,
Neath the tender shades of day ;
Where the drooping vines have bordered
In their beauty unknown deeps,
And the rugged cliffs o’erhanging
Are majestic in their steeps ; —
I would choose to be a rover,
In my day-hours there to roam,
While the shades of Summer’s forests
Would around me form a home !
I would rest beneath mimosas,
And the laurel’s silver leaf,
While the pink-tipped cups of flowers
From the moss in bold relief,
Would my spirit soon deliver
From unsettled doubts within ;
For such scenes of innocence,
Never lead our souls to sin !
Where the leaping of the waters
And the rising of the spray
Form a rainbow in the heavens ;
There my tired thoughts could stray,
While the ever-waving foliage
And the trellised ferns above
Brightly gemmed with beauteous dew-drops
That were nesting there in love,
With a beauty in each moment,
In each slowly passing scene,
Bringing never-ending harvests
Where my soul could ever glean.
In the loveliness around me,
In those garlands of delight,
I would ever dwell where beauty
Lives — so wonderful to sight ;
I would live in realms arranging
All the leaflets of my mind,
Cast away on Nature’s bosom,
Leaving hollow things behind !
Wallendbeen, August 31, 1887.
Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, pages 159-160
Editor’s notes:
mimosa = a genus (of about 400 species) of flowering herbs and shrubs; although in the Australian context it is more likely to refer to the Silver Wattle (Acacia dealbata, also known as Mimosa), a species of the genus Acacia, native to southeastern Australia
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