The Field of the Cloth of Gold [poem by John O’Brien, 1954]

[Editor: This poem by John O’Brien was published in The Parish of St Mel’s and Other Verses, 1954.]

The Field of the Cloth of Gold

Oh, the hireling sun in a slipshod way
Is a-slant on the city street,
But the heart of him’s back in the bush today
And a-tune to the galloping feet,
Where the school-kids ride to the rigadoon
By the scampering hoof-beats trolled,
And the flower-decked sward ’neath the sun a-swoon
In the clear white light of the afternoon
Is a Field of the Cloth of Gold.

So, put him astride of a sober hack
With a length of rope for a rein,
And the hands of the clock turn back, turn back
And make him a boy again.
Let him rise to the pomp and circumstance
That were his in the days of old,
When he rode like a Knight of the old Romance —
With a chaff-bag under his Sunday pants,
On the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Published in:
John O’Brien. The Parish of St Mel’s and Other Verses, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1954