[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Heart of Spring (1919).]
The Heart Longs
The warm wind wandering at its will,
The long grass withering day by day,
Bring back life’s sunrise promises —
Full-voiced and rosy-winged were they!
I feel your eyes’ warm witchery:
Sweetheart, my longing is for thee!
It seems so clear, the day we met —
The big sun sauntering up the sky;
The feathery clouds afloat, afar;
On such a day, oh! who could die,
Or think of death? . . . You smiled on me:
Sweetheart, my longing was for thee!
At every turning of the year
A madness moves into the hours:
The roses in the rainy time,
The frail sweet family of flowers,
How tenderly they speak to me:
Sweetheart, my longing is for thee!
Did ever love so burn as ours
’Mid all tempestuous loves of yore?
The light that dances from the sky
Shows for a moment and no more.
Down in this world of mystery,
Sweetheart, my longing is for thee!
Source:
Shaw Neilson , Heart of Spring, The Bookfellow, The Bookfellow, Sydney, 1919, page 49
The Institute of Australian Culture
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