[Editor: This poem by Rex Ingamells was published in Gumtops (1935).]
The Land of the Crow
Each dawn the sun with silver sheens
The black crow’s wing,
In far-off desert places, but
No sweet notes ring.
At eve the sun on sallow hills
Flings flames of rose,
And stony plains blaze orchids, yet
No green grass blows.
Oh, I have dreamt despairing things
By white men’s graves,
Where silences surge round, with their
Eternal waves.
Each cairn betokens human love
And suffering,
Yet neither grass is waving green
Nor sweet birds sing.
Source:
Rex Ingamells. Gumtops, F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide, 1935, page 11
Editor’s notes:
sallow = having a sickly or yellowish color or hue; for people, it is especially used to describe a sallow complexion
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