[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]
The Magpie in the Moonlight
Gold he has poured out and silver on this tent of mine:
He leaves in the last of the moonlight his song without wine.
Sable and snow-white the bird is, and he would define
Love in the leaves to the moon in his song without wine.
Old is the love in his music, and cool to the ear:
His joy is the width of a sorrow, the weight of a tear.
He fails not: the many loud singers he will outshine:
Death he will take into Love in his song without wine.
Source:
John Shaw Neilson (editor: R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934 [May 1949 reprint], page 110
Leave a Reply