[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Poems and Songs (1862).]
The Muse of Australia.
Where the pines with the eagles are nestled in rifts,
And the torrent leaps down to the surges,
I have followed her, clambering over the clifts,
By the chasms and moon-haunted verges.
I know she is fair as the angels are fair,
For have I not caught a faint glimpse of her there ;
A glimpse of her face and her glittering hair,
And a hand with the Harp of Australia ?
I never can reach you, to hear the sweet voice
So full with the music of fountains !
Oh ! when will you meet with that soul of your choice,
Who will lead you down here from the mountains ? —
A lyre-bird lit on a shimmering space ;
It dazzled mine eyes and I turned from the place,
And wept in the dark for a glorious face,
And a hand with the Harp of Australia !
Source:
Henry Kendall, Poems and Songs, J. R. Clarke, Sydney, 1862, page 1
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