[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901.]
The Opening of the Bud
Her dreams were like the sunset’s fleecy cloud,
Changing from gold to purple tints, then grey ;
A splendour in the western sky, and proud
Of the past beauty of another day.
A pearl slept near her bosom : one could trace
Just in the little darling resting there
Familiar outlines of her mother’s face,
The budding of the bough unmarked by care.
The tiny child that opened her blue eyes
Lit up the dreamland of her mother’s sleep,
Softening the lustre of the midnight skies
Upon the billows of life’s ocean deep.
Thought flashed upon the newborn mind apace ;
She left a kiss upon her mother’s brow ;
A deep glow dawned upon that infant face,
And thus the rosebud opened on its bough !
Rochester, Victoria, November 30, 1888.
Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, page 115
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