[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Heart of Spring (1919), Ballad and Lyrical Poems (1923), and Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]
The Scent o’ the Lover
I saw the mushrooms hoping
In the cool June:
It is the scent o’ the lover
Sweetens the tune.
May the good men mock me
That I dare to say
I have seen buds at kissing
On a holy day!
’Tis no unsalted music
The moons bestow,
’Tis the untaught eternal
So long, so low.
Time is the old man crying
Lives on a string,
In the eyes of a child fallen
We fear the Spring.
I am assailed by colours
By night, by day:
In a mad boat they would take me
Red miles away.
Love is the loud season:
Tears fall too soon:
It is the scent o’ the lover
Sweetens the moon.
Source:
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow, 1919, pages 89-90
Also published in:
John Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: The Bookfellow in Australia, 1923, page 85
John Shaw Neilson (edited by R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Book Publishing Company, 1934, page 79
Editor’s notes:
o’ = a vernacular abbreviation of the word “of”
’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”
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