To Charles Harpur [poem by Henry Kendall]

[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Poems and Songs (1862).]

To Charles Harpur.

I would sit at your feet for long days,
To hear the sweet Muse of the Wild
Speak out through the sad and the passionate lays
Of her first and her favourite Child.

I would sit at your feet, for my soul
Delights in the solitudes free ;
And I stand where the creeks and the cataracts roll
Whensoever I listen to thee !

I would sit at your feet, for I love
By the gulches and torrents to roam ;
And I long in this city for woodland and grove,
And the peace of a wild forest home.

I would sit at your feet, and we’d dwell
On the scenes of a long-vanished time,
While your thoughts into music would surge and would swell
Like a breeze of our beautiful clime.

I would sit at your feet, for I know,
Though the World in the Present be blind,
That the amaranth blossoms of Promise will blow
When the Ages have left you behind.

I would sit at your feet, for I feel
I am one of a glorious band
That ever will own you and hold you their Chief,
And a Monarch of Song in the land !

Source:
Henry Kendall, Poems and Songs, J. R. Clarke, Sydney, 1862, pages 103-104

Editor’s notes:
amaranth = the amaranth plant (a herb); a deep purplish red color; a never-fading flower; eternally beautiful, everlasting, undying or unfading

cataract = waterfall; steep rapids in a river; deluge, downpour (as distinct from the medical condition in which the eyes become clouded)