[Editor: This poem (about Daniel Henry Deniehy) by Charles Harpur was published in The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853). The poem is addressed to Daniel Henry Deniehy.]
To My Young Countryman, D. H. D.
Who doubteth when the Morning Star doth light
Its lamp of beauty, that the day is coming?
Or where prime odours track the breeze’s flight
That in the vicinage rare flowers are blooming,
Or where the wild bees round about are humming
That there is honey in some cedar’s height,
Or that the Sea is heaving into sight
When from afar a surgy sound comes booming?
And surely, as the observer understands
What these pre-signify, as yet behind,
Thy Intellectual Amplitude expands
Before me in the Future when I find
Some early blossom breathing of thy mind —
Some thing of promise fashion’d by thy hands!
Source:
Charles Harpur, The Bushrangers; A Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems, Sydney: W. R. Piddington, 1853, page 123
Editor’s notes:
D. H. D. = Daniel Henry Deniehy (1828-1865), an Australian writer and politician
vicinage = vicinity
Old spelling in the original text:
doth (does)
doubteth (doubts)
thy (your)
Leave a Reply