[Editor: A poem by Marie E.J. Pitt.]
Waratah
Waratah, once you were fire o’ the flame,
When I plucked you high on the windy hill;
O the sense of that morning is with me still —
And Arthur sang on his way to the sea.
Summer a-dapple with dancing light,
A-lilt with the magic of song gone mad,
Summer in raiment of rapture clad —
And Arthur sang on his way to the sea.
Dust to dust from my listless hand
You fall to rest in an alien earth,
Far from the windy hill of your birth,
Where Arthur sang on his way to the sea.
Winter is out on the windy hill
Where your bonfires leaped in the years ago,
Blandfordia pales to the drifting snow
Where Arthur sang on his way to the sea.
From the dark we came, to the dark we go,
Life is a breath and love is a name,
But Waratah blossom is fire o’ the flame
While Arthur sings on his way to the sea.
Published in:
Marie E. J. Pitt. Selected Poems, Lothian, Melbourne, 1944
Marie E. J. Pitt. The Poems of Marie E.J. Pitt, Edward A. Vidler, Melbourne, 1925 [republished], page 117
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