219
Through the Smoke of Bushfires.
I saw the long grey wreaths of smoke arise
And lie along the margin of the skies,
And float athwart the blue of heaven and fall
Across my vision like a mourner's pall.
And lie along the margin of the skies,
And float athwart the blue of heaven and fall
Across my vision like a mourner's pall.
I saw the seas and lands half hid in haze,
The city steeples and the forest ways,
And the broad bosom of the summer sea
Veiled like an Eastern maid in mystery.
The city steeples and the forest ways,
And the broad bosom of the summer sea
Veiled like an Eastern maid in mystery.
No little glen but had its dim recess
Where shadows lurked in soft impassiveness,
No rocky headland but was pressed and kissed
Into oblivion by the swathing mist.
Where shadows lurked in soft impassiveness,
No rocky headland but was pressed and kissed
Into oblivion by the swathing mist.
Till, all the world was as a dreamland shown,
And then I knew and marked it for my own,
The land my spirit loves, the land of dreams,
For which the heart for ever homesick seems.
And then I knew and marked it for my own,
The land my spirit loves, the land of dreams,
For which the heart for ever homesick seems.
The land with no horizons, where are laid
No ordered sequences of shine and shade,
No stiff processions of inveterate hours
Where dawns merge into days and buds to flowers.
No ordered sequences of shine and shade,
No stiff processions of inveterate hours
Where dawns merge into days and buds to flowers.
