Dorothea Mackellar

“ Into the soft mist the fishing-boats go,
As silent as moonlight, as silent as snow;
Just where the pale sea melts into the sky,
Silver-grey birds of the autumn, they fly
Slowly and smoothly and statelily past
Till their wide pinions are hidden at last.
From the high rock whence I watch on the hill
Down to the sea, all is muffled and still.
Never a leaflet stirs soft overhead,
Everything living is frozen or fled,
Fled through the mist to more wonderful things....
Am I the only soul left without wings? ”

“ What tells the swallows that a house is in the making,
Far away from any town, among the whispering leaves?
Saying, “Good news, a home! Fly there when spring is waking,
There’ll be room for many nests beneath those shady eaves.”
With the first springtime come the swallows without number,
Chattering in the greying dawn, and like a flying cloud
Sweeping round the roof at dusk before they sink to slumber—
How did they scent the new-built home from out the city’s crowd?{33}
Was it a wild bush-bird that brought the message townwards? ”

“ Your feet will bleed and your heart may break{87}
Long ere that stony height you gain—
Better the safe and pleasant plain!
For, reach the summit, nothing’s there
Save mocking sun and empty air
Or a tall cloud-tower in the heaven’s span—
Small comfort that to an earthly man!
Castle-of-Spain is builded high
Up above us, beyond the sky....
Easy we build you, hardly we gain,
Castle-of-Spain, Castle-of-Spain! ”

“ Steep-sloping to the sky,
I want to reach the summit
And watch the clouds race by;{36}—
The clouds that go so quickly
The whole hill seems to lean;—
I want to breathe in deeply
The cool air, thin and keen.
My heart turns to high places
All men have long adored—
The proud and lonely mountains,
The Altars of the Lord. ”

“ To walk the Ronda road in spring.
There grows a gallant army
Of blossoms great and small
Along the road to Ronda—
The broom is lord of all.
O fair and fair and wonder-fair,
Spilt like the sunshine everywhere!
Ronda, Spain.
{54} THE MOON AND THE MORNING
The moon is riding high, the stars are shining
But very palely, through the clear blue light;
The plain is empty, and the circling mountains
Rise cold and far through swathes of mist to-night.
There is no wind astir, the serried rushes
Stand straight as lances round the glassed lagoon ”

“ Marble-smooth and marble-pale the blue gums guard the clearing
Where the winter fern is gold among the silver grass,
And the shy bush creatures watching bright-eyed and unfearing
See the slender Oreads while we unheeding pass.{28}
Wreathed with starry clematis these tread the grassy spaces
When the moon sails up beyond the highest screening tree,
All the forest dances, and the furthest hidden places
Are astir with beauty—but we may not often see. ”

“ Mother Mary in the sky, grant me my desire!
Summer’s yellow on the land, throbbing warm and live,
Hear her million voices hum like a lucky hive;{57}
Blossom of the brier, blossom of the brier,
Mary in the summertime, give me my desire!
All the talking winds are stilled in the autumn pause,
Redder far than blood or fire blaze the hips and haws ”

“ You may see the gleaming of a Naiad’s slippery shoulders,
And the water sliding cool and quiet over all.
Through the narrow gorges where the flying-foxes muster,
Hanging from the kurrajongs like monstrous magic grapes,
Something spreads a sudden fear that breaks each heavy cluster—
See the furry prick-eared faun that chuckles and escapes! ”

“ And the purring and murmurous choir
Of the wire{18}
That leads the chained lightning a slave through the street,
In the night-stillness comes like the throbbing of drums,
Like the distant, dread sound of innumerable feet. ”

“ As is the year in spring!
Australia.
{24} NIGHT ON THE PLAINS
Out on the plain-land at night
There is no sound, not a sigh,
And nothing is moving now
But scornful stars in the sky:
The night is too great for my heart,
It flutters and halts and trips;
The terrible mirth of the stars
Has slain my song on my lips.
Australia.
{25} SETTLERS
If the gods of Hellas do not tread our shaggy mountains,
Stately, white-and-golden, with unfathomable eyes,
Yet the lesser spirits haunt our forests and our fountains,
Seas and green-brown river-pools no thirsty summer dries. ”

“ The spring-wind caught my flowering dreams, they lightly blew away.
I never had but one true love, and he died yesterday.
{64} BAZAR
Dive in from the sunlight smiting like a falchion
Underneath the awnings to the sudden shade,
Saunter through the packed lane
Many-voiced, colourful,
Rippling with the currents of the south and eastern trade.
Here are Persian carpets, ivory, and peachbloom,
Tints to fill the heart of any child of man ”

“ Her soft smooth lips.
So the isles are sacred
From alien tread,
Since the slime can swallow
And keep her dead.
Who can know her secrets?
The blue sky might—
(Cloudless-hot in daytime,
Star-gemmed at night) .
To and fro for ever
The water swings,
And the gulls fly over,
For they have wings.
{61} BURNING OFF
They’re burning off at the Rampadells,
The tawny flames uprise
With greedy licking around the trees:
The hot breath sears our eyes
From cores already grown furnace-hot ”

“ That shall stand while stands the roof and while the walls endure.
Australia.
{34} FIRE
This life that we call our own
Is neither strong nor free:
A flame in the wind of death
It trembles ceaselessly.
And this is all we can do—
To use our little light
Before, in the piercing wind,
It flickers into night.
To yield the heat of the flame,
To grudge not, but to give
Whatever we have of strength
That one more flame may live.
{35} HIGH PLACES
My heart turns to the mountains
That I so long have missed,
The blue hills on the sky-line,
Bird-haunted, sunshine-kissed ”