Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems

A MORNING WALK

 

From Frankston into Cranbourne

The road runs all along

Between green-golden stretches,

A lovely way of song,

With thrushes singing loud and gay

And blackbirds clear and strong.

From Frankston into Cranbourne

We went, and cared for none.

The pines along the wayside

Showed yellow shoots, each one;

And the bare old orchard trees were gray

As cobwebs in the sun.

Where the bracken's frosted silver

Rimmed spikes of pearly heath

We saw the cream clematis

Weave lacy wreath on wreath

Above the jade-green fuchsia bells

And greenhoods underneath.

The purple sarsparilla

Spread out a cloak of pride,

And flat-faced little sundews---

Each chalice opened wide---

Were white flotillas floating on

Some tangled, moveless tide.

We knelt beside still waters,

As dark as dark could be,

And plucked the strange swamp-lilies,

Their fretted ivory

Flung up in two black-dusted wings

With fairy symmetry.

We watched the firesmoke rising

Behind its dim blue veil;

The shy young gum-trees dancing

In a vision sweet and frail,

And the far-off hills that lay in dream,

Pale as the dawn is pale.

From Frankston into Cranbourne

The road runs all along

Between green-golden stretches,

The lovely way of song,

With thrushes singing loud and gay

And blackbirds clear and strong.

 

                                                            Myra Morris. 

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