Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems

TTHE DANDENONGS 

Blue hills that tower against the sky!
What dayspring Life to you belongs?
Here where the bush lark weaves its songs,
Among the grass I lie
And dream that youth can never die.

Snug apple-orchards, stripped and bear,
Green forelands filled with feeding sheep,
Tall pines that doze in morning sleep,
And you behind them there
Rising in wonder through the air!

And all is magic clear to-day,
The ringbarked trees are white as bone;
Surely a man could throw a stone
To peaks ten miles away,
Or touch a tree-top bird at play?

Far creeks in threads of silver flow,
A distant roof like crystal gleams,
And up thin tracks the bullock-teams
Like ants on journeys go,
Loaded with logs and crawling slow.

What airy life a bird-note brings!
How lightly moves the buoyant breeze!
It seems as if the shining trees
Might move like wakened things,
And soar away on spreading wings.

Oh hills that hold our marvelling eyes!
Some day your bright ravines they’ll choke
With poisonous fumes and filthy smoke:
But still your peaks will rise
In rapture to the morning skies.

 Vance Palmer