The Break Of Day

THE STARS are pale.
Old is the Night, his case is grievous,
His strength doth fail.

Through stilly hours
The dews have draped with love’s old lavishness
The drowsy flowers.

And Night shall die.
Already, lo! the Morn’s first ecstasies
Across the sky.

An evil time is done.
Again, as some one lost in a quaint parable,
Comes up the Sun.


You And Yellow Air

YOU, AND YELLOW AIR by John Shaw Neilson
I dream of an old kissing-time
And the flowered follies there;
In the dim place of cherry-trees,
Of you, and yellow air.

It was an age of babbling,
When the players would play
Mad with the wine and miracles
Of a charmed holiday.

Bewildered was the warm earth
With whistling and sighs,
And a young foal spoke all his heart
With diamonds for eyes.

You were of Love's own colour
In eyes and heart and hair;
In the dim place of cherry-trees
Ridden by yellow air.

It was the time when red lovers
With the red fevers burn;
A time of bells and silver seeds
And cherries on the turn.

Children looked into tall trees
And old eyes looked behind;
God in His glad October
No sullen man could find.

Out of your eyes a magic
Fell lazily as dew,
And every lad with lad's eyes
Made summer love to you.

It was a reign of roses,
Of blue flowers for the eye,
And the rustling of green girls
Under a white sky.

I dream of an old kissing-time
And the flowered follies there,
In the dim place of cherry-trees,
Of you, and yellow air.


The Orange Tree

The young girl stood beside me.
I Saw not what her young eyes could see:
- A light, she said, not of the sky
Lives somewhere in the Orange Tree.

- Is it, I said, of east or west?
The heartbeat of a luminous boy
Who with his faltering flute confessed
Only the edges of his joy?

Was he, I said, borne to the blue
In a mad escapade of Spring
Ere he could make a fond adieu
To his love in the blossoming?

- Listen! the young girl said. There calls
No voice, no music beats on me;
But it is almost sound: it falls
This evening on the Orange Tree.

- Does he, I said, so fear the Spring
Ere the white sap too far can climb?
See in the full gold evening
All happenings of the olden time?

Is he so goaded by the green?
Does the compulsion of the dew
Make him unknowable but keen
Asking with beauty of the blue?

- Listen! the young girl said. For all
Your hapless talk you fail to see
There is a light, a step, a call
This evening on the Orange Tree.

- Is it, 1 said, a waste of love
Imperishably old in pain,
Moving as an affrighted dove
Under the sunlight or the rain?

Is it a fluttering heart that gave
Too willingly and was reviled?
Is it the stammering at a grave,
The last word of a little child?

- Silence! the young girl said. Oh, why,
Why will you talk to weary me?
Plague me no longer now, for I
Am listening like the Orange Tree.

The Land Where I Was Born

HAVE you ever been down to my countree
Where the trees are green and tall?
The days are long and the heavens are high,
But the people there are small.
There is no work there; it is always play;
The sun is sweet in the morn;
But a thousand dark things walk at night
In the land where I was born.

Have you ever been down to my countree
Where the birds made happy Spring?
The parrots screamed from the honey-trees,
And the jays hopped chattering.
Strange were the ways of the water-birds
In the brown swamps, night and morn;
I knew the roads they had in the reeds
In the land where I was born.

Have you ever been down to my countree?
Have you ridden the horses there?
They had silver manes, and we made them prance
And plunge and gallop and rear.
We were knights of the olden time,
When the old chain-mail was worn:
The swords would flash and the helmets crash
In the land where I was born.

Have you ever been down to my countree?
It was full of smiling queens:
They had flaxen hair, they were white and fair,
But they never reached their teens.
Their shoes were small and their dreams were tall:
Wonderful frocks were worn;
But the queens all strayed from the place we played,
In the land where I was born.

I know you have been to my countree
Though I never saw you there;
I know you have loved all things I have loved,
Flowery, sweet, and fair.
The days were long,—it was always play;
But we,—we were tired and worn;
They could not welcome us back again
To the land where I was born.

Old Granny Sullivan

A pleasant shady place it is, a pleasant place and cool -
The township folk go up and down, the children pass to school.
Along the river lies my world, a dear sweet world to me:
I sit and learn - I cannot go; there is so much to see.

But Granny she has seen the world, and often by her side
I sit and listen while she speaks of youthful days of pride;
Old Granny's hands are clasped; she wears her favourite faded shawl -
I ask her this, I ask her that: she says, 'I mind it all.'

The boys and girls that Granny knew, far o'er the seas are they,
But there's no love like the old love, and the old world far away;
Her talk is all of wakes and fairs - or how, when night would fall,
''Twas many a quare thing crept and came,' and Granny 'minds them all.'

The day she first met Sullivan - she tells it all to me -
How she was hardly twenty-one and he was twenty-three.
The courting days! the kissing days! - but bitter things befall
The bravest hearts that plan and dream. Old Granny 'minds it all.'

Her wedding-dress I know by heart; yes! every flounce and frill;
And the little home they lived in first, with the garden on the hill.
'Twas there her baby boy was born; and neighbours came to call,
But none had seen a boy like Jim - and Granny 'minds it all.'

They had their fights in those old days; but Sullivan was strong,
A smart quick man at anything; 'twas hard to put him wrong…
One day they brought him from the mine… (The big salt tears will fall)…
''Twas long ago, God rest his soul!' Poor Granny 'minds it all.'

The first dark days of widowhood, the weary days and slow,
The grim, disheartening, uphill fight, then Granny lived to know.
'The childer,' ah! they grew and grew - sound, rosy-cheeked and tall:
'The childer' still they are to her. Old Granny 'minds them all.'

How well she loved her little brood! Oh, Granny's heart was brave!
She gave to them her love and faith - all that the good God have.
They change not with the changing years; as babies just the same
She feels for them, though some, alas! have brought her grief and shame:

The big world called them here and there, and many a mile away:
They cannot come - she cannot go - the darkness haunts the day;
And I, no flesh and blood of hers, sit here while shadows fall -
I sit and listen - Granny talks; for Granny 'minds them all.'

Just fancy Granny Sullivan at seventeen or so,
In all the floating fin