ACKNOWLEDGMENT

About a third of these poems have appeared before in a volume published in Australia; several in The Spectator and The Sydney Bulletin, and a few elsewhere. I have to thank the editors for permission to reprint.

CONTENTS

PAGE
[The Witch-Maid][9]
[The Colours of Light][14]
[From a Town Window][17]
[The Santa Maria][19]
[“Sumer is icumen in”][21]
[Night on the Plains][24]
[Settlers][25]
[My Country][29]
[Swallows][32]
[Fire][34]
[High Places][35]
[The Closed Door][37]
[Reminder][40]
[Culgai Paddock][41]
[Canticle][43]
[March Winds][46]
[Colour][47]
[Non Penso a Lei][50]
[The Road to Ronda][52]
[The Moon and the Morning][54]
[Flower and Thorn][56]
[The Grey Lake][58]
[Burning Off][61]
[An Old Song][63]
[Bazar][64]
[Spring on the Plains][66]
[Pilgrim Song][68]
[The Coorong Sandhills][69]
[ I. The Heart of a Bird][71]
[ II. A Smoke Song][72]
[An Afterglow on the Nile][73]
[The Explorer][75]
[September][77]
[Riding Rhyme][80]
[Four Translations from the German][82]
[Château d’Espagne][86]
[Bathing Rhyme][88]
[Montoro’s Song][93]
[Sea-Fog][95]
[Sorrow][96]
[Seagull][97]

THE WITCH-MAID
AND OTHER VERSES

THE WITCH-MAID

I wandered in the woodland a morning in the spring,
I found a glade I had not known, and saw an evil thing.

I heard a wood-dove calling, as one that loves and grieves,
The sun was shining silver on the small bright leaves,
O it was very beautiful, the glade that I had found!
I peeped between the slender stems, and there upon the ground
A man was lying dead, and from the spear-wound in his side
The sluggish blood had ceased to flow, and yet had hardly dried.

O the shining of the leaves,
The morning of the year!
O how could any die to-day, with life so young and dear?