At Dawn
THE night-long clamour of winds grew still;
The forest rested, its foes withdrawn;
On sounding ocean and silent hill
There crept a sense of the coming dawn.
A bird awoke on a leaning limb
And fluttered its plumes a moment's space;
Dark purple lay on the sea's far rim:
The sky grew pale as a dying face.
Then all the trees and the rocks and heights
With wondering faces watched the East:
It seemed an altar hung with lights
And waiting for a vestured priest.
And in that intimate first hour
When land and sea rejoiced as one,
And Nature, like an opening flower,
Gave incense, came the burning sun.
Yet, while the hour of gold went by,
I saw through all its pageantry
The vast indifference of the sky,
The heartless beauty of the sea.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Gardener
WITHIN this garden space are set
Sweet mignonette and violet,
Sunk in rich mould; at dawn and night
Their leaves dew-wet.
Who set them in the kindly loam
Lies buried 'neath the clover-foam
Of alien meadows, far away
From his loved home.
If it be glory thus to pass
For Honour's sake, and 'neath the grass
Red-wounded lie, then he, in truth,
Great glory has.
Yet, blossoms that he loved and set! —
Sweet mignonette, sweet violet —
Not Honour's self, nor Glory's crown,
Can stay regret.
'Twixt bud of leaf and fall of leaf,
Why should Fate in an hour so brief
Wreck flower and flower, and nurse alone
The cypress — Grief?
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Voyagers
HOW was it with the Genoese,
What feeling filled his heaving breast,
When far across the morning seas
He saw the island of his quest?
Perchance beyond the forest crown
And shining sands of that new clime
He saw a light of long renown
That blazed across the Seas of Time.
Or maybe, in that hour grown wise,
He would have bartered there and then
His life for some sweet life that lies
In utter peace unnamed of men.
For what is Fame, however brave,
Beside the charms of endless peace —
The cool, sweet quiet of the grave,
To be, and having been, to cease?
We quest not like the Genoese;
But, after sailing under skies
That bend and brood o'er lonely seas,
We light at last on some surprise.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Hidden Heart
AS I rode out of Lochinvar
About me all the scene was fair;
The skies, with not a cloud to mar,
Were filled with fresh and dewy air,
While making song, a merry throng,
The thrushes warbled everywhere.
As I rode out of Lochinvar
Through Fairydom I seemed to go,
For round about, and near and far,
Enchanted lights began to glow;
And where I went, on what intent,
And who I was I did not know!
For lo, I met a troubadour
As I rode out of Lochinvar;
His like on earth is seen no more,
With feathered hat and gay guitar;
And loud and clear, and sweet to hear,
He sang a song of love and war.
As I rode out of Lochinvar
He sang a song I somehow knew,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Song of the Cicadas
Yesterday there came to me
from a green and graceful tree
as I loitered listlessly
nothing doing, nothing caring,
light and warmth and fragrance sharing
with the butterfly and the bee,
while the sapling-tops a-glisten
danced and trembled, wild and willing
such a sudden sylvan shrilling
that I could not choose but listen
Green Cicadas, Black Cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather,
Floury-baker, Double-Drummer,
all as one and all together,
how they voiced the golden summer.
Stealing back there came to me
as I loitered listlessly
'neath the green and graceful tree,
nothing doing, nothing caring,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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Stars in the Sea
I took a boat on a starry night
and went for a row on the water,
and she danced like a child on a wake of light
and bowed where the ripples caught her.
I vowed, as I rowed on the velvet blue
through the night and the starry spendour
to woo and sue a maiden I know
till she bent to my pleading tender.
My painted boat she was light and glad
and gladder my heart was wishing,
and I came in time to a little lad
who stood on the rocks a-fishing.
I said "Ahoy!" and he said "Ahoy"!
and I asked how the fish were biting;
And what are you trying to catch my boy,
Bream, silver and red - or Whiting?"
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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Australia's Vision
ALL still! and, high above, the sun
In cloudless, golden reign —
A mirage in the quivering west —
A horseman on the plain!
Silent, with hand above his eyes,
With thoughts undreamed, unguessed,
Like some bronze shape immovable,
He gazes down the west.
High overhead an eagle soars
On proud, wide-spreading wings;
Crouching, they watch with stricken eyes —
The furred and feathered things.
No song, no sound! but arching skies
With not a cloud to mar;
O horseman, gazing down the west,
What seest thou afar?
Is you a mirage dream, indeed,
Heat-born, shape-thronged, sublime?
Or but a mirror of the things
That thou shalt know in time?
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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Romance In The Market Place
YOU stood beside the flowers,
Yourself a flower;
And on your face
The twilight stayed another hour,
It shone so pale;
And all around men talked as in a market-place.
I heard them talk, and felt
No interest stir
In what they said.
Lilies were nigh you, and around you were
The lights of love,
And all about the world moved on with nervous tread.
I heard it not; for down
And round about
My soul you drew
The veils that shut the loud earth out,
And I and you
Were there alone — no one beside but I and you!
What words were those we said?
Old ones, perchance,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Three Knocks
WHEN the owl that scared the mouse
Fluffed his feathers and sat still,
And the night around was chill,
On the door of yonder house
Someone knocked,
And a hand the door unlocked.
While the owl, aloof and drear
Yellow-eyed his vigil kept,
Down the breeze a crying crept,
And it seemed to tell of fear —
Fear and care —
It was Life that entered there!
When the owl had greyer grown
By a score of years and more,
On the selfsame cedar door
Of yon house that stands alone,
Someone knocked,
And a hand the door unlocked.
Yet, though many gracious flowers
Wreathed the house from floor to roof,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Fisher
ALL night a noise of leaping fish
Went round the bay,
And up and down the shallow sands
Sang waters at their play.
The mangroves drooped on salty creeks,
And through the dark,
Making a pale patch in the deep,
Gleamed, as it swam, a shark.
In streaks and twists of sudden fire
Among the reeds
The bream went by, and where they passed
The bubbles shone like beads.
All night the full deep drinking-song
Of Nature stirred,
And nought beside, save leaping fish
And some forlorn night-bird.
No lost wind wandered down the hills
To tell of wide
Wild waterways; on velvet moved
The silky, sucking tide.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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