Page:The Secret Key and Other Verses - Evans.djvu/26

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4
AN AUSTRALIAN SYMPHONY
But undertones, weird, mournful, strong,
Sweep like swift currents thro' the song.
In deepest chords, with passion fraught,
In softest notes of sweetest thought,
   This sadness dwells.

Is this her song, so weirdly strange,
   So mixed with pain,
That whereso'er her poets range
   Is heard the strain?
Broods there no spell upon the air
But desolation and despair?
No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrude
Upon her mountain solitude
   Or sun-kissed plain?

The silence and the sunshine creep
   With soft caress
O'er billowy plain and mountain steep
   And wilderness —
A velvet touch, a subtle breath,
As sweet as love, as calm as death,
On earth, on air, so soft, so fine,
Till all the soul a spell divine
   O'ershadoweth.