The Secret Key and Other Verses/On the Plains

by George Essex Evans

ON THE PLAINS

Half-lost in film of faintest lawn,
 A single star in armour white
Upon the dreamy heights of dawn
 Guards the dim frontier of the night,
    Till plumed ray
    And golden spray
Have washed its trembling light away.

The sun has peeped above the blue;
 His level lances as they pass
Have shot the dew-drops thro' and thro',
 And dashed with rubies all the grass,
    And silver sound
    Of horse-bells round
Floats softly o'er the jewelled ground.

The sunbeam and the wanton wind,
 Among the feathery tufts at play,
Sing to the Earth : "The night is blind,
 But we will kiss your tears away."
    With broad'ning glow
    And rippling flow
Adown the laughing leagues they go.

The vagrant lark on wayward wings
 Is fluttering low, is floating high;
No Northern trill of rapture rings
 Thro' the vast temple of the sky;
    But not in vain
    Thy Southern strain,
Thou brown-winged angel of the plain!

Here, where the days are dull and gray,
 And youth has stilled his joyous song,
In fancy yet I love to stray
 By creek, and plain, and billabong,
    To the curlew's call
    And the noiseless fall
Of the unshod hoof 'neath the gum-trees tall.

I hear once more the plover's "peet;"
 The gray hawk wheels in dizzy height,
And swift beneath my horse's feet
 The brown quail rises in his fright,
    And the galahs fly
    With pink breasts high,
A rosy cloud in a cloudless sky.

Afar I mark the emu's run;
 The bustard slow, in motley clad;
And, basking in his bath of sun,
 The brown snake on the cattle-pad,
    And the reddish black
    Of a dingo's back
As he loit'ring slinks on my horse's track.

And now I watch, with slackened rein,
 The scattered cattle, hundreds strong,
As slowly moving home again
 The lazy vanguard feeds along
    To the waters cool
    Of the tree-fringed pool
In the distant creek when the noon is full.

Slip girth and let the old horse graze;
 The noon grows heavy on the air.
Kindle the tiny camp fire's blaze,
 And 'neath the shade, as monarch there,
    Take thou thine ease:;
    For hours like these
A king had bartered satrapies!

Here lie and watch, thro' smoke-wreaths cool,
 By yon sunk log and floating wrack,
The emperor of the silent pool,
 The stately heron, white and black,
    Afar from heat,
    Upon his beat,
Knee-deep in shallowy retreat.

O mellow air! O sunny light!
 O Hope and Youth that pass away!
Inscribe in letters of delight
 Upon each heart one golden day–
    To be there set
    When we forget
There is a joy in living yet!