Spectral faces flit to and fro,
Haunting and wistful and sad to-nigh
Springing up with the afterglow,
Stately forms that onward go,
Gliding, mystic, silent, slow.
Fancied voices, breathing song
Singing weird words to a weird refrain
Singing a fiend's impassioned song,
Singing all night, the whole night long,
Singing dead words of a long dead song.
Rippling mirth, so haunting to-day;
Gruel peals of a girlish voice;
Graveyard laughs that are light and gay
Raising the dreams of that golden May,
Fatal old dream that passed away.
First published in The Queenslander, 23 July 1898
Author: John Galliard Barker (1865-1941) was born in Brisbane, Queensland and may have been tutored by J. Brunton Stephens as a child. Little else is known about the author. He was a cousin of Australian novelist Rosa Praed.
Author reference site: Austlit
Haunting and wistful and sad to-nigh
Springing up with the afterglow,
Stately forms that onward go,
Gliding, mystic, silent, slow.
Fancied voices, breathing song
Singing weird words to a weird refrain
Singing a fiend's impassioned song,
Singing all night, the whole night long,
Singing dead words of a long dead song.
Rippling mirth, so haunting to-day;
Gruel peals of a girlish voice;
Graveyard laughs that are light and gay
Raising the dreams of that golden May,
Fatal old dream that passed away.
First published in The Queenslander, 23 July 1898
Author: John Galliard Barker (1865-1941) was born in Brisbane, Queensland and may have been tutored by J. Brunton Stephens as a child. Little else is known about the author. He was a cousin of Australian novelist Rosa Praed.
Author reference site: Austlit
