The pangs that guard the gates of joy
the naked sword that will be kist,
how distant seem'd they to the boy,
white flashes in the rosy mist!
Ah, not where tender play was screen'd
in the light heart of leafy mirth
of that obdurate might we ween'd
that shakes the sure repose of earth.
And sudden, 'twixt a sun and sun,
the veil of dreaming is withdrawn:
lo, our disrupt dominion
and mountains solemn in the dawn;
hard paths that chase the dayspring's white,
and glooms that hold the nether heat:
oh, strange the world upheaved from night,
oh, dread the life before our feet!
First published in The Bulletin, 17 September 1898;
and later in
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1918;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
The Verse of Christopher Brennan edited by A.R. Chilsholm and John Quinn, 1960;
Poems [1913] by Christopher Brennan, 1972;
Selected Poems by Christopher Brennan, 1973; and
Christopher Brennan edited by Terry Strum, 1984.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
the naked sword that will be kist,
how distant seem'd they to the boy,
white flashes in the rosy mist!
Ah, not where tender play was screen'd
in the light heart of leafy mirth
of that obdurate might we ween'd
that shakes the sure repose of earth.
And sudden, 'twixt a sun and sun,
the veil of dreaming is withdrawn:
lo, our disrupt dominion
and mountains solemn in the dawn;
hard paths that chase the dayspring's white,
and glooms that hold the nether heat:
oh, strange the world upheaved from night,
oh, dread the life before our feet!
First published in The Bulletin, 17 September 1898;
and later in
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1918;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
The Verse of Christopher Brennan edited by A.R. Chilsholm and John Quinn, 1960;
Poems [1913] by Christopher Brennan, 1972;
Selected Poems by Christopher Brennan, 1973; and
Christopher Brennan edited by Terry Strum, 1984.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
