Kenneth, the blue of your bright eyes,
Azure as new-winged butterflies
Or sea-lochs on a summer day,
Tell-ages gone and far away --
Of long ships ploughing furrowed seas
To seek the lonely Hebrides.
Those silk-fringed founts of tears and smiles
Tell stories of the Western Isles,
And tales of friendship or fray
Won by the sons of Norroway;
Tell of our Gaelic chieftains wed
To daughters of bold Somerled;
Aye, and in what Lochaber glen
Bide not the bonnie, blue-eyed men,
Whose foredame's pledge lang syne was ta'en
To tryst the summer-roving Dane?
Your little life, so new begun
Beneath the kind Australian sun,
Where Warning pricks the matin's blue
(Not brighter than the eyes of you!)
Sings through a babe's dear witcheries
Old sagas of the northern seas.
Viking and Gael -- their history lies --
Old wars, old loves -- in those blue eyes.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 1933
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
Azure as new-winged butterflies
Or sea-lochs on a summer day,
Tell-ages gone and far away --
Of long ships ploughing furrowed seas
To seek the lonely Hebrides.
Those silk-fringed founts of tears and smiles
Tell stories of the Western Isles,
And tales of friendship or fray
Won by the sons of Norroway;
Tell of our Gaelic chieftains wed
To daughters of bold Somerled;
Aye, and in what Lochaber glen
Bide not the bonnie, blue-eyed men,
Whose foredame's pledge lang syne was ta'en
To tryst the summer-roving Dane?
Your little life, so new begun
Beneath the kind Australian sun,
Where Warning pricks the matin's blue
(Not brighter than the eyes of you!)
Sings through a babe's dear witcheries
Old sagas of the northern seas.
Viking and Gael -- their history lies --
Old wars, old loves -- in those blue eyes.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 1933
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
