Green grows my grave in the grass,
Somewhere....? Oh, let it be
Here in the land that I love,
My heart's own Italy.
The bee will hum to the bud,
And the bud will whisper to me
Of the dawn and the dew and the flood
And the season's mystery.
The song of the brook through the stones,
The song of the thrush through the tree,
Will mingle and marry and hush
With the music of moonlight and sea.
And mad with their musical chant
I know that my heaven will be
To go through the wild olden wood
Of earth-sweet memory.
First published in The Bulletin, 26 December 1912;
and later in
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985.
