A steep red road in a tropic town,
Shut, end and end, by the timbered range;
A peep of palms with their orchid crown;
And the perfume of scrub plants, rich and strange.
No gleam of ocean; no glimpse of plain;
No far horizon of lessening blue;
Nor breeze from the downs; nor breath from the main;
Nor the first star's place when the moon is new.
Small garden spaces, all square and square,
By the gravelly footpath's scanty room;
And the roar of the quartz-mill everywhere;
And here--the Highland gorse in bloom!
The faint far odour, that came of old
With the scent of heather and fir and the sea!
The green dark spines and the blooms of gold!
How sweet, how fair is it all to me!
In the North 'tis fragrant when flowers are dead;
In the North 'tis faithful when swallows go;
On the Arctic blast its gold is shed --
The last-left blossoms that brave the snow.
One spray for my own ere I pass again,
Whither dreams I dreamed have no place nor room--
The dreams that a moment came back amain
At the sudden sight of the gorse in bloom.
First published in The Queenslander, 19 December 1891;
and later in
The Bookfellow, 29 April 1899.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Old Qld Poetry
See also.
and later in
The Bookfellow, 29 April 1899.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Old Qld Poetry
See also.
