Now by drifts of dusty reed. rich with English grasses,
Waving high with feathery seed, summer noontide passes.
Down the far untrodden spaces, steeped in magic strange,
Round the bends of Smoky River
Somewhere in the range.
Smoky River, ever purling through the myrtle glade
With the early mists unfurling flicked with shining jade!
Once my dreams were distant far, but now my fancy turns
Always home to Smoky River
Singing through the ferns.
Where the dappled pool of shade is like a phantom lake's,
And the little "painted ladies" flutter round the brakes,
I can see across the haze of many a yesterday
Butterflies by Smoky River
Golden-winged and gay;
Undergrowth of heath and wattle, haunt of bird and bee;
At the ford the wild hill cattle loiter drowsily
When the evening points long fingers down the valley's fold,
Far away by Smoky River
In the peaks of gold.
There the kestrel hangs on high, brown wings sure and cruel,
There the airy dragon-fly darts, an arrowy jewel,
Home of summer wren and fairy blue-cap in the bends,
Home of curlews keening shrilly
As the evening ends.
Smoky River, in the glory that the sunset wears,
Give me back the unread story of the vanished years,
Wrap the cloak of peace about me, fold me with its wings
Far away by Smoky River
Where the brown flood sings.
First published in The Bulletin, 30 January 1929
