The hills beyond Corangamite
Are very blue to-day;
The heat haze shimmers out of sight
Across them, and away.
Down misty miles the paddocks lie
In afternoon's long light,
Naught else, save sun and larkspur sky
And Lake Corangamite.
Yes, 'tis a vale of Avalon
Where great cloud-shadows pass
Each slowly sailing, on and on,
Across the flowing grass.
Where once the ocean, green and white,
Trampled the drown-ed vale,
Now only Lake Corangamite
Remains to tell the tale.
Remains to watch the centuries' close
Through wind and sun and rain,
Lest some tremendous day, who knows,
Ocean comes home again.
And flows the wave where swayed the grain,
The weed where waved the tree;
And earth, o'er weary, finds again
The arms of mother sea.
Let pass the fancy. Each by each
See the cloud galleons swim
To where the league-long paddocks reach
The far horizon's rim.
Among the blossom there remain
Spring's loiterers left awhile.
And seed that sighs for autumn rain
Down many a summer mile.
The hills beyond Corangamite
Have drawn their dark hoods on,
Dreamland has drifted out of sight
And lost is Avalon,
The golden day has run like sand
Into the pit of night;
So darkness hides the lonely land
And Lake Corangamite.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1933
