Gone is the red
From all the boxthorn bushes --
Gone are the lacquered globes that Autumn spread --
But fantails, now, and smooth, grey-feathered thrushes
Burden the boughs.
And take the eye instead! ....
Hear how the honeyeaters hush their singing
Under the pale, green leaves --
Hanging head-down, their claws like tendril clinging
To rain-dark stems, their bills
Drawing the sweetness that each mauve-white flower
Deep in its tiny cup distils! ....
Polished each pointing thorn,
Bright-hung with glassy drops that shake like wind-loosed bells,
Seeming to make
The crystal song that falls
From the blue-painted wrens who seek
Shelter within the boxthorn's spiney walls.
Only the plover,
The loud, fierce plover,
Flying aloof,
Seeks for himself no cover
Beneath the green thorn-raftered roof,
But wings across the wide and empty plain,
Screaming an imprecation to the rain!
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 June 1938
