I sing my love for your city, for she has a voice remembered,
A kiss that leaves us a longing for the taste of her lips again,
And the flame of her sunset's fires by the black or the night is embered,
When the Star Troops ride through the heavens and tighten a silver rein.
I sing my love of your city, the disks of her tall clock towers,
The suck of her stealthy wavelets down under the jutting plank,
The long grey ships in the harbor, the wind and the waft of flowers,
The fleck of white on the water, the flash of red on the bank.
I loved, but I had to leave her, for the days of our bond wore over,
And the blue of her blue eye follows, a memory that stings to pain.
Are you gathering fresh hearts to you, O Sydney, my four weeks' lover?
What matter, so comes the season when your smiles are for me again!
First published in The Sunday Times, 4 June 1911
