Already her baptismal month is here --
August-heavy with fragrant wattle bloom,
Wooing her softly from the cold green gloom
Of chill July up bracken tracks austere.
Shy as a bush-child over gullies drear,
Timidly now she steps. Earliest bloom
Wakes wondering warm beauty, to relume,
And hesitating heath-bells half in fear
At her light touch set trembling ring again.
Wild violets bud round her bare white feet,
Frail rosy fern fronds redden ... So comes Spring,
Surely I know, for searching not in vain
This morn, I found in a mossy retreat
The first pink orchid palely blossoming.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 1938
