Oh! uneventful days, about me flowing
So fast, your even current carries me
Onward, through changing vale and vista going,
Till lost, far out at sea.
The landscape alters, far hills drawing nigher,
Though lesser they become, in very truth
The further that you bear me from the higher
Blue mountains of my youth
So quietly, I scarcely heed the motion,
So like to like the days, set end to end.
Yet who knows? One may suddenly see the ocean
Loom round the nearest bend
Loom round the nearest bend, and the white breakers
And that uncharted gulf that waits all men.
Oh! what, beyond these peaceful autumn acres,
Beyond the bar-what then?
Oh, River of Time, seeking Eternity,
That end accomplished, shall the end be less
Than that of some lost atom in a sea
Of utter nothingness?
Or shall some rich sea change suffice? Our wills
Part of some mighty cycle to become;
As the sun draws the rains back to the hills,
And as the streams run home.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 August 1931
