Oh! Wattle Wind, Oh! Wattle Wind, I wonder what you're bringing?
That all my heart comes to my lips in low and tender singing;
A something far removed from tears, and alien quite to pain,
Till I -- who was so grave and sad -- become a child again!
Oh! Wattle Wind, Oh! Wattle Wind, beside the George-street gates
A little figure that I knew half shyly for me waits;
Someone I lost -- so long ago I cannot count the years --
For some were swift with pleasant toil, but more were slow with tears.
Oh! Wattle Wind, Oh! Wattle Wind, she who in sun sine lingers
Comes gliding up the asphalt path and links with mine her fingers,
And back we go by creek and ridge and winter-wattled leas
To Marnhull and Jimbour scrub, among the bottle-trees!
Here on the plain a kangaroo through long, dry grass looks up,
And Cobra Waterhole, seen thus, is like a wine-filled cup,
For we float with the wind and cloud where youth's glad compass steers,
Myself -- and that small girl I was -- in unremembered years!
Oh! Wattle Wind, Oh! Wattle Wind, o'er Brisbane's gardens blowing;
A magic freighted thing you are, and wizardry are sowing.
Oh! Blow within the city streets wherever Sorrow smarts;
Bring back, with healing in your touch, the Youth to burdened hearts!
First published in The Sydney Mail, 1 August 1917
