As I look down the valley, these sleepy summer days,
Its bowl is overbrimming with a fine blue haze,
And through the sunshot dimness the parrots dart and twist,
As painted fishes flick about a pool of amethyst.
The river, running summer-low among the summer reeds,
Lies along the valley like a glimmering string of beads;
Soft-foot and slowly, she runs, her green pools glassing
The feathery ranks that scarcely stir to motion at her passing.
Here, where the shining leaves reflect a thousand suns,
All day long the bell birds toll their sylvan carillons;
Airy chime and change again, silver clear and strange,
Fairy anvils ringing in the fastness of the range.
Fairy anvils faltering and dying out away,
Where sunset is a glory round the rosy death of day;
And all along the valley evening gathers up
All the early darkness in her cool dim cup . . .
Time has gleaned so many joys and dried so many tears,
And I only see the valley now across the mist of years.
Twenty years from Melbourne Town, and close to Avalon,
In the glory of the valley in a summer that is gone!
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 1931
