Recently in Landscape Category

So old! So hoar! Who knows how old they are --
These crags of Eld, that front the Evening Star?

From silver mists they rear their heads sublime,
Furrowed by miles and tears of ancient Time.

Yet at their feet in veiling foliage set,
Gay bloom the gorse and faint blue violet.

And as we ride, beyond the ferny screen
The bell-bird's note falls clear our words between.

The river winds with many a sinuous turn,
Of dreams in hollows green with moss and fern.

Our horses' hoof-beats, echoing from the walls,
Discordant break the music of the Falls.

Against the granite background gray and cold
Autumn, the artist, paints the poplar gold.

Ah! azure world God makes so fair to see,
I go. Thy beauty stays, unchanged, with me.

First published in The Queenslander, 8 May 1897

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

A ghostly wind just stirring the pine trees
   Along the sandy crescent where they grow --
A fragile wind -- a sea -- lost, pirate breeze
   That scarcely moves their branches to and fro.

The darkness of black opal on the sand
   Where, late, the gold noose of the Sun-God shone;
No glimmering light by sea, no light by land,
   No beacon ray to pin one's faith upon.

Not one pale star the midnight vigil keeps;
   The starless sea reflects a starless sky;
And a grey breaker, like a grey horse, leaps
   To where by North Steyne cold the grey rocks lie.

Keen sea-salt perfumes through the darkness steal,
   And out at sea strange southern thunders roll --
Manly deserted! In my heart I feel
   The sun-lost weeping of her midnight soul.     

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 1926

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

In the silent land,
Everywhere there is white, white sand,
And a deep and never-ending hush.
Over the grey and the sparse saltbush,
The bones of the fallen mark the track,
And life is one long, long looking back,
In the silent land.

In the silent land,
A lean Death stalks with a beck'ning hand,
The heavy swag to the back is bound,
The sweat falls salt on the thirsty ground,
Under a sun that for aeons has shone,
And the river is always "further on,"
In the silent land.

In the silent land,
Never is flower by wet wind fanned,
No bird calls cheering and musical,
But a wide-winged fear broods over all;
White sand, grey saltbush, and whiter bone--
And when men die it is all alone,
In the silent land.

First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 28 February 1906

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also. 

Here, undiscovered might the dark tower hide,
   Whereof two poets told th' imagined quest;
Frowning, great gable-ended mountains bide,
   Their stony foreheads redd'ning to the west.   
The pastures blanch as at some twilight tale,
   Told by the shivering she-oaks crooning sprite --
And cold as moonlight on a dead man's mail,
   The links of pallid water wait the night.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 1931

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

O Reader was it ever thine to see
   A battle of the storm and hurricane,
   Waged round the peaks of some huge mountain chain,  
The deadly flash of Heaven's artillery,  
The cannon smoke of squall-clouds luridly  
   Hanging about the vantage points -- the rain
   Pausing, like darkness, ere it drops amain     
To still the combat? Such was deigned to me
   On Mount Victoria's majestic pass;
      The thunder volleyed and thick smoke of cloud
   Enveloped York and mounts of lesser mass,
      Save when the murderous flash of lightning ploughed
   A momentary passage, and the hail
   Swept like a bullet shower before the gale.  
      
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 5 January 1884

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

O'er league-long plains, elusive, yet Elysian,
I gaze, enraptured, at the fairy vision;
Down sunlit paths, through shadowy aisles of green,
Enthralled by all the witchery of the scene.
A world enchanted swims up to the drooping sky,
A vast, lone realm, out-stretching to infinity!   
Under clouded arches sapphirine,
While liquid gold with glory floods the Western way,
I linger through this wondrous Western day --
And dream of old-world pomps and long-forgotten times,
Of pageants royal, of flower-strewn paths, and joyous chimes --
And feel the mystery and the magic of the bush,
Of great, still spaces, richly, strangely blest;
Around and o'er me all the glamour of the West.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 January 1932

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

The road that leads to Sydney town --
   A pleasant road, and fragrant, too,
Where lovers wander up and down,
   And tell the old, old tale anew,
While wattle blooms are falling down
Along the road to Sydney town.

The country maid no longer hears
   The bellbird's cry or croon of dove;
For ever whispees in her ears
   The call of beauty and of love;
And seeking out her smartest gown
She takes the road to Sydney town.  

The bush lad dreams of mighty deeds --
   Beneath the shadow of the gum;
He follows where his fancy leads,
   And sees himself in days to come,
A knight all armed and riding down
The magic road to Sydney town.

From bush, from mine, from shearing shed,  
   They tramp along the well-worn track;   
The sun is blazing overhead.
   But what of that? They're coming back.   
And no one dreams of breaking down --   
The road leads home to Sydney town.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1930

Author: Harold Crawford Johnston (1866-1945) was born in Gerringon, New South Wales and died in Brisbane, Queensland.  Beyond this, nothing is known about this author.

Author reference site: Austlit 

All the hills are blue to-day, cool and blue and bracing,
Tonic for your weary heart, balm for all your ills.
We who knew them long ago find our feet retracing
Winding paths of memory, all among the hills.
Where the blackwnods fringe the creek, there our feet are straying;
Where the fragrant sassafras flaunts its tender green,
There the little tumbling streams happy tunes are playing--
How we hear their melodies, o'er the years between!

All the hills are blue to-day, dear and blue and tender;
Help they hold for those who seek strength or sympathy.
Where the mountain breezes stir shaded leaves and slender
Breathe the messages of hope from each murm'ring tree.
Paths that twist and roads that wind yield at every turning
Glimpses of the bushland birds, snatches of their song;
Weary folk, and woe-begone, worn with years of yearning,
All the hills are blue to-day -- won't you come along?

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1928

Author: Christine Bonwick (1893[?]-1984) trained as a nurse at Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1913, and later worked in in various Save the Children's Camps.  Beyond this nothing is known about this author.

Author reference site: Austlit

Fitzgerald's Creek! Is this Australia,
   This ferny dell, close-shaded from the sun,
   And brown rill rippling over mossy stone,
Beguiling the far-wandered Yorkshireman
Into a dream of fairy vales which ran
   To meet the Tees? Yes, you will see anon
   Charred trunks of eucalypti fallen on
Its bed, and supplejacks cyclopean, 
   Binding huge tree to tree with strength of mesh
   No Afric elephant could tear apart,
While up the bank, in their spring glory fresh,
   The blue lobelia with its yellow heart
And waratah with flame-hued, royal crown
Proclaim the scenery Australia's own.

First published in Australian Town and Country Journal, 3 November 1883

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Speak not of Death: it is a merry morn;
A glittering bird has danced into a tree:
From his abundant heart bravely are borne
The loves of leafy choristers to me:
Music is of the sunlight, strong and free ...
The sun is up, and Death is far away:
The first hour is the sweetest of the day.
Blithely a bush boy wanders on a walk --
Shaking with joy, joyous in heart and limb:
For his delight the trees have learned to talk
And all the flowers have little laughs with him
Watching the far sky, wonderful and dim ...
The sun is up, and Death is far away:
The first hour is the sweetest of the day.

First published in The Bookfellow, 15 August 1907;
and later in
Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson by John Shaw Neilson, 1934;
Green Days and Cherries: the early verses of Shaw Neilson edited by Hugh Anderson and Leslie James Blake, 1981;
The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, 1991; and
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

How shall I paint in words thine image fair,
   Set in a background of red-winged light,    
Glinting through portieres of soft foliage there,
   Gold-flecked ere fading into deepening night?
List to the music of cascades which pour    
   Their liquid silver tribute down the steep
To moss-clad boulders, where it bubbles o'er,
   And fronoled ferns in verdurous beauty peep.
Breathless I wait near thy pellucid stream
   To view some woodland nymph with flashing feet
And brow, flower-bound for this alluring dream --  
   A witching Flora in this cool retreat.
Pensive I grow until the bell-bird's note --      
   Organ-like, pealing in its grand solemnity- -  
Brings haunting memories, as the deep tones float,
   Of vanished hours -- lost chords of melody.
Crowned in magnificence is thy majestic head,
   Queenly thy royal robe of purple grace,
With tender nuausem o'er dewy verdure spread,        
   Where the Pacific's jasper waves embrace.    
Whether in winnowed raiment of the crystal dawn,
   Or golden mantle of the sun's rich ore,
Or jewelled scarf star studded round thee worn,
   Thy smiles or tears but charm me more and more.
Farewell, thy statey beauty! Stay -- a thought
   Hath touched the deep recesses of my soul --
Thou standest, thou Colossus, tempest wrought,
   A Beacon on Time's sea to mark a shoal!

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 9 July 1913;
and later in
Stella Australis: Poems and Verses and Prose Fragments by Emily Coungeau, 1914; and
Rustling Leaves: Selected Poems by Emily Coungeau, 1920.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Noon in Sydney! ... Surely your blue has lain
   Like some rare jewel, hidden in the deep,
Dark chests of pirates, 'till, by chance again
   The Sun-God rifled what they could not keep?

Come now ... Remind me of far other things.
   Of lovely shining things all faintly cool.
The light on sapphires and on peacocks' wings,
   Blue Lotus buds reflected on a pool....

Let me remember the Madonna's shawl,
   In folds above her young, mysterious face;
Woven of colour. He first saw it all --
   The Baby Christ -- there in His resting-place....

Bring to me leagues of the Pacific sea,
   The hue of Lane Cove River, deep and cold.
Bring shades of an Egyptian tapestry,
   And blues that ancient Chinese porcelains hold....

Noon in Sydney! ... What lies within your spell?
   Is it your ardour caught from tropic skies,
The blue of ice, of which explorers tell,
   Or just the cornflower laughter of your eyes?

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1926

Author: Lola Gornall (1884-1969) was born, lived and died in Sydney, New South Wales.  Beyond this nothing is known about the author of this poem.

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

With the cut hill rising over,
   And the gully drop below,
Where the surly, burly drover
   Or the trudging swagmen go,
Or the teamster with his load,
      And the bell-birds high are calling,
      And the echoes falling, falling
   Down the winding River Road.

Or perhaps some country maiden,
   In her finery arrayed,
Or the bullocks, heavy-laden,
   Pausing briefly in the shade,
Ere he driver plies the goad,
      And the morning air is bringing
      Tidings of an axe-blade ringing
   Down the dusty River Road.

Here at noon a picnic party
   Spread their hamper on the grass,
With a greeting free and hearty
   For the travellers as they pass,
In the ready country mode;
      And the hills grow blue and hazy,
      And the hot air still and lazy,
   By the rutted River Road.

Then the evening shades caressing,
   Slowly down the hill-side creep,
Breathing sorely as a blessing,
   To the gully dark and deep,
Place of shadowy abode;
      Then the children come, returning.
      From some bush-built shrine of learning,
   Singing down the River Road.

Sinks the sun, red lances falling
   'Twixt the silhouetted trees,
And the plaintive plovers, calling,
   Blend their evening minstrelsies;
Rest, my pilgrims, shed your load,
      What is life beyond a passing?
      A dispensing, an amassing?
   And our path the River Road.

First published in The Sydney Mail, 27 June 1906

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

Come to the Mountains, Blue Mountains, Blue Mountains,
   Come to the Mountains this lovely spring day,
To see crisp runnels and bright little fountains,
   Bubbling and gushing and hurrying away!

Come to the Mountains, to see the spring flowers,
   The wattle, the tea tree, the heath in bloom,
To quaff the fresh breeze that blows through their bowers,
   Refreshing the sense and sowing perfume!

Come to the Mountains, to look on the forest,
   Spread out like a cushion beneath your feet,
To look on the monstrous crags, where thou soarest,
   O Eagle, to render the awe complete!

Come to the Mountains, to gaze down the gorges,
   Huge bays with their sealess expanse tree-lined,
To learn how the waterfall roars and surges,
   And drifts its spray with the will of the wind!

Come to the Mountains, to hunt for a valley,
   Deep down in the breast of a rifted hill,
With a shade of woven tree-tops, and gaily
   Bedizened with ferns round each drip and rill!

Come to the Mountains, to roam on the Mountains,
   The Blue Mountains you see so far away,
If it is but to hear our careless fountains,
   O ye who toil in the city all day.

First published in The Australian Town & Country Journal, 23 June 1883;
and later in
A Century of Australian Song edited by Douglas Sladen, 1888.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

What troubled murmurs meet my anxious ear?
What sounds so awful -- melancholy -- drear?  
Is it the thunder's unexhausted roar,
Dying in echoes on the cavern'd shore?
Is it the voice of Ocean, whispering low
The secrets of his depths -- the tales of woe
Unheard by human ears? The gloomy fate
Of some lorn spirit, sad and desolate,
Whelm'd 'neath the waves? The curse -- the hideous cry --
The phrenzied shriek of gasping agony?

Imagination, with discursive wing,
Paints every scene; and, with impetuous spring,
Bursts through the clouds, mysterioutsly spread,
In silent gloom, above the shipwreck'd dead:--
She shews the dastard wretch, unnerv'd by fear,
Sink in the surge;-- the manlier appear
Riding the ridges, and, with look elate,
Struggling, with hope, against the pow'r of fate.
But vain their efforts -- the impetuous surge
Bears them, resisting, to the vortex' verge.
The eddies yawn, and the resistless shock
Dashes their panting bosoms on the rock;--
The waves retire, commingled with their gore,
Leaving their bodies bleaching on the shore!

Hoarser and louder now the surge resounds --
Wilder the woody prospect that surrounds; --
Here heavenly Solitude extends her reign
On the white margin of the bubbling main; --
Here Inspiration bids the heart rejoice --
In ocean's roar we hear th' Eternal's voice:
In every shrub, that decks the sparkling sand,
We trace the work of His creative hand.
The heart expands, unfetter'd by the chain
The world imposes; here the phrenzied brain
May seek repose -- the anguish'd bosom find
A solace for its woes: free as the wind
The thoughts may wander, mid the heart o'erflow
With the wild joy impassion'd spirits know!   

Thro' a long vista of embow'ring trees,
Which give their sear leaves to the rustling breeze,
The wide expanse of Ocean meets the eye --
The awful emblem of Eternity!  

From North to South a sweeping bay extends --
The South-East point in rocky masses ends --
While here and there, upon th' untrodden shore,
Are strewed the 'thwart, the helm, the broken oar --
The fragments of a sail, the splinter'd mast --
The fisher's joy! the victim of the blast!
But where's the fisher? Did the langhing gale
Close round his head? did ev'ry effort fail?  
No tongue can tell: perchance he found a grave
Beneath the azure mantle of the wave; --
Perchance he lives, and in some dark-ribb'd skiff
Now bounds triumphant past the threat'ning cliff.

To the North-East a frowning headland rears
His giant form; on his rough brow appears
The scar of time; magnificently rude,  
He towers above the deep; the waves subdued,
Boil round his base; the many-cavern'd shore
In flying echoes iterates the roar!

The white-haired waves, from Ocean's bosom thrown,
Roll to the shore with melancholy moan;
But gathering strength and fury in their course,
They meet the breakers with resistless force.
Swift to the strand the quiv'ring surges fly,
And hissing spread their rainbow volumes high.
On the wide beach the lucid sparkles blaze
With glow reflected from the solar rays;
As if two planets, from their orbits hurl'd,
Should meet, and pour their star-showers on the world.
The shell-clad shore is gemm'd with glitt'ring surge,
Which fades like light on evening's sombre verge,
Back to the main the weeping tide recoils,
Or midst the barrier rocks in torture boils.
Again returning with impetuous force,
The frantic billows urge their boisterous course:
Across the bay the snow-capt ridges sweep,
And howl in concert with the lab'ring deep!

A little barque, in undulating play,
Dances in distance on her wat'ry way;
And where the blue waves with the clouds unite,
She seems some lonely spirit in her flight:
Still less and less her form; at length she dies,
As fades the rainbow in the azure skies.
No trace remains of where the vessel danc'd --
No trace remains of where the meteor glanc'd --
No trace remains of where the Siroc flew --
No trace remains of morn's aerial dew --
No trace remains to mark the course of man --
His space, a point -- his being, but a span!

Note: "Bondi Bay," distant about 5 1/4- miles due East of Sydney. The word Bondi, in the language of the Aborigines, signifies falling, and is peculiarly apposite to the continual falling of the waters at this spot.

First published in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 16 June 1831.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I think that man has seldom looked upon
   A scene more beautiful than I behold
From this high park --- upon such azure ways,
   Endowed with such a lavishment of gold.

'Tis afternoon, and slanting autumn rays
   Are falling on the Harbour and the sea,
Which, 'neath a land-wind's soft and sweet caress,
   Awake to life and ripple raliantly.

By white loam washed --- a coast of gold and grey,
   Grey cliff and golden sand, shine north and south;
While, rail and sail, bright-glancing in the sun,
   A pleasure yacht glides towards the Harbour's mouth.

Entranced, enthralled, are all who hither come
   To gaze upon the loveliness outspread
Beneath, around; entranced, also, must be
   Yon single lark that singing floats o'erhead.

Entranced, enchanted, surely it must be,
   Such music dropping as it drifts along,
As though it seeks to voice the peerless scene --
   To tell its utter loveliness in song.

First published in The Sydney Mail, 5 June 1929

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.