Page:An anthology of Australian verse (IA anthologyofaustr00stev).pdf/121

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FAIRYLAND

We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay,On headlands sheeted in dazzling spray, And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlornThat for twenty years had wasted away.
All was so calm, and pure and fair,It seemed the hour of worship there, Silent, as where the great North-MinsterRises for ever, a visible prayer.
Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land,And rode over shingle and silver sand, For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn,That we sought no farther for Fairyland.

A WINTER DAYBREAK

From the dark gorge, where burns the morning star, I hear the glacier river rattling onAnd sweeping o'er his ice-ploughed shingle-bar, While wood owls shout in sambre unison,And fluttering southern dancers glide and go;And black swan’s airy trumpets wildly, sweetly blow.
The cock crows in the windy winter morn, Then must I rise and fling the curtain by. All dark! But for a strip of fiery skyBehind the ragged mountains, peaked and torn. One planet glitters in the icy cold,Poised like a hawk above the frozen peaks,And now again the wild nor’-wester speaks, And bends the cypress, shuddering, to his fold,

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