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"Where shall we dwell?" say you.
   Wandering winds reply:
"In a temple with roof of blue
   -- Under the splendid sky."

Never a nobler home
   We'll find though an age we try
Than is arched by the azure dome
   Of the all-enfolding sky.

Here we are wed, and here
   We live under God's own eye.
"Where shall we dwell," my dear?
   Under the splendid sky.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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Winter

When winter chills your aged bones
As by the fire you sit and nod,
You'll hear a passing wind that moans,
And think of one beneath the sod.

You'll feebly sleek your hair of grey,
And mutter words that none may know,
And dream you touch the sodden clay
That laps the dream of long ago.

The shrinking ash may fall apart
And show a gleam that lingers yet.
A moment in your cooling heart
May shine a sparkle of regret.

And where the pit is chill and deep,
And bones are mouldering in the clay,
A thrill of buried love will creep
And shudder aimlessly away.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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In A Tram

One of the twain was long and dusty grey,
And like a spark that in the ashes lies,
Satiric laughter glinted in his eyes
And made his nose auroral with its ray:
The other like a huge black bird of prey,
His hat enorm, his pipe of awful size,
His coat hung empty-sleeved in careless wise,
Loomed a fat angel from the pit astray.
A voice was booming ever: laugh and jeer
Mingled with noble praise of battling right,
And verse and girls were mixed with radiant beer
And all the city tram was given sight
Of the invisible dark and bidden hear
Unsplashing silence of the pouring light.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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Vixit

Nurse not your grief, nor make obsequious moan
When I have shed this flesh I love so well,
Nor slowly toll the dull heart-bruising knell,
Nor carve my name in customary stone;
But let the generous earth reclaim her own
And my usurious profit who can tell?
Dash tears aside, let joy resume her spell;
Stars glitter where the storm is overblown.
Because I have lived I would not have one say:
“Here long ago a man of such a name
Was left to moulder in his pit of clay.”
Let only love remember how I came
And built an earthen altar in my day
And lit thereon a comfortable flame.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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The Child Impaled

Beside the path, on either hand,
To keep the garden beds,
The rusted iron pickets stand
Thin shafts and pointed heads.

And straight my spirit swooping goes
Across the waves of time
Till I'm a little boy who knows
A fence is made to climb;

And bed and lawn and gloomy space
By thicket overgrown
Are wonderlands where I may trace
The beckoning Unknown.

But O the cruelty that strikes
My elder heart with dread
The writhing form upon the spikes,
The trickled pool of red!

[...] Read more

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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The Dead

Hail and farewell to those who fought and died,
Not laughingly adventurous, nor pale
With idiot hatred, nor to fill the tale
Of racial selfishness and patriot pride,
But merely that their own souls rose and cried
Alarum when they heard the sudden wail
Of stricken freedom and along the gale
Saw her eternal banner quivering wide.

Farewell, high-hearted friends, for God is dead
If such as you can die and fare not well
If when you fall your gallant spirit fail.
You are with us still, and can we be adread
Though hell gape, bloody-fanged and horrible?
Glory and hope of us who love you, Hail!

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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Unborn

O wistful eyes that haunt the gloom of sleep,
Are you my own, remembered from the night
I sat before my glass in dumb affright
And saw my cowering soul afraid to weep?
Perhaps you are his, foreshadowed, when I creep
Behind him and confess the hopeless blight
That wilts the bloom of our supreme delight
The breath of horror from the unknown deep.
Eyes that have never seen a mother's face,
Have you no mercy that you stare and stare,
Although I never felt the hope I slew?
Wide eyes, but when I kneel to God for grace,
Your steadfast pity deepens my despair;
The darkness I desire is full of you.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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Waking

ABOVE us hangs the jewelled night;
And how her restful cool caresses
Make us forget the weary sight
Of summer’s daily wildernesses!
O aching toil and hope deferred,
The night has made a promise to me;
She whispered, and a wonder stirred,
And still the joy is thrilling through me.
Smooth water, shadow deeply still,
I dare not move, you wait unsleeping
—You share the breathless hopes that fill
The watch my longing soul is keeping.
A fish is leaping in the bay;
The shafts of yellow light are shaking.
O glorious night and happy day,
Beneath my silent heart she’s waking.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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To My Mother

Once more the Christian festival is near,
And I, for whom each day repeats all days
Continuously in ecstasy of praise,
Love's birthday lasting through the unending year,
Am dreaming how the spirit draws me sheer
From farthest wandering in the illusive maze
To that white centre whose creative blaze
Spun me aloft and sets me tremulous here.
And since all heaven is figured in my heart,
As in a dewdrop ere it change and live
There shines the glory of the eternal dome,
Mother, to you the showering meteors dart
Of free affection, fancies fugitive,
And flare, with increasing heat and splendour, home.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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When My Time Is Come

When my time is come to die,
I would shun the decent gloom,
Whispered word and weeping eye,
Fitful hum of knowing fly
Questing through the darkened room.

I would lay my skin and bone
Where no busy care could trace
Failing steps by bush and stone,
With my farewell dream alone
In a bird-frequented place.

So the sounds that bless my ear
When my weary eyelids close
Will be songs of hope and cheer;
So departing, I shall hear
How the tide of living flows.

So my memories shall not be
Blurred by griefs however true;

[...] Read more

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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