With The Quandongs
IF you happen to visit the Western Plains
When the summer is young and green,
You can see the green of the quandong leaves
With the quandong fruit between.
The fruit is the size of a plum, perhaps,
And red as your own blood's hue;
And it falls to the ground at the touch of the wind
Like a drop of crimson dew.
The wide plains lie with half-shut eyes
At peace in a golden swoon,
And the lizards drink their full of rest
Abask in the drowsy noon.
There is only the whir of a wing, perchance,
To startle the sleeping lands;
But the quandong trees, all green and red,
Are a-twinkle with little hands.
Oh, many a tress has turned to grey,
And many a song grown mute
Since Rita and Meg and Trixie and I
Went gathering quandong fruit.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Fiddle And The Crowd
WHEN the day was at its middle,
Tired of limb and slow of pace,
Came a fiddler with his fiddle
To a crowded market place;
Lying, cheating, boasting, bragging,
Men and women walked together;
Heads were nodding, tongues were wagging,
Talk there was of trade and weather,
Talk there was of man's enslavement
To the tyrants, Toil and Worry;
Yet the fiddle on the pavement
Minding not the noise and hurry,
Singing low and singing loud —
Spoke its message to the crowd.
Said the fiddle —
'Pause and listen;
Can't you hear the waters running
Down the mossy mountain valleys?
Don't you see the lyre-bird sunning
Glossy plumes in fronded alleys?
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Counsellors
AS I went a-walking
Through the Morning Land,
Up came Folly
And took me by the hand;
Garbed in velvet doublet,
Clad in silken hose —
Bells on his droll cap,
Bells on his clothes,
Bells on his shoulders,
Bells round his waist
Tinkled as he shouted:
'Haste, brother, haste;
Youth's a thing that never will be missed
Till it's gone, gone for ever, like the dew from the rose!'
Sparkled all the waters,
Sparkled everything —
Dew on the petal,
Dew on the wing,
Dew on the meadows,
Dew in the air,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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Mid-Forest Fear
SHE is standing at the gate,
Tall and sweet,
And although the hour be late
She will greet
Me, her lover,
Smiling over
Absent mind and tardy feet.
‘Rest,’ I’ll say to her, ‘and more rest,’
As she wraps her love around me,
And I’ll tell her of the forest,
Of the strange, fear-haunted forest
Where the fleshless beings found me.
For I trod a rock-strewn rude way
Thinking only of my lover,
When the moonlight on the woodway,
Made a weird-way of the woodway,
And a place where demons hover.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Greater Love
ONCE upon a time,
Little Golden-Head,
Steeples used to chime,
And their chiming said:
'Peace is in the land —
Joy on every hand.'
Glowing youths and men
Rose and went their ways,
Some to hill and glen,
Some to shining bays.
And they left behind
Ills of heart and mind.
Oh, but it was sweet
Underneath the trees,
Bare of throat and feet,
Bathed in golden ease,
Two and two to lie
While the hours went by!
Sweet indeed it was
Thus to lie and laze,
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Turn Of The Road
WHERE confident, calm I strode,
I walk with hesitant feet;
For at yonder turn of the road
What shall I meet?
The youth of the day has gone,
And my shadow goes before;
I know that the road runs on —
I know no more.
I have travelled a goodly way,
As one at a glance may see,
Since the East and the break o' day
Called out to me.
Though the highway be hard to miss
With its signs and stones and such,
The worst of the road is this —
It turns too much.
For a part of its length it flows
(Too brief is that stretch, alas!)
'Twixt hedges of palm and rose,
O'er fern and grass.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The River And The Road
THE merrymaking's over
The riverside is still,
The Sun, a radiant rover,
Gone down behind the hill.
The red Road goes awinding
Along the riverside;
The River, no man minding,
Winds on to meet the tide.
O Naiad of green places!
I pray you pause and say
How many pretty faces
Looked down on you to-day?
The River runs in silence
(A fern-frond is her load);
Just here and just a mile hence
She curves to kiss the road.
And now the kiss is over,
And now the tryst is done,
By flats of fern and clover
The River ripples on.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Threshold Stone
WHEN I went to live in the little house,
That stands on the hilltop alone,
What touched me most of all
Was neither roof nor wall,
But the smooth, worn face of its old threshold stone.
For when I entered that little house,
With its four rooms cool in the heat,
And its windows clean and bright,
There it lay, new-washed and white,
With its tale of the coming and the going of feet.
Then I lost count of time in that little house,
And the world and its things all about,
And I hearkened there, alone,
To the footfalls on that stone,
Of the young coming in and the old going out.
And the folk that had dwelt in that little house,
They were mute, spectre-mute, at my side —
The young man, strong and bold,
And the grey man, wise and old,
And the little, pinched woman and the new-made bride.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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Western Camps
THREE men stood with their glasses lifted,
Night was around them and flaring lamps:
'Here's to the tried and true and sifted;
Here's to the flotsam tossed and drifted;
Here's to the men in the Outcast-camps,
'Stars that fall are their lot for ever;
Lights that perish and stars that fall;
Fighting Fate with a brave heart ever —
Drifting leaves on a wayward river —
Men for ever in spite of all.
'Here's to the gallant souls defeated;
Here's to the strong souls under-trod,
Hope-abandoned and mirage-cheated —
And yet, by right of their failure, seated
Somewhere close to the feet of God.
'Here's to the heart that braves undaunted
Toil and trouble for home and wife;
Here's to the spirit mocked and taunted;
Here's to the memory, sorrow-haunted;
Here's to the soul grown sick of life.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Hidden Tide
WITHIN the world a second world
That circles ceaselessly:
Stars in the sky and sister stars—
Turn in your eyes and see!
Tides of the sea that rise and fall,
Aheave from Pole to Pole—
And kindred swayings, veiled but felt,
That noise along the soul.
Yon moon, noon-rich, high-throned, remote,
And pale with pride extreme,
Draws up the sea, but what white moon
Exalts the tide of Dream?
The Fisher-Folk who cast their nets
In Vision’s golden tide
Oft bring to light misshapen shells,
And nothing worth beside.
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poem by Roderic Quinn
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