To The Poet

WHAT cares the rose if the buds which are its pride
Be plucked for the breast of the dead or the hands of a bride?

The mother-drift if its pebbles be dull inglorious things,
Or diamonds fit to shine from the diadems of kings?

Sing, O poet, the moods of thy moments each
Perfect to thee whatever the meaning it reach.

Let the years find if it be as a soulless stone,
Or under the words which hide there be a glory alone.

poem by Thomas William Heney
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Absence

Ah, happy air that, rough or soft,
   May kiss that face and stay;
And happy beams that from above
   May choose to her their way;
And happy flowers that now and then
   Touch lips more sweet than they!

But it were not so blest to be
   Or light or air or rose;
Those dainty fingers tear and toss
   The bloom that in them glows;
And come or go, both wind and ray
   She heeds not, if she knows.

But if I come thy choice should be
   Either to love or not --
For if I might I would not kiss
   And then be all forgot;
And it were best thy love to lose
   If love self-scorn begot.

poem by Thomas William Heney
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The Boundary Rider

THE BRIDLE reins hang loose in the hold of his lean left hand;
As the tether gives, the horse bends browsing down to the sand,
On the pommel the right hand rests with a smoking briar black,
Whose thin rings rise and break as he gazes from the track.

Already the sun is aslope, high still in a pale hot sky,
And the afternoon is fierce, in its glare the wide plains lie
Empty as heaven and silent, smit with a vast despair,
The face of a Titan bound, for whom is no hope nor care.

Hoar are its leagues of bush, and tawny brown is its soil,
In that immensity lost are human effort and toil,
A few scattered sheep in the scrub hardly themselves to be seen;
One man in the wilderness lone; beside, a primaeval scene.

Firm and upright in his saddle as a soldier upon parade,
Yet graceful too is his seat, for Nature this horseman made;
From childhood a fearless rider, now like a centaur he,
And half of his strength is gone when he jumps from the saddle-tree.

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poem by Thomas William Heney
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A Riverina Road

Now while so many turn with love and longing
   To wan lands lying in the grey North Sea,
To thee we turn, hearts, mem'ries, all belonging,
   Dear land of ours, to thee.

West, ever west, with the strong sunshine marching
   Beyond the mountains, far from this soft coast,
Until we almost see the great plains arching,
   In endless mirage lost.

A land of camps where seldom is sojourning,
   Where men like the dim fathers of our race,
Halt for a time, and next day, unreturning,
   Fare ever on apace.

Last night how many a leaping blaze affrighted
   The wailing birds of passage in their file;
And dawn sees ashes dead and embers whited
   Where men had dwelt awhile.

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poem by Thomas William Heney
Added by Poetry Lover
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