Hanmer Woods
Hanmer Woods
Original Text
Robin Hyde, The Desolate Star and other poems (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1929): 9.
2With the burnt brown fronds of bracken in her hair;
3Autumn will come with the frost on briar berries,
4And clean blue mornings, and smoke-hazed air.
5Autumn will run like a boy among the birch trees,
6Bittersweet of berries that the birds love on her lips,
7With the first frosts crunching in the wet-leaved woodways,
8And the last leaf crimson on the maple tips.
9Crying of birds will flutter through the forest,
10When dawn-rains deepen the turquoise in the pool,
11When the bright sun drips from the brown-haired fir tree,
12And larch boughs quiver in little winds and cool.
14Will feel again the stirring of slender dreams as these:
15Bright flax gleaming through the foreign larches,
Notes
1] Hanmer Springs is a small town in the South Island, New Zealand. For its alpine setting, under Mount Isobel, see a photograph by Pseudopanax. Back to Line
13] redgum: one of several kinds of eucalyptus native to Australia having smooth gray bark and hard reddish wood. Back to Line
16] bellbird: a term for a number of Australasian songbirds with ringing bell-like calls. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1928
Publication Notes
Christchurch Sun, April 7, 1928.
RPO poem Editors
Cameron La Follette
RPO Edition
2012
Rhyme
Form