To Hannah
To Hannah
Original Text
Henry Lawson, When I was King and Other Verses (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1906): 182-83. x.908/578
2 To revisit scenes of pain,
3From the hell I thought was Heaven
4 You have lifted me again;
5Through the world that I inherit,
6 Where I loved her ere she died,
7I am walking with the spirit
8 Of a dead girl by my side.
9Through my old possessions only
10 For a very little while,
11And they say that I am lonely,
12 And they pity, but I smile:
13For the brighter side has won me
14 By the calmness that it brings,
15And the peace that is upon me
16 Does not come of earthly things.
17Spirit girl, the good is in me,
18 But the flesh you know is weak,
19And with no pure soul to win me
20 I might miss the path I seek;
21Lead me by the love you bore me
22 When you trod the earth with me,
23Till the light is clear before me
24 And my spirit too is free.
Notes
1] Hannah Thornburn, with whom Henry Lawson fell in love about 1898 and who died June 1, 1902 (Collected Verse, ed. Colin Roderick [Sydney: Angus and Robertson]: II, 369, 376). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1904
Publication Notes
As "Spirit Girl," Bulletin; See Stone, 11
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2001.
Rhyme