Illa Creek
Illa Creek
Original Text
The Poems of Henry Kendall, ed. Bertram Stephens
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1920): 82-83. Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS), digital text sponsored by AustLit: http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit
2 Across the blown-wet border,
3Whose stormy echo runs and rings
4 Like bells in wild disorder.
6 It glistens, glooms, and glistens;
7But deep within this quiet place
8 Sweet Illa lies and listens.
9Sweet Illa of the shining sands,
10 She sleeps in shady hollows
11Where August flits with flowerful hands,
12 And silver Summer follows.
13Far up the naked hills is heard
14 A noise of many waters;
15But green-haired Illa lies unstirred
16 Amongst her star-like daughters.
17The tempest pent in moaning ways
18 Awakes the shepherd yonder,
19But Illa dreams, unknown to days
20 Whose wings are wind and thunder.
21Here fairy hands and floral feet
22 Are brought by bright October;
23Here, stained with grapes and smit with heat,
24 Comes Autumn, sweet and sober.
25Here lovers rest, what time the red
26 And yellow colours mingle,
27And daylight droops with dying head
29And here, from month to month, the time
30 Is kissed by Peace and Pleasure,
31While Nature sings her woodland rhyme
32 And hoards her woodland treasure.
33Ah, Illa Creek! ere Evening spreads
34 Her wings o'er towns unshaded,
35How oft we seek thy mossy beds
36 To lave our foreheads faded!
37For, let me whisper, then we find
38 The strength that lives, nor falters,
39In wood and water, waste and wind,
40 And hidden mountain altars.
Notes
1] Illa Creek: a stream about five kilometres long near Gammon Ranges National Park, South Australia. Back to Line
5] foreland: cape. Back to Line
28] dingle: deep valley. Back to Line
Publication Notes
Leaves from Australian Forests (1869)
RPO poem Editors
Cameron La Follette
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form