Wamberal
Wamberal
Original Text
The Poems of Henry Kendall, ed. Bertram Stephens
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1920): 364. Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS), digital text sponsored by AustLit: http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit
2Like the song that once I loved so, softly of the old time sings--
3Softly of the old time speaketh--bringing ever back to me
4Sights of far-off lordly forelands--glimpses of the sounding sea!
5Now the cliffs are all before me--now, indeed, do I behold
6Shining growths on wild wet hillheads, quiet pools of green and gold.
7And, across the gleaming beaches, lo! the mighty flow and fall
8Of the great ingathering waters thundering under Wamberal!
9Back there are the pondering mountains; there the dim, dumb ranges loom--
10Ghostly shapes in dead grey vapour--half-seen peaks august with gloom.
11There the voice of troubled torrents, hidden in unfathomed deeps,
12Known to moss and faint green sunlight, wanders down the oozy steeps.
13There the lake of many runnels nestles in a windless wild
14Far amongst thick-folded forests, like a radiant human child.
15And beyond surf-smitten uplands--high above the highest spur--
17Wamberal, the home of echoes! Hard against a streaming strand,
18Sits the hill of blind black caverns, at the limits of the land.
19Here the haughty water marches--here the flights of straitened sea
20Make a noise like that of trumpets, breaking wide across the lea!
21But behold, in yonder crescent that a ring of island locks
22Are the gold and emerald cisterns shining moonlike in the rocks!
23Clear, bright cisterns, zoned by mosses, where the faint wet blossoms dwell
24With the leaf of many colours--down beside the starry shell.
25Friend of mine beyond the mountains, here and here the perished days
26Come like sad reproachful phantoms, in the deep grey evening haze--
27Come like ghosts, and sit beside me when the noise of day is still,
28And the rain is on the window, and the wind is on the hill.
29Then they linger, but they speak not, while my memory roams and roams
30Over scenes by death made sacred--other lands and other homes!
31Places sanctified by sorrow--sweetened by the face of yore--
32Face that you and I may look on (friend and brother) nevermore!
33Seasons come with tender solace--time lacks neither light nor rest;
34But the old thoughts were such dear ones, and the old days seem the best.
35And to those who've loved and suffered, every pulse of wind or rain--
36Every song with sadness in it, brings the peopled Past again.
37Therefore, just this shell yet dripping, with this weed of green and grey,
38Sets me thinking--sets me dreaming of the places far away;
39Dreaming of the golden rockpools--of the foreland and the fall;
40And the home behind the mountains looming over Wamberal.
Notes
1] Wamberal: a region on the central coast of New South Wales, now part of Gosford. Back to Line
16] Kincumber: a mountain in the coastal region of New South Wales. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1920
Publication Notes
The Poems of Henry Kendall, ed. Bertram Stephens
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1920)
RPO poem Editors
Cameron La Follette
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form