Charles Harpur

23 January 1813 – 10 June 1868 / Windsor, New South Wales

To My Young Countryman D.H.D.

Who doubteth, when the morning star doth light
Her lamp of beauty, that the day is coming?
Or, where prime odours track the breezes’ flight,
That rare flowers in the vicinage are blooming?
Or, where the wild bees all about are humming,
That honey’s stored in some near cedar’s height?
Or, that the sea is heaving into sight
When more and more long surgy rolls come booming?
And surely, as the observer understands
What each of these foretokens in its kind,
Thy manhood’s mental amplitude expands
Before me in its omens, when I find
Something of promise fashioned by thy hands,
Some blossom breathing of thy forming mind.
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