John Shaw Neilson

22 February 1872 – 12 May 1942 / Penola, South Australia

Tell Summer That I Died

When he was old and thin
And knew not night or day
He would sit up to say
Something of the fire within.
How woefully his chin
Moved so slowly as he tried
Some lusty word to say:
Tell Summer that I died.

When gladness sweeps the land,
And to the white sky
Cool butterflies go by,
And sheep in shadow stand;
When Love, the old command,
Turns every hate aside,
In the unstinted days
Tell Summer that I died.
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