Robert Crawford

1868 - 13 January 1930 / Australia

Early Summer.

The light is silent on the greeny sward,
And from a bough above the wild dove's coo
Steals on the ear like a dream-dewy word,
Or the voice of one of a faery crew.
The warmth within the azure of the hills
Breathes like the picture of a perfect thing,
Which some supernal artist limning has
Made mystical with love's remembering.
Now the faint murmur of the coming tide
Grows like a spirit in the quiet cove,
While with a drowsy murmur kin to it
The brown bees among the sweet flowers rove.
Here where the heart could fold itself, and sleep
As if within a shining century,
Naught seems to change but thought, and even it
Makes every change a tender melody.
All here is so remote from the world's care,
As if it were a dream that would not fade,
Amid so much that man has ruined here
Like some old-world divineness that has stayed.
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