Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/161

 And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,

Doth gather near it grapes and grain,

Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,

To lop the leaves in wind and rain.

O, greenest moss of mountain glen,

The face of Rose is known to thee;

But we shall never share with men

A knowledge dear to love and me!

For are they not between us saved,

The words my darling used to say,

What time the western waters laved

The forehead of the fainting day?

Cool comfort had we on your breast

While yet the fervid noon burned mute

O'er barley field and barren crest,

And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.

Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,

And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;

But it was many years go,

When each, you know, was loved of each.

of wind! And while these fitful gusts

Are beating round the windows in the cold,

With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape

A settler's story of the wild old times:

One told by camp-fires when the station drays

Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;

While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,

And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame

That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves,

And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.

A tale of Love and Death. And shall I say

A tale of love in death—for all the patient eyes

That gathered darkness, watching for a son