I
The Black Swans.
O, ye wild swans, that from your watery element
Rose in the beating thunder of ten thousand wings,
The winds declared ye to the stars in their ascent.
And the lone settler, closed within his narrow pent,
Wakened upon the sounds the night-air servant brings,
Whispered, "The birds grow restless for far journeyings !"
And like a cloud above the lakes, and like a cloud
Above the river reaches and the long lagoons,
Mounted the wing that through eternities had ploughed
The plains of heaven until each flight became a shroud
Of shadowy movement drawn beneath high-riding moons.
And faint in distance as the ghosts of lost galloons.
II.
The White Swan.
Once a child, waking, heard the beat of those great wings,
And, running, saw where like a shining angel rose
A glistening bird, bright in its moonlit silverings ;
Saw the wing's curve and spread, and the white breast that springs,
Round as the prow of cloud, that, at the evening's close,
Night slowly stills above the sun that setting goes ;
Saw then an army rise in endless ranks that ran
On either hand where each dark fugler, in his might,
Climbing upon the air sped out and led the van
As the vast mass upsoared and sailed in widening fan ;
Saw there the snowy breasted wanderer, gleaming white,
Lace in and out the host and go with that great flight !
III.
The Murrumbidgee Heard.
O ye wild swans, the Murrumbidgee yearning heard, afar.
Cry through the height, "To thee thy children come again !"
Who, as she heard, felt all her bosom stir, till bar
By bar upon the mountain side, by cliff and scar,
She loosed the rising waters out, till grey Ganmain
Called to her reeds the white spoonbill and gentle crane ;
Who bid the old Deepwater swamp set wide each gate.
And drink her swelling tide till every blllabong
Ran flush, and all the summered marshes felt the spate,
And bloomed again in green, while little birds, elate,
Dipped in the flood and sang—O ye wild wings, how long.
How long since last your mighty pinons beat in throng !
IV.
Never Again.
Never again as of old shall we know the flight
Of the swans in their going. Like petals that fell
They are gone, they are dead—they have passed in the blight
Of our being ! Never again shall day (or the night)
Hear as they fly the sound of their trumpeting bell
On the air till it dies like the lapse of a swell !
Never again shall the moons shine out on the wing !
Like a blast of the desert we came and we slew,
We burned the reeds where the nestlings lingered, till spring
That sang in the bird came in like a sad dumb thing.
Now only the dreamer dreams of the hosts we knew.
That trembling died in the wind of our passing through !
--MARY GILMORE.
Notes
From the NSW Newspaper The Daily Telegraph 30 Jan 1926 p. 10.