A Love Song (1934)
By IRENE GOUGH (aged 17). Glynde road, Plrle. Magiill (S.A).Second Prize, Class I. There's a love song lilting down the singing creek's cool way,
Where the sun god to the dappled rocks the grey green lichen weds.
And the bull frogs cry a challenge to the golden light of day;
Where the weeping willows trail soft hair a-down the long creek beds. The she-oak sighs, the same soft sigh she breathed when earth was young.
When witches stole her pale green gown to drape the twilit sky,
When from the wide dark caves of heaven the lamps of night are hung,
And through the young moon's silver spears the armoured black bats fly. The wild pea winds her bridal wreath where gold-voiced crickets sing
Of summer heat, of shimmering days-a soothing sleepy song ;
And birds, with tunes like silver streams, fly slow upon the wing,
And tell the world of summer time, when sunburnt days are long. There's a sweet song lilting through the flowery world away,
That creeps through scented gum trees and tears the leaves apart ;
Through red carved hills it whispers in the trembling breath of day,
The song or spring--the gold-green spring--that sings within my heart. Notes From the Victorian newspaper The Australasian 22 Dec 1934 p. 47. Top