While in the lamplight hearkening I sat mute, Methought 'How soon this fire must needs burn out' Among the passion flowers and passion fruit That from the wide verandah hung, misdoubt Was mine. 'And wherefore made I thus long suit To leave this old white head? His words devout, His blessing not to hear who loves me so-- He that is old, right old--I will not go.' But ere the dawn their counsels wrought with me, And I went forth; alas that I so went Under the great gum-forest canopy, The light on every silken filament Of every flower, a quivering ecstasy Of perfect paleness made it; sunbeams sent Up to the leaves with sword-like flash endued Each turn of that grey drooping multitude. I sought to look as in the light of one Returned. 'Will this be strange to me that day? Flocks of green parrots clamorous in the sun Tearing out milky maize--stiff cacti grey As old men's beards--here stony ranges lone, Their dust of mighty flocks upon their way To water, cloudlike on the bush afar, Like smoke that hangs where old-world cities are. Is it not made man's last endowment here To find a beauty in the wilderness; Feel the lorn moor above his pastures dear, Mountains that may not house and will not bless To draw him even to death? He must insphere His spirit in the open, so doth less Desire his feres, and more that unvex'd wold And fine afforested hills, his dower of old. But shall we lose again that new-found sense Which sees the earth less for our tillage fair? Oh, let her speak with her best eloquence To me, but not her first and her right rare Can equal what I may not take from hence. The gems are left: it is not otherwhere The wild Nepèan cleaves her matchless way, Nor Sydney harbour shall outdo the day. Adding to day this--that she lighteth it.' But I beheld again, and as must be With a world-record by a spirit writ, It was more beautiful than memory, Than hope was more complete. Tall brigs did sit Each in her berth the pure flood placidly, Their topsails drooping 'neath the vast blue dome Listless, as waiting to be sheeted home. And the great ships with pulse-like throbbing clear, Majestical of mien did take their way Like living creatures from some grander sphere, That having boarded ours thought good to stay, Albeit enslaved. They most divided here From God's great art and all his works in clay, In that their beauty lacks, though fair it shows That divine waste of beauty only He bestows. The day was young, scarce out the harbour lights That morn I sailed: low sun-rays tremulous On golden loops sped outward. Yachts in flights Flutter'd the water air-like clear, while thus It crept for shade among brown rocky bights With cassia crowned and palms diaphanous, And boughs ripe fruitage dropping fitfully, That on the shining ebb went out to sea.