1

The Song

Woman of mine, can love like ours be told
By sudden pressure of warm lip to lip?
You are no flower from which a bee may sip
A passing honey in a bell of gold.
Oh, golden bell that, ringing, still I hold,
Hearing full music round me flood and drip!
Oh, woman-song, your least white finger-tip
Is worthier reverence than the gods of old!
To them I rear dim altars in far woods,
Clouding with incense their neglected shrines,
And with a heart-cry that is more than prayer
Filling the silence of their solitudes;
But in the dream of you there glows and shines,
A white divinity of finer air.

Oh, I have taken kisses red and sweet,
And thrilled to pressure of your warm, white hand;
And all my blood could feel and understand
A heart, life-warm, that gave me beat for beat.
God set fine wonder in you little feet
That run to execute His high command
Through the green shadows of Loves garden land,
Were longing and delight for ever meet.
These feet, thee hands, these lips, this happy hair,
And all the rounded sweetness this is you
I hold but as I hold the gentle south
That cools the summer with delicious air.
Your body is a gracious plant that grew
To bear the blossom of your singing mouth.

Only in song my great love be spoken,
As bird that answered bird from tree to tree
In moony summer nights in Arcady
When under beechen leaves or shadows oaken
The silver bondage of all sound was broken
To reach the diamond heart of melody.
Take the clear song that is the soul of me
to wear upon your ear loves fondest token.
We have gone out so far so very far
I cannot toy with words as with sweet flesh.
The witching moon, the flame-choir of the sun,
And the far music of the morning star
But hold me netted in a golden mesh
From the love-height of language yet unwon.

2
O heart of mine, in song we soar away
Up where great angel harpings fill the deep
Of some vast air beyond old stars that keep
The aeon hours of Gods eternal day.
The thronging harmonies that all souls pray
In all green worlds arise and round us sweep,
Blent with the dreams of far dark suns that weep
The long tear-threnody of thoughts that slay
Wide armed, we gather from the boundless whole
An organ music is deeper than all seas
And sweeter than all winds in seraph strings
To speak at last the language of the soul . . . .
To speak nay, to be silent. Not of these
Is the dream song of my imaginings.

O soul of mine, with humble looks and eyes
We shall return to quiet fields we know
To watch the hedgerow blossom bud and blow
And see the dawn-star melting in the skies.
The little winds shall pass us full of sighs;
And we shall hear the lilting ripple flow
Where pansies wonder and young grasses grow
Making the melody of earth grown wise.
Simple and very wise our love shall be
As, touching Heaven, it lingers in the dew,
And knows the sweet, old earth is undefiled.
Then will you lean with a far look to me,
And hear the music of all song come true
In pattering footsteps of a little child.

David McKee Wright
N.S.W.
The Bulletin, 28
th
November 1918, p. 47.