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The Poems of Henry Kendall With Biographical Note by Bertram Stevens

by Henry Kendall

Pages
about 337
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
6.2 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 3.4 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Where the pines with the eagles are nestled in rifts, And the torrent leaps down to the surges, I have followed her, clambering over the clifts, By the chasms and moon-haunted verges. I know she is fair as the angels are fair, For have I not caught a faint glimpse of her there; A glimpse of her face and her glittering hair, And a hand with the Harp of Australia?

I never can reach you, to hear the sweet voice So full with the music of fountains! Oh! when will you meet with that soul of your choice, Who will lead you down here from the mountains? A lyre-bird lit on a shimmering space; It dazzled mine eyes and I turned from the place, And wept in the dark for a glorious face, And a hand with the Harp of Australia!

Rifted mountains, clad with forests, girded round by gleaming pines, Where the morning, like an angel, robed in golden splendour shines; Shimmering mountains, throwing downward on the slopes a mazy glare Where the noonday glory sails through gulfs of calm and glittering air; Stately mountains, high and hoary, piled with blocks of amber cloud, Where the fading twilight lingers, when the winds are wailing loud; Grand old mountains, overbeetling brawling brooks and deep ravines, Where the moonshine, pale and mournful, flows on rocks and evergreens.

Underneath these regal ridges--underneath the gnarly trees, I am sitting, lonely-hearted, listening to a lonely breeze! Sitting by an ancient casement, casting many a longing look Out across the hazy gloaming--out beyond the brawling brook! Over pathways leading skyward--over crag and swelling cone, Past long hillocks looking like to waves of ocean turned to stone; Yearning for a bliss unworldly, yearning for a brighter change, Yearning for the mystic Aidenn, built beyond this mountain range.

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