A Day in Burwood Glen
Alfred Sharp, 1889
Published in Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate
Wednesday 2 January 1889, page 2
Photograph from our collection: Picnic at Burwood Lagoon (Glenrock) pre 1900
A toil-worn city dweller,
Fair visions come to me
Of the sweet, cool, green translucence
Underneath the greenwood tree;
This pleasant vision rises
Again, and yet again,
Till I go where green leaves rustle,
Far from the haunts of men -
Till I leave the city's bustle
For the depths of Burwood glen.
I follow up the winding streamlet
Up it’s moss-grown boulder bed -
The craggy rocks up-rising
Tower in the air o'erhead;
The starry daisy noddeth
from many a rocky nook;
And maiden-hair ferns whisper
Their secrets to the brook,
Which laughing goes and tells them
To all, without rebuke.
The gum trees towering skyward
Their starry blossoms show;
The wild clematis twineth
Her arms around her love,
And murmurs tender secrets
To tremendous leaves above,
In love-tones, softly echoed
By the cooings of the dove.
The morning sun down streameth
With all his radiance bright;
Each tree-top lies a-basking
In blaze of golden light;
He peepeth through the branches,
And merrily plays bo-peep
With the sweet, shy flowerets peeping
From nooklets cool and deep,
While they flush at being wakened
By his kisses from their sleep.
At noonday, growing bolder,
How ardent are his beams;
He clasps within his brightness
The rocks, and trees and streams;
Flowers droop beneath is ardour,
And hide their glowing face,
While his blazing eyes are searching
The secrets of each place,
And his languorous love-kisses
Pervade each hidden space.
At sunset, ere he goeth,
He bids them all good-bye
With gold and crimson kisses
Flung from the western sky;
The flow'rets peeping upward,
Say "Love, dear love, good-night;"
While towering eucalypti
Bathe in his glowing light,
And give back kiss for kisses,
Till fall the shades of night.
Sweet is thy calm, O Burwood
Far up thy lovely glen,
In thy Dryad-haunted bowers,
Far from the haunts of men,
I have passed a day of quiet,
I have passed a day of rest,
And from all the things around me
I have drawn some happy zest;
For Nature there has shown me
Her loveliest and best.
Alfred Sharp
Newcastle 1889
This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License