Northern River
When summer days grow harshmy thoughts return to my river,fed by white mountain springs,beloved of the shy bird, the bellbird,whose cry is like falling water.
O nighted with the green vine,lit with the rock-lilies,the river speaks in the silence,and my heart will also be quiet.
Where your valley grows wide in the plainsthey have felled the trees, wild river.
Your course they have checked, and alteredyour sweet Alcaic metre.
Not the grey kangaroo, deer-eyes, timorous,will come to your pools at dawn;but, their tamed and humbled herdswill muddy the watering places.
Passing their roads and citiesyou will not escape unsoiled.
But where, grown old and weary,stagnant among the mangroves,you hope no longer – there on a suddenwith a shock like joy, beats upthe cold clean pulse of the tide,the touch of sea in greeting;the sea that encompassesall sorrow and delightand holds the memoriesof every stream and river.
Judith Wright
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