Stanzas

The sunsets fall and the sunsets fade,
But still I walk this shadowy land;
And grapple the dark and only the dark
In my search for a loving hand.

For its here a still, deep woodland lies,
With spurs of pine and sheaves of fern;
But I wander wild, and wail like a child
For a face that will never return!

And its here a mighty water flows,
With drifts of wind and wimpled waves;
But the darling head of a dear one dead
Is hidden beneath its caves.

Henry Kendall

Henry Kendall was an Australian poet born on April 18, 1839, known for his lyrical and descriptive poetry reflecting the natural world and the colonial experience of Australia. He faced personal and financial difficulties throughout his life, which deeply influenced his works. His poetry collections include 'Leaves from Australian Forests' and 'Songs from the Mountains'. Kendall passed away on August 1, 1882, leaving a lasting impact on Australian literature.

Henry Kendall

Lurline

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

On a Baby Buried by the Hawkesbury

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

To the Spirit of Music

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

Leichhardt

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

In the Depths of a Forest

In the depths of a Forest secluded and wild,
The night voices whisper in passionate numbers;
And Im leaning again, as I did when a child,
Oer the grave where my father so quietly slumbers.

The years have rolled by with a thundering sound
But I knew, O ye woodlands, affection would know it,
And the spot which I stand on is sanctified ground
By the love that I bear to him sleeping below it.

Oh! well may the winds with a saddening moan
Go fitfully over the branches so dreary;
And well may I kneel by the time-shattered stone,
And rejoice that a rest has been found for the weary.

Henry Kendall

Sunset

It is better, O day, that you go to your rest,
For you go like a guest who was loth to remain!
Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west,
And let out the wild shadows the night and the rain.

Ye winds, ye are dead, with your voices attuned,
That thrilled the green life in the sweet-scented sheaves,
When I touched a warm hand which has faded, and swooned
To a trance of the darkness, and blight on the leaves.

I had studied the lore in her maiden-like ways,
And the large-hearted love of my Annie was won,
Ere Summer had passed into passionate days,
Or Autumn made ready her fruits for the Sun.

So my life was complete, and the hours that went by,
And the moon and the willow-wooed waters around,
Might have known that we rested, my Annie and I,
In hap...

Henry Kendall

Footfalls

The embers were blinking and clinking away,
The casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the threshold alone!

And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a wanderer still!

And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
There are memories moaning and homeless to-night
That can never be tranquil again!

And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a flutter and sigh to the eaves,
They are wrinkled and wasted, and tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves.

Did I hear a low echo of footfalls about,
Whilst watchin...

Henry Kendall

Cui Bono?

A clamour by day and a whisper by night,
And the Summer comes with the shining noons,
With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light
Of the falling suns and the rising moons.

And the ripple of leaves and the purple and red
Die for the grapes and the gleam of the wheat,
And then you may pause with the splendours, or tread
On the yellow of Autumn with lingering feet.

You may halt with the face to a flying sea,
Or stand like a gloom in the gloom of things,
When the moon drops down and the desolate lea
Is troubled with thunder and desolate wings.

But alas for the grey of the wintering eves,
And the pondering storms and the ruin of rains;
And alas for the Spring like a flame in the leaves,
And the green of the woods and the gold of the lanes!

Henry Kendall

To Henry Halloran

You know I left my forest home full loth,
And those weird ways I knew so well and long,
Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth
Of twisted thorn and kurrajong.

It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thought
Of all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),
That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,
I loved and lost a noble creed.

A splendid creed! But let me even turn
And hide myself from what Ive seen, and try
To fathom certain truths you know, and learn
The Beauty shining in your sky:

Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,
And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guest
Of other days, with all his lore of lights
So manifold and manifest!

Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but long
For that which lies and burns b...

Henry Kendall

A Living Poet

He knows the sweet vexation in the strife
Of Love with Time, this bard who fain would stray
To fairer place beyond the storms of life,
With astral faces near him day by day.
In deep-mossed dells the mellow waters flow
Which best he loves; for there the echoes, rife
With rich suggestions of his long ago,
Astarte, pass with thee! And, far away,
Dear southern seasons haunt the dreamy eye:
Spring, flower-zoned, and Summer, warbling low
In tasselled corn, alternate come and go,
While gypsy Autumn, splashed from heel to thigh
With vine-blood, treads the leaves; and, halting nigh,
Wild Winter bends across a beard of snow.

Henry Kendall