The Robe Of Grass

Here lies the woven garb he wore
Of grass he gathered by the shore
Whereon the phantom waves still fret and foam
And sigh along the visionary sand.
Where is he now? you cry. What desolate land
Gleams round him in dull mockery of home?

You knew him by the robe he cast
About him, grey and worn at last.
It fades, you murmur, changes, lives and dies.
Why has he vanished? Whither is he fled?
And is there any light among the dead?
Can any dream come singing where he lies?

Ah peace! lift up your clouded eyes,
Nor where this curious relic lies
Grope in the blown dust for the print of feet.
Dim, twittering, ghastly sounds are these; but he
Laughs now as ever, still aloof and free,
Eager and wild and passionate and fleet.

Because he has dropped the part he played,
Shall love be baffled and dismayed?
Let the frail earth and all its visions melt,
And let the heart that loves, the eye that sees,
Seek him amid immortal mysteries,
For lo, he dwells where he has ever dwelt.

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic, and professor of English who was born on September 2, 1871, and died on February 2, 1933. He is best known for his association with the Bulletin school of Australian poetry and for promoting Australian literature. Brereton's contributions to poetry and literary criticism made him a significant figure in early 20th-century Australian literature. His academic career also included a long tenure at the University of Sydney.

John Le Gay Brereton

Vixit

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Grey Tide

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Chain Gang

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

Kretschmann

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

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Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
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The Grey Tide

The cold green rocks and lapping waves
Are all my world as here I sit
With downcast eye and heart that craves
The bush and blue sky over it.

The tide of years is washing by,
The misty water drifts between
A soul with wings that may not fly
And shadowy realms that might have been.

Too late, too late, alas, I know
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David

Eternal cold of silence, where each sound
Dies in its birth, and Deaths pale henchmen meet
With soft Lethean traps unwary feet
Or ride with hells white steed and slavering hound;
Which of us, searching selfward, has not found
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Not he, who comes among us as a king;
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The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland

He stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
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And he had known at last some tenderness,
Before earth took him to her stony care;
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It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
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Under that woven changeless roof of boughs:
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In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
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A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.

The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,
To the low last edge of the long lone land.
If a step should sound or a word be spoken,
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A Sea Dream

We saw the slow tides go and come,
The curving surf-lines lightly drawn,
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We saw in richer sunsets lost
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The weird, low light of rising moons.

On stormy eves from cliff and head
We saw the white spray tossed and spurned;
While over all, in gold and red,
Its face of fire the lighthouse turned.

The rail-car brought its daily crowds,
Half curious, half indifferent,
Like passing sails or floating clouds,
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But, one calm morning, as we lay
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<...

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