The Touch Of Time

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;
Your beauty wins a ripeness sweet and bland
As opulent summer, and your glancing eye
Glows with a deeper lustre, and your sigh
Of love is still my clamouring hearts command.

Yet what if all your fairness were defaced,
Wilted by passionate whirlwinds, battle-scarred,
Your skin of delicate satin hard and dry?
Still you would be the laughing girl who graced
A gloomy manhood, by forebodings marred,
In the deep wood where still we love to lie.

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

The Guest House

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

A Prologue

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

Light Loss

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

Rebel Hearts

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

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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
The track that winds by shining leaves
From where the flood reflects, below,
The greyness of the heart that grieves.

Another yet may tread the way,
And offer at that hidden shrine
His gift of rolled and twisted clay,
And set his lips to holy wine.

Another yet may tinge the flame
Upon that altar blue or red,
And freely call upon Her name,
And taste at will the blessed bread.

The waves are grey about the ...

John Le Gay Brereton

When My Time Is Come

When my time is come to die,
I would shun the decent gloom,
Whispered word and weeping eye,
Fitful hum of knowing fly
Questing through the darkened room.

I would lay my skin and bone
Where no busy care could trace
Failing steps by bush and stone,
With my farewell dream alone
In a bird-frequented place.

So the sounds that bless my ear
When my weary eyelids close
Will be songs of hope and cheer;
So departing, I shall hear
How the tide of living flows.

So my memories shall not be
Blurred by griefs however true;
So my drowsy sense may see
Eyes that light in love on me;
So Ill not be leaving you.

John Le Gay Brereton

Time, Beauty's Friend

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
    Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon -
    "Beautiful still - but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
    That face of April gold.

Then up the summer night the moon arose,
    Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
    And with her rising came a thought to me -
How ever old and ever young she grows,
    And still more lovely she.

Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
    That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
    And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's -
    So old are all things fair.

Then for that fac...

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Middle Harbour

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.

Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.

Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.

Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.

Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbo...

John Le Gay Brereton

Hesper

Not till the sun, that brings to birth
The myriad marvels of the earth
And bids us look with wandering eyes
On all that here about us lies,
Has gone behind the hill,
Do you, O peaceful evening star,
Gaze on the dusk in which we are
And draw the heart of hope and love
To infinite deep on deep above
And bid our care be still.

All glorious pleasures of the day,
When every sense may have its way
And thought may touch the tiniest fact
And gauge the motive and the act
And measure our delight,
Depart, and leave us to the quest
Of quiet solitude and rest
And knowledge that the plotting brain
With all its science cannot gain
But from the soul of Night.

John Le Gay Brereton

In Those Old Days

In those old days you were called beautiful,
But I have worn the beauty from your face;
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.
Even your voice is altered when you speak,
Or is grown mute with old anxiety
For me.

Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns
Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,
And then under the flame a glowing dome
Deepens slowly into blood-like light:--
So did you flame and in flame take delight,
So are you hollow'd now with aching fire.
But I still warm me and make there my home,
Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly
For me.

Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull,
...

John Frederick Freeman