Could I borrow the laverock's lifting note,
Or the silvery song from the blackbird's throat,
Then would I warble the whole day long,
Telling, in floods of passionate song,
How worlds might tremble, or skies might fall.
But Love, true Love, outlasteth all.
Or, with picturesque words, in phrases neat,
With ringing rhymes, and in sonnets sweet,
Had I the skill of the schoolman's craft
My song the murmurous breeze should waft,
And tell to her whom my heart loves best,
How Love outlasteth all the rest.
The world around is sleeping,
The stars are bright o'erhead,
The shades of myalls weeping
Upon the sward are spread;
Among the gloomy pinetops
The fitful breezes blow,
And their murmurs seem the music
Of a song of long ago;
Soft, passionate, and wailing
Is the tender old refrain -
With a yearning unavailing - "Will he no come back again?"
The camp-fire sparks are flying
Up from the pine-log's glow,
The wandering wind is sighing
That ballad sweet and low;
The drooping branches gleaming
In the firelight, sway and stir;
And the bushman's brain is dreaming
Of the song she sang, and her.
And the murmurs of the forest
Ring home to heart and brain,
As in the pine is chorused "Will he no come back again?"
Harry "Breaker" Harbord Morant (1864 - 902) was an Anglo-Australian
poet and soldier, who was exceptionally skilled with horses, which was the
basis for his nickname "The Breaker." Articulate, intelligent and well educated, he
became one of the better known "back-block bards" of the 1890s, with the bulk of his work appearing in
The Bulletin magazine.
