Oh, Gordon! tho' not all our own, Did not out skies so blue and fair Make your sad soul break forth in song, And lay your suff'ring heartstrings bare?
So deftly have you wove your verse, The visions gleam upon our sight; We ride your rides, we see with you The mountains robed in morning light.
The wattles' whisp'ring we can hear, As 'neath the fragrant shade you lay, And yielded in the spell-bound hour To nature and her mystic sway.
The wild bird's song, the jay's weird call, Were music to your weary brain; And oft you stood, in rapture lost, To hear the songster sing again.
We can but kneel beside the sod, The dumb earth cannot hear our call, Strange echoes o'er the hillsides steal And whisper, "This is part, not all."
"Joan Torrance"
The Critic, 1 July 1899, p13