Shut out the sea and the sky,
The lonely sea and the sky,
Where homeless and lost am I.
Kindle the warm, red fire
In the home of my heart's desire,
With the sheltering roof above.
Encircled by human love,
Let the lamplight softly shine
On intimate things of mine --
Comforting, homely things,
Clipping the soul's wild wings!
. . . Yet shut it out as I will,
It is there -- all that vastness still.
And I know, ah, well do I know,
Through the warmth of the fireside glow,
Tho' love chase the shadow away,
I must face it alone, one day.
All my doors will burst open at last,
And my home fires be quenched in the blast,
For there's something eternal in me,
Something tameless, and spacious, and free,
That is one with the sky and the sea,
That something, long chained by the flesh,
Even Death shall not hold in its mesh.
When the day of small things is past
And the great deeps triumph at last.
First published in The Brisbane Courier, 18 January 1930
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
The lonely sea and the sky,
Where homeless and lost am I.
Kindle the warm, red fire
In the home of my heart's desire,
With the sheltering roof above.
Encircled by human love,
Let the lamplight softly shine
On intimate things of mine --
Comforting, homely things,
Clipping the soul's wild wings!
. . . Yet shut it out as I will,
It is there -- all that vastness still.
And I know, ah, well do I know,
Through the warmth of the fireside glow,
Tho' love chase the shadow away,
I must face it alone, one day.
All my doors will burst open at last,
And my home fires be quenched in the blast,
For there's something eternal in me,
Something tameless, and spacious, and free,
That is one with the sky and the sea,
That something, long chained by the flesh,
Even Death shall not hold in its mesh.
When the day of small things is past
And the great deeps triumph at last.
First published in The Brisbane Courier, 18 January 1930
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography
See also.
