Shadows lengthen through lazy hours,
The long, long hours of afternoon;
Heavy the odors of red-gum flowers
In dells of bracken when bronzewings croon;
Green and grey are the saplings slender,
Tall and straight by the empty stream --
Fit for day dreams the Bushland's splendor,
But I have forgotten the way to dream.
To-day the cuckoos were calling, calling,
Out at the light wood's leafy deep;
I heard the river's slow music falling
Through a world of summer-time, half asleep.
But, ah! in the gold Australian weather
Care at my side dims every gleam,
So long we have walked the road together
That I have forgotten the way to dream.
A dreamer always, in days long over,
I fashioned my life in a world of shades,
When the fields were white with a wealth of clover
Or the robes of winter made grey the glades
But gone, long gone, are those days of treasure,
Long, long lost an the slow year's stream;
Spilt the cup of its ruddy measure,
I have forgotten the way to dream.
First published in The Bulletin, 4 April 1912
