I had a distant dream of future things-
Pink grass on which with azure-tinted hair
Rose-eyed, black-checked white-lipped, clad but in air
By strange diet evolved, people with wings
To don and use at will lolled while vast rings
Of murmurous machines kept all earth fair.
Without the contemplation of a care
The visionary's wide imaginings.
Yet had the drift of nature moved no dram,
Nor the least cog of Time's large wheel outslid
The unalterable law Change still debars.
The moon I noticed, still serenely swam,
Tugging the tides, indifferent, amid
The golden panorama of the stars.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April 1944
