A whiff of wood smoke in the rain,
A tang of earth scents drifting grey,
And all my heart is home again,
Beyond the hills of Emu Bay.
The dark Tasmanian forest dreamed
Down to the skyline, sunset-tipped;
Blackwood and myrtle, dusky beamed,
And fringed pine, and eucalypt.
The molten light in mellow miles
Along the ringbarked clearings lay;
The hollows marked in hazy aisles
The quickening end of quiet day.
I saw the silver-wattle's grove,
Whose early golds to spring belong,
The creek that through the tea-tree wove
Its threaded loops of silver song.
Gold sunbeams in a dusty shower
Filtered through ancient orchard boughs;
I heard across the evening hour
The youngsters, bringing up the cows.
All heaven's wild roses died away
In widening deeps of amethyst;
Stockyard and haystacks sank to grey
In the uprising evening mist.
Within the doorway's dusky frame
The firelight flickers as of old;
Beams of a household altar flame
Long, long ago burnt out and cold.
Motionless in a pearly heaven
The chimney smoke suspended curled;
Sad ancient sorcery that, even
Now, wafts me to another world.
Oh! vanished years, oh habitude
Of childhood's joy and childhood's pain!
Yet would I, even If I could
Turn back the tired years again?
A whiff of wood smoke in the rain,
A tang of earth scents drifting grey --
And all my heart is home again
Beyond the hills of Emu Bay.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 1931
