A star still swims in the pearly east,
Where the morning lights encroach.
To us it is only a world of dreams
Of sleep-haunted scrubs and of mist-wreathed streams
On the early morning's coach.
The red road winds through a belt of pine,
And the horses' hoofs ring hard
Past the edge of the scattered town,
Out to the ridges bare and brown,
On by the still graveyard.
We cross the culverts above the creek,
And on to the black soft plain;
We hear the birds in the myall grove,
And think of youth and a boyish love,
And feel we are young again.
Crack! through the air goes the driver's whip;
A jolt o'er a broken rail.
Press down the brake-as we skid the hill-
In the slab hut they are sleeping still
As we sort out the cocky's mail.
A golden flame sets the world a-fire
To usher a summer morn;
It flushes the length of the chained lagoon
More like to the heart of the afternoon
Than the early rose of dawn.
A moment more, and the day has come
Through the gates of the world's approach;
Forget the night that has gone before --
'Tis good to be on the roads once more
By the early morning's coach.
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 19 October 1904
