In purpling patches on the path the fallen blossoms lie,
Unfettered blooms that every breeze
Drifts downward, from the laden trees,
Heaped clouds of mauve, against the blue of an unclouded sky.
Set thick about the open parks the jacarandas rise,
Transformed by Spring's uplifted wand,
They make the earth a fairy land,
Where slum'bring in the drowsy noon, the hill-bound city lies.
Blue skies, gay buds, and misty hills, I want to see you only,
I would forget that far-off place,
That dreary sweep of wind-swept space,
And o'er the hare and flow'rless plain, a horseman riding lonely.
Beneath this bloss'ming tree I wait, in green, gold-flickered gloom,
With Springtide laughing everywhere,
And all about me tender, fair,
The squandered wealth, of jewelled mauve, in jacaanda bloom.
I wait, and know love comes to me, sweet as fresh love is only ...
Ah! to forget that old, old pain,
That barren wild and wind-swept plain,
And by the dark brigalow patch, a horseman riding lonely.
First published in The Australasian, 18 November 1905;
and later in
The Capricornian, 25 November 1905.
