What is the South wind looking for?
A sunny day or a sweep of rain?
A sea to ruffle against a shore,
Or a Spring that never can come again?
It harries the jacaranda's sheaf,
And pries and searches beneath each leaf.
What is the South wind looking for?
It seems to laugh as it hastens by,
Yet as it swooned to the grassy floor
Among the daisies I heard it sigh;
By the tendrilled vine o'er the broken fence
I felt its laughter was all pretence!
What is the South wind looking for?
It did not pause by the quiet graves;
It rattled an ivied garden door,
And flicked the barley to trembling waves,
And out where the clover led the bees
It hid a moment behind the trees.
What is the South wind looking for?
Something the North wind could not find,
Something the bitter West wind swore
Was his as he left the world behind.
I know by its fitful, breathless pace
There are tears not far from the South wind's face!
And it moans defeat at my window now,
With one last wild hope as it scales the wall
And tugs at the silky oak's tough bough
For a tawny blossom that will not fall;
Then I hear it sink with its baffled cries,
Till beyond blue ranges the South wind dies.
First published in The Australasian, 22 November 1924
