Poem by Henry Kendall

Early Poems (1859-70). To——

Ah, often do I wait and watch,
 And look up, straining through the Real
With longing eyes, my friend, to catch
 Faint glimpses of your white Ideal.

I know she loved to rest her feet
 By slumbrous seas and hidden strand;
But mostly hints of her I meet
 On moony spots of mountain land.

I've never reached her shining place,
 And only cross at times a gleam;
As one might pass a fleeting face
 Just on the outside of a Dream.

But you may climb, her happy Choice!
 She knows your step, the maiden true,
And ever when she hears your voice,
 She turns and sits and waits for you.

How sweet to rest on breezy crest
 With such a Love, what time the Morn
Looks from his halls of rosy rest,
 Across green miles of gleaming corn!

How sweet to find a leafy nook,
 When bees are out, and Day burns mute,
Where you may hear a passion'd brook
 Play past you, like a mellow flute!

Or, turning from the sunken sun,
 On fields of dim delight to lie—
To close your eyes and muse upon
 The twilight's strange divinity!

Or through the Night's mysterious noon,
 While Sound lies hushed among the trees,
To sit and watch a mirror'd moon
 Float over silver-sleeping seas!

Oh, vain regret! why should I stay
 To think and dream of joys unknown?
You walk with her from day to day,
 I faint afar off—and alone.

1. Early Poems (1859-70). In Memoriam—Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse
2. Other Poems (1871-82). How the Melbourne Cup was Won
3. Early Poems (1859-70). Cui Bono?
4. Other Poems (1871-82). Aboriginal Death-Song
5. Other Poems (1871-82). Sydney Exhibition Cantata

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