Poem by George Essex Evans

Kara

Chequered with sunshine and shade—the umbrage of white clouds in motion—
Rearing their summits to Heaven, broken like waves on their strands,
Northward and southward and seaward the mountains arise from the ocean—
Poised on a height above all, Kara, the beautiful, stands.

Kara, whose mountain the ranges lie under in turbulent surges—
Billows of purple and blue that stretch from her base to the sea—
Kara that knoweth the breath of the storm-wind, the sound of his dirges
Sweeping her gorges and clefts, or sighing to river and tree.

High as an eagle’s nest, crowning a summit storm-beaten and hoary,
Framed in a setting of green which sombre tints deepen and tone,
Gleam all the station’s white roofs, refracting the Summer-god’s glory:
Ribbons of silvery light surmounting gray masses of stone.

Beauty is round it, and peace; and silence and sunlight enfold it,
Clothing with mystical charm summit and forest and scar,
Fair as a dream of delight it seemeth to eyes that behold it,
Roofed by the azure of heaven, with sheen of blue waters afar.

Dreamily drifteth the day in solitudes far from life’s clamour;
Soundeth no murmur of tongues, echo of hurrying feet;
Soundeth no blast of the furnace, nor anvil that rings with the hammer,
Thunder of horses and wheels, traffic, and roar of the street.

Only a silence supreme, where Nature seems buried in slumbers,
Save for the bell-bird’s clear note, or murmuring cadence of bees,
Or sough of the wind as it chanteth its paean in musical numbers
Soft to the pine-crests aloft—monarchs of leaf-laden seas.

1. At the Base Hospital
2. The Secret Key
3. Ad Astra
4. The Grey Road
5. The Crown of Empire

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