At the End of Spring [poem by John Shaw Neilson]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Heart of Spring (1919), Ballad and Lyrical Poems (1923), and Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]

At the End of Spring

Put down thy bonny head,
This is the end:
Thou wert a joyous love,
Thou wert a pleasing friend:
Soft-silken is the grass
Where thy twinkling colours blend.

Bend low thy bonny head
This last sweet morn:
An eager amber child
Smothered in flowers and corn
Waits for thy death to wear
The glories thou hast worn.

Bend low thy sunny head:
Upon the wing
The tender-tinted hours
Make merry journeying;
The tyrant Sun who slays
He waits for every Spring.

Bend low thy weary head:
Kiss all good-bye —
Thy life it was a time
Of love for lip and eye:
The grief is at our hearts
That our beloved should die.

Source:
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow, 1919, page 91

Also published in:
John Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: The Bookfellow in Australia, 1923, page 21
John Shaw Neilson (edited by R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Book Publishing Company, 1934, page 80

Editor’s notes:
hast = (archaic) have

morn = morning

thou = (archaic) you

thy = (archaic) your

wert = (archaic) were (commonly appears as “thou wert”, i.e. “you were”); the second person singular of “were”, used as the subjunctive imperfect tense of “be”