For a Child [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).]

For a Child

Into your angel mouth
The sport of Spring
And the Summer’s honey
Came rioting.

Your eyes were as flowers,
Fine gold your hair,
Warm in my heart you sang
Love like a prayer.

The sunbeam, the moon-mist
Were one with you,
And all the sighing bloom
That takes the dew.

Love was about you,
Through your silken skin
Love like a sun-ray
Ran out and in.

Wild kiss and heavy love
Lose every hold,
Oh, sunlight — my sunlight —
How dark the cold.

Source:
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow, 1919, page 92

Also published in:
John Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: The Bookfellow in Australia, 1923, page 106
John Shaw Neilson (edited by R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Book Publishing Company, 1934, page 81