[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).]
Heart of Spring!
O Heart of Spring!
Spirit of light and love and joyous day
So soon to faint beneath the fiery Summer:
Still smiles the Earth, eager for thee alway:
Welcome art thou, so ever short thy stay,
Thou bold, thou blithe newcomer!
Whither, oh whither this thy journeying,
O Heart of Spring!
O Heart of Spring!
After the stormy days of Winter’s reign
When the keen winds their last lament are sighing
The Sun shall raise thee up to life again:
In thy dim death thou shalt not suffer pain:
Surely thou dost not fear this quiet dying?
Whither, oh whither blithely journeying,
O Heart of Spring!
O Heart of Spring!
Youth’s emblem, ancient as unchanging light,
Uncomprehended, unconsumed, still burning:
Oh that we could, as thee, rise from the night
To find a world of blossoms lilac-white
And long-winged swallows unafraid returning ..
Whither, oh whither this thy journeying,
O Heart of Spring!
Source:
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow, 1919, page 1
Also published in:
John Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: Bookfellow in Australia, 1923, page 110
John Shaw Neilson (edited by R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934, page 1
Editor’s notes:
alway = (archaic) always
art = (archaic) are
dost = (archaic) do
shalt = (archaic) shall
thee = (archaic) you
thou = (archaic) you
thy = (archaic) your
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