[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]
’Tis the White Plum Tree
It is the white Plum Tree
Seven days fair
As a bride goes combing
Her joy of hair.
As a peacock dowered
with golden eyes
Ten paces over
The Orange lies.
It is the white Plum Tree
Her passion tells
As a young maid rustling,
She so excels.
The birds run outward,
The birds are low,
Whispering in manna
The sweethearts go.
It is the white Plum Tree
Seven days fair
As a bride goes combing
Her joy of hair.
Source:
John Shaw Neilson (editor: R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934 [May 1949 reprint], page 94
Editor’s notes:
manna = something gained freely and unexpectedly; in the Bible it refers to the food bestowed upon the Israelites in their journey from Egypt, hence the expression “manna from heaven” (also refers to spiritual nourishment; also refers to the substance exuded or excreted by certain insects and plants)
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