When Kisses are as Strawberries [poem by John Shaw Neilson]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]

When Kisses are as Strawberries

When bees are hot with honeythirst
and hastening with the Spring,
When kisses are as strawberries
and Love is more than king —

When quiet birds have merriment
by waters brown and blue,
And little maids wool gathering
will murmur, “I love you” —

When blossoms dance in carnival
to hearten maids and men
And kisses are as strawberries
who would be sober then?

Source:
John Shaw Neilson (editor: R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934 [May 1949 reprint], page 89