POETRY.
AUSTRALIAN AUTUMN.
Now is the highest noon of summer drought, And earth with cracking lips Sighs heated breath, and draws a hood of clouds To shade her sombre face.
The open plains are blanched and wither'd up, While on the quiet hills The leafage of these mournful Austral lands Maintains a leathern gloom.
Now from afar the threshing of the wheat Drones with a dreary sound, And from unnoticed nooks the crickets pour Their crisp monotony.
Stamping the dust, the sheep, with downcast heads, In silent clusters stand ; The heated coulter of the useless plough
Yearns for the tool of earth ;
While panting birds, by strange oppression weighed, Restrain their hasty tongue, And all the air is heavy with the scent Of distant burning woods.
But when the darkness bids them come to light, The lurid flames glearia forth Above their mountain screen, and glimmer through Its crest of latticed woods,
And beckon silently across the gloom With fitful rise of flame,
As summer lightnings throw their sheeted gleams Upon the walls of night.
Then the hot eye rebels against its lid, Whose secret springs are dried, And thro' the heavy vigils sleeplessness Frets on its heated couch.
Paarzx PENN Siam
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