Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
The Company Of Lovers
We meet and part now over all the world;we, the lost company,take hands together in the night, forgetthe night in our brief happiness, silently.We..
© Judith Wright
Bora Ring
The song is gone; the danceis secret with the dancers in the earth,the ritual useless, and the tribal storylost in an alien tale.Only the grass..
© Judith Wright
South Of My Days
South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,rises that tableland, high delicate outlineof bony slopes wincing under the winter,low trees..
© Judith Wright
Late Spring
The moon drained white by daylifts from the hillwhere the old pear-tree fallen in stormsprings up in blossom still.Women believe in the moon:this..
© Judith Wright
The Surfer
He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea;climbed through, slid under those long banks offoam--(hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face..
© Judith Wright
Failure Of Communion
What is the space between,enclosing us in oneunited person, yetdividing each alone.Frail bridges cross from eyeto eye, from flesh to flesh,from word..
© Judith Wright
Magpies
Along the road the magpies walkwith hands in pockets, left and right.They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.In their well-fitted black and..
© Judith Wright
Woman To Man
The eyeless labourer in the night,the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,builds for its resurrection day---silent and swift and deep from sightforesees..
© Judith Wright
Legend
The blacksmith's boy went out with a rifleand a black dog running behind.Cobwebs snatched at his feet,rivers hindered him,thorn branches caught at..
© Judith Wright
Five Senses
Now my five sensesgather into a meaningall acts, all presences;and as a lily gathersthe elements together,in me this dark and shining,that stillness..
© Judith Wright
The Old Prison
The rows of cells are unroofed,a flute for the wind's mouth,who comes with a breath of icefrom the blue caves of the south.O dark and fierce day:the..
© Judith Wright
Request To A Year
If the year is meditating a suitable gift,I should like it to be the attitudeof my great- great- grandmother,legendary devotee of the arts,who having..
© Judith Wright
Estuary
To Rex HobcroftWind crosshatches shallow water.Paddocks rest in the sea's arm.Swamphens race through spiky grass.A wire fence leans, a crazy..
© Gwen Harwood
Critic's Nightwatch
Once more he tried, before he slept,to rule his ranks of words. They brokefrom his planned choir, lolled, slouched and kepttheir tone, their pitch..
© Gwen Harwood
'Thought Is Surrounded By A Halo'
Show me the order of the world,the hard-edge light of this-is-soprior to all experienceand common to both world and thought,no model, but the truth..
© Gwen Harwood
Daybreak
The snails brush silver. Critic crowpoints his unpleasant beak, and lances.Resumes his treetop, darts belowhis acid-bright, corrosive glances.In the..
© Gwen Harwood
Dichterliebe
So hungry-sensitive that hecraves day and night the pap of praise,he'll ease his gripes or fingerpaintin heartsblood on a public page.The ordinary..
© Gwen Harwood
The Glass Jar
To Vivian SmithA child one summer's evening soakeda glass jar in the reeling sunhoping to keep, when day was doneand all the sun's disciples..
© Gwen Harwood
The Wound
The tenth day, and they givemy mirror back. Who knowshow to drink pain, and live?I look, and the glass showsthe truth, fine as a hair,of the..
© Gwen Harwood
Triste, Triste
In the space between love and sleepwhen heart mourns in its prisoneyes against shoulder keeptheir blood-black curtains tight.Body rolls back like a..
© Gwen Harwood
Last Meeting
Shadows grazing eastward meltfrom their vast sun-driven flocksinto consubstantial dusk.A snow wind flosses the bleak rocks,strips from the gums their..
© Gwen Harwood
Anniversary
So the light falls, and so it fellon branched leaved with flocking birds.Loght stole a citys weight to swellthe coloured lofe of stone. Your..
© Gwen Harwood
Barn Owl
Daybreak: the household slept.I rose, blessed by the sun.A horny fiend, I creptout with my father's gun.Let him dream of a childobedient..
© Gwen Harwood
In The Park
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.A third draws aimless patterns in the dirtSomeone she..
© Gwen Harwood
Epitaph on General Gordon
WARRIOR of God, man's friend, and tyrant's foeNow somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan,Thou livest in all hearts, for all men knowThis earth has..
© Gwen Harwood