A MIDSUMMER NOON IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST <br /> <br />Not a bird disturbs the air! <br />There is quiet everywhere; <br />Over plains and over woods <br />What a mighty stillness broods. <br /> <br />Even the grasshoppers keep <br />[All the birds and insects keep] <br />Where the coolest shadows sleep; <br />Even the busy ants are found <br />Resting in their pebbled mound; <br />Even the locust clingeth now <br />In silence to the barky bough: <br />And over hills and over plains <br />Quiet, vast and slumbrous, reigns. <br /> <br />Only there's a drowsy humming <br />From yon warm lagoon slow coming: <br />'Tis the dragon-hornet - see! <br />All bedaubed resplendently <br />With yellow on a tawny ground - <br />Each rich spot nor square nor round, <br />But rudely heart-shaped, as it were <br />The blurred and hasty impress there, <br />Of vermeil-crusted seal <br />Dusted o'er with golden meal: <br />Only there's a droning where <br />Yon bright beetle gleams the air - <br />Gleams it in its droning flight <br />[Tracks it in its gleaming flight] <br />With a slanting track of light, <br />Till rising in the sunshine higher, <br />[Rising in the sunshine higher,] <br />Its shards flame out like gems on fire. <br />[Till its shards flame out like fire.] <br /> <br />Every other thing is still, <br />Save the ever wakeful rill, <br />Whose cool murmur only throws <br />A cooler comfort round Repose; <br />Or some ripple in the sea <br />Of leafy boughs, where, lazily, <br />Tired Summer, in her forest bower <br />Turning with the noontide hour, <br />Heaves a slumbrous breath, ere she <br />Once more slumbers peacefully. <br /> <br />0 'tis easeful here to lie <br />Hidden from Noon's scorching eye, <br />In this grassy cool recess <br />Musing thus of Quietness. <br /> <br />two versions of this poem have been located. The relevant changes are included in the text in square brackets, i.e. "[...]". <br /><br /><br />Charles Harpur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-midsummer-noon-in-the-australian-forest/
