Old Melbourne Memories/Sunset in the South
SUNSET IN THE SOUTH
It is Autumn, it is sunset, magic shower of tint and hue;
All the west is hung with banners, white with golden, crimson, blue;
Drooping folds! far floating, mingling, falling on the river's face;
Upturned, placid, silver-mirrored, gazing into endless space.
Faint the breath of eve, low-sighing for bright summer's fading charms;
Woodland cries are echoing, chiming with the sounds from distant farms;
And the stubble fires are gleaming red athwart the wood's deep shade,
While the marsh mist, slowly rising, shrouds the greenery of the glade.
Redly still the day is dying, as if o'er the desert waste,
And we pictured camels, Arabs, and the solemn outline traced
Of a pillared lonely Fane, clear against the crimson rim,
Voiceless, but of empire telling, and the lore of ages dim.
Low the deep voice of the ocean, whispering to the silent strand;
Gleam the stars, in silver ripples; stretches broad the milk-white sand;
And a long, low bark is lying underneath the island shore
Weird and dream-like, darksome, soundless, spell-struck now, and evermore.
Deeper, darker fall the shadows, and the charmed colours wane,
Fading, as the fay-gold changes into earth and dross again,
Wildfowl stream in swaying files landward to the marshy plain;
Louder sound the forest voices and the deep tones of the main.