Twenty-Five Songs in Five Sets of Five Each: Set III , opus 69

The stillness of the Austral noon
Is broken by no single sound --
No lizards even on the ground
Rustle amongst dry leaves -- no tune
The lyre-bird sings -- yet hush! I hear
A soft bell tolling, silvery clear!
    Low soft aerial chimes, unknown
    Save 'mid these silences alone.

A sky of whirling flakes of foam,
A rushing world of dazzling blue.
One moment, the sky looms in view---
The next, a crash in its curved dome,
A tumult indescribable,
And eyes dazed with the miracle.
    Here breaks by circling day and night
In thunder the sea's boundless might.

   (Gippsland)
The feathery fern-trees make a screen
Where through the sunglare cannot pass --
Fern, gum, and lofty sassafras:
The fronds sweep over, palely green,
And underneath are orchids curl'd
Adream through this cool shadow-world;
    A fragrant greenness -- like the noon
    Of lime-tree in an English June.

The long lagoons lie white and still
Beneath the great round Austral moon:
The sudden dawn will waken soon
With many a delicious thrill:
Between this death and life the cries,
Of black swans ring through silent skie --
    And the long wash of the slow stream
    Moves as in sleep some bodeful dream.

O'er sandy tracts the shea-oak trees
Droop their long wavy grey-green trails:
And inland wandering moans and wails
The long blast of the ocean-breeze:
Like loose strings of a viol or harp
These answering sound -- now low, now sharp
    And keen, a melancholy strain:
    A death song o'er the mournful plain.