Friday Australian poem #9: Charles Harpur (1813 – 1868)

 

A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest

Charles Harpur

 

HARPUR, CHARLES (1813-1868), poet and critic, was born on 23 January 1813, at Windsor on the Hawkesbury, the third child and second son of Joseph Harpur, government schoolmaster and parish clerk, and his wife Sarah, née Chidley. Both parents had been transported; his father, a native of Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, arrived in Sydney Cove in 1800 and his mother, from Somerset, in 1806. — From The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry by J. Normington-Rawling, linked above.

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NOT a sound disturbs the air, There is quiet everywhere; Over plains and over woods What a mighty stillness broods! All the birds and insects keep Where the coolest shadows sleep; Even the busy ants are found Resting in their pebbled mound; Even the locust clingeth now Silent to the barky bough: Over hills and over plains Quiet, vast and slumbrous, reigns. Only there’s a drowsy humming From yon warm lagoon slow coming: ’Tis the dragon-hornet—see! All bedaubed resplendently, Yellow on a tawny ground— Each rich spot nor square nor round, Rudely heart-shaped, as it were The blurred and hasty impress there Of a vermeil-crusted seal Dusted o’er with golden meal. Only there’s a droning where Yon bright beetle shines in air, Tacks it in its gleaming flight With a slanting beam of light, Rising in the sunshine higher, Till its shards flame out like fire. Every other thing is still, Save the ever-wakeful rill, Whose cool murmur only throws Cooler comfort round repose; Or some ripple in the sea Of leafy boughs, where, lazily, Tired summer, in her bower Turning with the noontide hour, Heaves a slumbrous breath ere she Once more slumbers peacefully. O ’tis easeful here to lie Hidden from noon’s scorching eye, In the grassy cool recess Musing thus of quietness.