While The Billy BoilsSearchO native bush! my heart, amidst thy vastness,Grows full with perfect rest.Around me is a growing sense of darkness,The light wanes in the west.Mists gather slowly in the low, brown marshes,The shadows darken fast,And night, good angel of day-wearied nature,Comes to the world at last.
Bright dews are falling on the murmurous branches,And sinking softly down,Reach the parched petals of the forest blossoms,And forest grasses brown.Thro’ the dim skies the throbbing stars are shining,And in the orient cloudsThe harvest moon a golden track is making,Parting the fleecy shrouds.
Come, Night, with calm upon thy ebon pinions,Sweep restful shadows here;The sun-tanned land is waiting for the darkness,The moon and stars shine clear.
Come night! blot out the dazzle and the glaringOf tired sultry hours;The jackass laughs among the clustered wattles,The bees have left the flowers.
Fresh winds are wandering thro’ the bush recesses,Making low music sweet;The waters, that grow mute among the marshes,Are babbling at my feet.Dark thro’ the deepening blue the swans are flying,Weird harbingers of night;The world is dreaming in delicious languor,With eyes closed from the light.
And I, too, rest amid the peace of Nature,And feel the mystic balmOf slow winds, stealing over sealèd eyelids,Steeping the soul in calm;And listen to the gurgling of the creeklet,The singing of a bird,The summer melodies of subtlest cadence,From myriad branches stirred.
Shine down, familiar stars, upon the silence,In radiance pure and bright,Mingle with moonbeams on the braiding waters,To glorify the night!Gleam through the dusky boughs of this broad wattle,Cradling the nested birds,And stream sweet rays of light upon the distance,Where couch the clustered herds.
The warm crisp grass, and lavish blossoms, pillowThe head that loves to lieWith ear close to the breathing breast of Nature,Beneath her placid sky.Where never may be heard the faintest echoOf life’s persisting pain.Bathed in the balmy stillness of the evening,The sere soul blooms again!