Foreword
I have told you, Ruth, in plain words
The pleasures of my occupation
In the rhythms of the stout spade
The lawn-mower and the constant hoe.
But when I listen sometimes to these persistent winds
Moaning remotely among the resonant bluegums,
Tossing their dark boughs towards this sheer sky –
I would that it had been given me
To be the maker of a small melody
Fit to be chanted by one of Eve’s daughters
Throwing her first seed into a rough furrow
Or resting in the shadow of a sycamore
Playing upon an uncouth instrument.
From a Garden in the Antipodes (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1929)
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