The Dream is Deep (Shaw Neilson)

Just something I just felt like sharing…


Sing me the song that never dies,
  Of little Love blinded and bold,
Blossoms unblemished and blue skies
  And the green going into gold.

All the uproarious pipes we played,
  Frenzy and Folly, Fire and Joy,
Carols we caught up for a maid
  And ballads boisterous for a boy.

I hear the blended bells and bands,
  The fiddlers fiddling on the green,
The clapping of a thousand hands,
  The trembling of a tambourine.

O happy hours, run kindly slow;
  Black lies the night, nauseous and grim.
Who knoweth what a man may know?
  No – all he hath shall die with him. (*)

The man God made he dreameth deep,
  Down in his heart. High in the air
His Heaven lies. How shall he sleep?
  He had a dream, the dream was fair.

* Some early copy has the last line of the 4th stanza reading as:
Not all he hath shall die with him.


Shaw Neilson and Will Olgivie are some of my favorite Australian poets. I don’t know why this one has been racing around in my head this week.