Return.

I'm aweary, I'm aweary of these
white cliffs dashing spray,
Of the Channel's hooting syrens as
the blind ships feel their way.
Here my spirit sinks to flatness with
the flatness of the town,
While my thoughts of sunlit paddocks
slinting up to bush-clad crown.
And though western lanes are leafy
and the wild flower lingers still,
Yet I yearn for mine own country,
where far mountains top the hill,
As I shiver in the east wind where the
summer's warmth is brief,
Where the glory of the autumn is the
falling of the leaf.
Blithe I'll leave the fields that bore
me, leave the shores so often
sung,
And I'll turn me home in gladness to
the land that's always young,
Where a glinting gold betrays a stolen
riot of the gorse
As the greenness of the hillside drops
to greener gully's course,
Where the papa stream runs brownly
and the grey roads turn and
twist,
Winding far from golden daylight into
evening's greyer mist.
Yes, I'll turn me home in gladness to
the land that's never bare,
Where the glory of the autumn is the
greenness everywhere.

—Edith Geddes.

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