The Colours Of Light

This is not easy to understand For you that come from a distant land Where all thecolours are low in pitch - Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich, Where autumn's flaming and summer's green - Here is a beauty you have not seen. All is pitched in a higher key, Lilac, topaz, and ivory, Palest jade-green and pale clear blue Like aquamarines that the sun shines through, Golds and silvers, we have at will - Silver and gold on each plain and hill, Silver-green of the myall leaves, Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves, Silver rivers that silent slide, Golden sands by the water-side, Golden wattle, and golden broom, Silver stars of the rosewood bloom; Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade: Opal colours that glow and fade; On the gold of the upland grass Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass; Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist; Hills of tenuous amethyst. . . Oft the colours are pitched so high The deepest note is the cobalt sky; We have to wait till the sunset comes For shades that feel like the beat of drums - Or like organ notes in their rise and fall - Purple and orange and cardinal, Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . . Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink; Blue-gums, tall at the clearing's brink; Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope Dappled with delicate heliotrope; Grey of the twisted mulga-roots; Golden-bronze of the budding shoots; Tints of the lichens that cling and spread, Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . . Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane; Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird's train; Cream of the plover; grey of the dove - These are the hues of the land I love.