John Shaw Neilson Poems

On the blue plains in wintry days
The stately birds move in the dance.
Keen eyes have they, and quaint old ways
On the blue plains in wintry days.
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THE STARS are pale.
Old is the Night, his case is grievous,
His strength doth fail.
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Shyly the silver-hatted mushrooms make
Soft entrance through,
And undelivered lovers, half awake,
Hear noises in the dew
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Let your song be delicate.
The skies declare
No war — the eyes of lovers
Wake everywhere.
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YOU, AND YELLOW AIR by John Shaw Neilson
I dream of an old kissing-time
And the flowered follies there;
In the dim place of cherry-trees,
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Fear it has faded and the night:
The bells all peal the hour of nine:
The schoolgirls hastening through the light
Touch the unknowable Divine.
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ALL singers have shadows
That follow like fears,
But I know a singer
Who never saw tears;
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Three women walked upon a road,
And the first said airily,
“Of all the trees in all the world
Which is the loving tree?”
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Ragged, unheeded, stooping, meanly shod,
The poor pass to the pond: not far away
The spires go up to God.
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The bird is my neighbour, a whimsical fellow and dim;
There is in the lake a nobility falling on him.
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