Frank Samuel Williamson
Frank Samuel Williamson Poems
Where the dreaming Tiber wanders by the haunted Appian Way,
Lo! the nightingale is uttering a sorrow-burdened lay
...
Rapunzel! O Rapunzel! you spread your golden hair,
You lured me to the Bushland, and took me in the snare
...
There's a tumult in the distance, and a warsong in the air,
Where the foemen in their galleys, for another fight prepare,
For they whisper in the country, and they noise it in the town,
...
Dear flag! Old flag! O, the blue and white,
Floating in the years long gone,
How our pulses beat,
...
Long I've watched the eagle soaring, and the sun his colours pouring,
Till they fill the vale below me, as though with purple wine;
...
His comrades bore him to the grave,
In column moving slow,
With pomp their faithful subjects gave
To monarchs long ago.
...
Lulled by song of bird, and wind, melodies of seas;
Waiting for the white man's foot, through the centuries,
Pent in solitudes enchanted, dreamed the mighty trees.
...
When Autumn, mother of the Spring,
Her days of waiting, numbering,
Walks musing in my garden ways,
...
A breeze comes past me singing, and a white cloud slow is swinging,
Like a poppy that is parting from a slender hidden stem.
...
Grey ashes of a crimson flower
Beneath the cedar shed,
The fire, that bloomed in Night's dark bower,
No more may raise its head.
...
Englisg thrush within my garden from thy pine tree minaret,
Summoning the wandering Faithful while the crimson lingers
...
I seemed a waste of weary land,
Lone, grey, forsaken by the sea,
The keen sun smote my naked sand,
The sultry wind made sport of me.
...
Why should the mist rise from the stream.
A lyric on its bars!
And steal from every wave the gleam,
Begot by lover stars.
...
Dew upon the robin as he lilts there, on the thorn,
Jewel on a scarlet breast a fleeting moment worn,
And suddenly by fairy hands into blue heaven drawn.
...
I
She comes as comes the summer night,
Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,
To heal the eyes hurt by the light
Flung by Day's brandish'd scimitars.
...
The opal-sandalled Morn and Spring
Go singing hand in hand,
Their sister voices sweetly ring
Across a perfumed land;
...
Music makes for beauty moan,
For the lovely Spring o'erthrown.
For the Capeweed glory set,
And the mouldered violet.
...
The golden fruitage drooping nigh
Still rustles quickly down,
Though years steal lustre from the eye,
And Fate begins to frown.
...
Where is Marie? Where is Rose?
Ah! the robber years!
Suddenly love's blossom goes,
Fate's a wind that sears.
...
Frank Samuel Williamson Biography
Frank Samuel Williamson (19 January 1865 – 6 February 1936) was an Australian poet. Williamson was born in Melbourne and educated at Scotch College, Melbourne. He was a secondary school teacher in Melbourne and Sydney, but occasional bouts of intemperance made it difficult for him to keep his positions. He had the reputation of being an excellent master, especially in English. In later years he was attached to the education department of Victoria and taught in a large number of small country schools. As a young man Williamson had written verse of small merit, but in middle life for a short period he appears to have been inspired by the scenery of his native country to do better work which he polished with great care. In 1912 his one volume of poems, Purple and Gold, appeared; this first edition had several misprints, but these were corrected in a second and enlarged edition published in 1940 with a portrait. Some of the poems in this volume have the true touch and have been deservedly included in several anthologies of Australian verse. He retired from the education department at 65 and had been granted a Commonwealth literary pension, he had some good friends, and he spent the rest of his life in Melbourne. Beyond a few newspaper articles and an occasional set of verses Williamson appears to have done no other writing. He died at the Melbourne hospital on 6 February 1936 and was unmarried.)
The Best Poem Of Frank Samuel Williamson
The Magpie's Song
Where the dreaming Tiber wanders by the haunted Appian Way,
Lo! the nightingale is uttering a sorrow-burdened lay;
While the olive trees are shaking, and the cypress boughs are stirred:
Palpitates the moon's white bosom to the sorrow of the bird,
Sobbing, sobbing, sobbing; yet a sweeter song I know:
'Tis the magpie's windblown music where the Gippsland rivers flow.
O, I love to be by Bindi, where the fragrant pastures are,
And the Tambo to his bosom takes the trembling Evening Star—
Just to hear the magpie's warble in the bluegums on the hill,
When the frail green flower of twilight in the sky is lingering still,
Calling, calling, calling to the abdicating day:
O, they fill my heart with music as I loiter on my way.
O, the windy morn of Matlock, when the last snow-wreath had gone,
And the blackwoods robed by tardy Spring with starlike beauty shone;
When the lory showed his crimson to the golden blossom spread,
And the Goulburn's grey-green mirror showed the loving colours wed:
Chiming, chiming, chiming in the pauses of the gale,
How the magpies' notes came ringing down the mountain, o'er the vale.
O, the noon beside the ocean, when the spring tide, landward set,
Cast ashore the loosened silver from the waves of violet,
As the seagod sang a lovesong and the sheoak answer made,
Came the magpie's carol wafted down the piny colonnade,
Trolling, trolling, trolling in a nuptial melody,
As it floated from the moaning pine to charm the singing sea.
And the dark hour in the city, when my Love had silent flown,
Nesting in some far-off valley, to the seraphs only known,
When the violet had no odour and the rose no purple bloom,
And the grey-winged vulture, Sorrow, came rustling through the gloom,
Crooning, crooning, crooning on the swaying garden bough:
O, the song of hope you uttered then my heart is trilling now.
Voice of happy shepherd chanting by a stream in Arcady,
Seems thy song this blue-eyed morning over lilac borne to me;
In his arms again Joy takes me, Hope with dimpling cheek appears,
And my life seems one long lovely vale where grow the rosy years:
Lilting, lilting, lilting; when I slumber at the last
Let your music in the joyous wind be ever wandering past.
Frank Samuel Williamson Comments
Delivering Poems Around The World
Poems are the property of their respective owners. All information has been reproduced here for educational and informational purposes to benefit site visitors, and is provided at no charge...
5/31/2026 8:55:45 PM # 1.0.0
