The Seven Seas

Midland furze afire —
Buy my English posies,
And I'll sell your hearts' desire!

Buy my English posies! —
You that scorn the may
Won't you greet a friend from home
Half the world away?
Green against the draggled drift,
Faint and frail and first —
Buy my Northern blood-root
And I'll know where you were nursed!
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me,"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds o' Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

Buy my English posies! —
Here's to match your need.
Buy a tuft of royal heath,
Buy a bunch of weed
White as sand of Muysenberg
Spun before the gale —
Buy my heath and lilies
And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie —
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky —
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

Buy my English posies! —
You that will not turn,
Buy my hot-wood clematis,
Buy a frond o' fern
Gathered where the Erskine leaps
Down the road to Lorne —
Buy my Christmas creeper
And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin —
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn —
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

Buy my English posies! —
Here's your choice unsold!
Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
Buy the kowhai's gold
Flung for gift on Taupo's face
Sign that spring is come —
Buy my clinging myrtle
And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine —
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine —
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

Buy my English posies!
Ye that have your own
Buy them for a brother's sake
Overseas, alone.
Weed ye trample underfoot
Floods his heart abrim —
Bird ye never heeded,
Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas.
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land —
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand!

THE LAST RHYME OF TRUE THOMAS

The King has called for priest and cup,
The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
That guards the gates o' Faerie.

'Twas bent beneath and blue above,
Their eyes were held that they might not see
The kine that grazed between the knowes,
Oh, they were the Queens o' Faerie!

"Now cease your song," the King he said,
"Oh, cease your song and get you dight
To vow your vow and watch your arms,
For I will dub you a belted knight.

"For I will give you a horse o' pride,
Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire;
Wi' keep and tail and seizin and law,
And land to hold at your desire."

True Thomas smiled above his harp,
And turned his face to the naked sky,
Where, blown before the wastrel wind,
The thistle-down she floated by.