George Gordon McCrae

George Gordon McCrae Poems

George Gordon McCrae Biography

George Gordon McCrae was an Australian poet. Early life McCrae was born in Leith, Scotland; his father was Andrew Murison McCrae, a writer; his mother was Georgiana McCrae, a painter. George attended a preparatory school in London, and later received lessons from his mother. Georgiana and her four sons emigrated to Melbourne in 1841 following her husband who emigrated in 1839. Career After a few years as a surveyor, McCrae joined the Victorian Government service, eventually becoming Deputy Registrar-General, and also a prominent figure in literary circles. Most of his leisure time was spent in writing. His first published work was Two Old Men's Tales of Love and War (London, 1865). His son Hugh McCrae also a poet, produced a volume of memoirs (My Father and My Father's Friends) about George and his association with such literary figures as Henry Kendall, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Richard Henry Horne and Marcus Clarke. George McCrae wrote novels, stories, poetry, and travel sketches, and illustrated books. After his retirement, unpublished manuscripts entitled 'Reminiscences—Experiences not Exploits' contain detailed descriptions of events from his youth and present a record of the early European part of Melbourne country-side. Late life McCrae died 15 August 1927 at Hawthorn in Melbourne, survived by four of his six children, including Dorothy Frances Perry, also an author.)

The Best Poem Of George Gordon McCrae

The Silence Of The Bush

There’s that in our lone Bush, I know not what,
Which ’genders silence; I’ve all that to learn.
Here, there and everywhere, to loose the knot
That binds the sheaf-band of the taciturn;
It may be where it freezes; where ’tis hot,
Or streams lie silent in the nymph’s cool urn;
In forest depths, or where the lone plain stretches
Sans other roof than sky, o’er heat-worn wretches.

Or ’mid the gully’s fern and sassafras,
Where all is cool green glooms and early dusk,
With silvern foliage in delicious mass
As, sunwards, feel their way the spires of musk;
Or where those solemn branches crossing, pass
And wave o’er-head their pennon’d fragrant husk;
Or by the river’s marge or broad gumbower
With lily-pads a-swim and floating flower.

Here might one read the Silence of Fatigue,
And here again of Rest and Admiration.
Where gentle hands are clasped in wordless league,
And eyes meet eyes in eloquent oration,
Or fingers wreathed, accomplish mute intrigue,
Or tell by signs of ardent adoration,
Or past all these, ’neath burning rocks and bare,
The deep and death-like Silence of Despair.

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