Gum Trees Poem by Frank Samuel Williamson

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.
Empires blazed like forest fires, then in darkness fell.
Other shores and Eldorados drew the caravel,
Till the sound of English voices broke the slumber spell.

Singing now by fallen Rome, under Grecian sky,
Waving where Thermopylae, saw the heroes die.
Roaming where young Helen trod, in her girlish joy,
Ere the gods in battle joined on the plains of Troy.

Wandering where paladins rode with Charlemagne,
And of their sweet vernal leaves, Beauty's hands are fain;
Beauty that the impress bears of sceptreless Valois,
Gathers from the sapling crests rubied, amber store.

Following the caravans, roving in Algiers,
Gone the legions with their noise, Moorish cavaliers;
Chanting where proud Carthage stood—dust is all her pride.
By the shores that hear your anthem, how the triremes glide.

Whispering by Shelley's tomb, by the grave of Keats,
Listening while the loving wind every song repeats.
Baring limbs whose loveliness dims the sculptor's eye,
Daphnes fearless of the god, morning bringeth nigh.

Careless of the nightingale ever singing near,
Sighing in their loneliness for the voices here,
Call of bell-bird by the stream, magpie hymn at morn;
In a land their fathers knew, not murmuring forlorn.

Trysting ever with the morning, following the sun.
Here if stolen sunlight gild them, there the day begun
Tinging all my dreams with glory, as I hear them sing—
World! to you may we the nation, grace and beauty bring.