Having loved poetry all my life I only yesterday discovered the poet Walter J. Turner – and yet I seem to have known his most famous poem, Romance, all my life! Although he lived most of his life in England, he was born in Australia in 1884… here is a poem I have only just met… wonderful…
In Time Like Glass
In Time like glass the stars are set,
And seeming-fluttering butterflies
Are fixed fast in time’s glass net
With mountains and with maids’ bright eyes.
And seeming-fluttering butterflies
Are fixed fast in time’s glass net
With mountains and with maids’ bright eyes.
Above the cold Cordilleras hung
The winged eagle and the Moon:
The gold, snow-throated orchid sprung
From gloom where peers the dark baboon:
The Himalayas’ white, rapt brown;
The jewel-eyed bear that threads their caves;
The lush plains’ lowing herds of cows;
The Shadow entering human graves:
All these like stars in Time are set,
They vanish but can never pass;
The sun that with them fades is yet
Fast-fixed as they in Time like glass.
Lois Elsden 