A walk beneath a blazing Austral sun,
Through poor, thin scrub, 'mid charred and ring-barked trees,
Almost too bare to rustle in the breeze
Which o'er the mountain tops will weep anon.
And now there bursts mine awestruck gaze upon
The mighty valley, bathed in sleeping seas
Of forest, with vast caryatides
Of rugged sandstone precipice, whereon
Its tree-clad sides do rest. A blue haze spreads
Like far, faint peat-reek from a Highland cot,
A light wind blows to meet me from the heads,
Until I dream that I am standing, not
Upon a mountain-gorge, but on a bay,
With coves and headlands stretching far away.
Well might the famous naturalist* exclaim
That this was Sydney Harbour moved inland,
When he beheld the giant gorge expand
With capes of huge outstanding cliffs to frame
And separate the deep-sunk coves-the same
As our great port, had there but been a strand
Beneath their feet, of shimmering, silvery sand,
And deep blue water where the forest came.
What stranger freak hath Nature played than this?
To mould two masterpieces on one plan,
And set the one among the fastnesses
Of mountains, scarce accessible to man;
But leave the other where the sea breeze brings
The commerce of the nations on its wings,
- Charles Darwin on his Naturalist's Voyage.
This work is in the public domain in Australia because it was created in Australia and the term of copyright has expired.
See Australian Copyright Council - Duration of Copyright (January 2019).
This work is also in the public domain in the United States because it was in the public domain in Australia in 1996, and no copyright was registered in the U.S. (This is the combined effect of Australia having joined the Berne Convention in 1928, and of 17 USC 104A with its critical date of January 1, 1996.)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.
The author died in 1947, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.