A MIDSUMMER NOON IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST 

Not a bird disturbs the air! 
There is quiet everywhere; 
Over plains and over woods 
What a mighty stillness broods. 

Even the grasshoppers keep 
[All the birds and insects keep] 
Where the coolest shadows sleep; 
Even the busy ants are found 
Resting in their pebbled mound; 
Even the locust clingeth now 
In silence to the barky bough: 
And over hills and over plains 
Quiet, vast and slumbrous, reigns. 

Only there's a drowsy humming 
From yon warm lagoon slow coming: 
'Tis the dragon-hornet - see! 
All bedaubed resplendently 
With yellow on a tawny ground - 
Each rich spot nor square nor round, 
But rudely heart-shaped, as it were 
The blurred and hasty impress there, 
Of vermeil-crusted seal 
Dusted o'er with golden meal: 
Only there's a droning where 
Yon bright beetle gleams the air - 
Gleams it in its droning flight 
[Tracks it in its gleaming flight] 
With a slanting track of light, 
Till rising in the sunshine higher, 
[Rising in the sunshine higher,] 
Its shards flame out like gems on fire. 
[Till its shards flame out like fire.] 

Every other thing is still, 
Save the ever wakeful rill, 
Whose cool murmur only throws 
A cooler comfort round Repose; 
Or some ripple in the sea 
Of leafy boughs, where, lazily, 
Tired Summer, in her forest bower 
Turning with the noontide hour, 
Heaves a slumbrous breath, ere she 
Once more slumbers peacefully. 

0 'tis easeful here to lie 
Hidden from Noon's scorching eye, 
In this grassy cool recess 
Musing thus of Quietness. 

two versions of this poem have been located. The relevant changes are included in the text in square brackets, i.e. "[...]".