By Lydia M. D. O'Neil
LORD, I have laboured for years upon years;
I've had my full portion of trouble, and tears.
Now- may I rest for an hour or so
Up at Spring Creek, where the raspberries grow?
Lord, I am weary in body and brain;
Let me turn to Apollo the Healer again.
Let me feel his warm fingers caressing my cheek,
As I rest in the grasses that girdle Spring Creek.
A mile from the border and two from the town,
I know where a pathway runs over and down,
To a rift in the hills that no other may know
Save I, and the hawk, and the wandering crow.
Let me lie lazy beside that soft stream,
While yet there is time to be lazy and dream,
Watching the pictures that form in the sky,
As the cloud-mists assemble, and alter, and die.
Let me remember all lovely things yet:
And let me forget what I want to forget —
Years barren and bitter, days dreary and bleak— '?
Let the memory pass like the winds at Spring Creek.
Walls and foundations of jasper and glass —
Ay, it were lovely, bat Lord, let it pass.
If I may but rest for an hour or so,
Up at Spring Creek, where the raspberries grow.
Lydia O'Neil Courier Mail, 17 April 1937, p23