Poem

Heritage

Though on the day your hard blue eyes met mine

            I did not know I had a heart to keep,

All the dead women in my soul

            Stirred in their shrouded sleep.

There were strange pulses beating in my throat,

            I had no thought of love: I was a child:

But the dead lovers in my soul

            Awoke and flushed and smiled;

And it was years before I understood

            Why I had been so happy at your side

With the dead women in my soul

            Teaching me what to hide.

For it was not the springtime that had come,

            Only on strong flower thrusting through the snows,

But the dead women in my soul

            Knew all that summer knows.

Dorothea Mackellar, New Book of Australian Verse, 1986