Where the pelican builds its nest
Posted December 26th, 2008 by Murray By Moonlight
Filed under: Things That Go Bump
I thought I’d share a poem I was asked to read at my Father’s funeral service on Christmas Eve, this year.
It’s called Where the pelican builds its nest, by Mary Hannay Foott.
It speaks very much of my Father’s lifelong love of Australian poetry, and also gently tugs at a deep sense of longing and perhaps also of regret.
Where the pelican builds its nest
by Mary Hannay Foott
The horses were ready, the rails were down,
But the riders lingered still —
One had a parting word to say,
And one had his pipe to fill.Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,
And one with a grief unguessed.
"We are going," they said, as they rode away —
"Where the pelican builds her nest!"They had told us of pastures wide and green,
To be sought past the sunset’s glow;
Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;
And gold ‘neath the river’s flow.And thirst and hunger were banished words
When they spoke of that unknown West;
No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,
Where the pelican builds her nest!The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep
When we watched them crossing there;
The rains have replenished it thrice since then,
And thrice has the rock lain bare.But the waters of Hope have flowed and fled,
And never from blue hill’s breast
Come back — by the sun and the sands devoured —
Where the pelican builds her nest.
