More than 20 years ago, Bob Bolton posted this sentimental poem set to music by John Lahey. HERBERT HOOVER'S LOVE SONG (H.Hoover/J.Lahey) Do you ever dream, my sweetheart, of a twilight long ago Of a park in old Kalgoorlie, where the bougainvilleas grow Where the moonbeams on the pathways trace a shimmering brocade And the overhanging peppers form a lovers'promenade? Where in soft cascades of cadence from a garden close at hand Came the murmurous, mellow music of a sweet, orchestral band Years have flown since then, my sweetheart, fleet as orchard blooms in May But the hour that fills my dreaming, was it only yesterday? Stood we two a space in silence, while the summer sun slipped down And the grey dove dusk, with drooping pinions, wrapt the mining town Then you raised your tender glances darkly, dreamily to mine And my pulses clashed like symbols in a rhapsody divine And the pent-up fires of longing loosed their prison's weak control And in wild, hot words came rushing from my burning soul Wild hot words that spoke of passion, hitherto but half expressed And I clasped you close, my sweetheart, kissed you, strained you to my breast While the starlight-spangled heavens rolled around us where we stood And a tide of bliss kept surging through the current of our blood And I spent my soul in kisses, crushed upon your scarlet mouth Oh! My red-lipped, sunbrowned sweetheart, dark-eyed daughter of the south It was well that fate should part us, it was well my path should lead Back to slopes of high endeavour, aye, and was it well, indeed You have wed some southern squatter, learned long since his every whim Soothed his sorrows, borne his troubles, sung your sweetest songs for him I have fought my fight and triumphed, on the map I've writ my name But I prize one hour of loving, more than fifty years of fame It was but a summer madness that possessed us, men will hold And the yellow moon bewitched me with its wizardry of gold Let them say it, dear, but oft-times in the dusk I close my eyes And in dreams drift back to where the stars rain splendour from the skies To a park in far Kalgoorlie, where the golden wattles grow Where you kissed me in the twilight of a summer long ago And I clasp you close, my sweetheart, while each throbbing pulse is thrilled By a low and mournful music that shall never more be stilled Note from p10 'Great Australian Folk Songs, John Lahey, Hill of Content Publishing Co, Melbourne, 1965. These remarkable verses are attributed to the late Herbert Hoover, President of the United States between 1929 and 1932. Hoover first came to the West Australian goldfields as a 23-year-old mining engineer in 1897, and he lived in Australia off and on for the next ten years. The goldfields historian, the late Arthur Reid, who knew Hoover, preserved the verses in his book 'Those Were the Days'. He said Hoover wrote them to a Kalgoorlie barmaid, years after he returned to the United States. Several West Australians sing different tunes, but their words are substantially the same. The tune here is my own adaptation. Youtube clip The American election looms. As a Republican, I wonder what Hoover would have thought of Trump. --Stewie.
|