The Song and the Sigh
The creek went down with a broken song, ‘Neath the sheoaks high; The waters carried the song along, And the oaks a sigh. The song and the sigh went winding by, Went winding down; Circling the foot of the mountain high, And the hillside brown. They were hushed in the swamp of the Dead Man’s Crime, Where the curlews cried; But they reached the river the self-same time, And there they died. And the creek of life goes winding on, Wandering by; And bears for ever, its course upon, A song and a sigh.
The Song and the Sigh - meaning Summary
Song and Sigh of Life
Lawson uses the image of a creek carrying a "song" and a "sigh" to suggest how moments of joy and sorrow travel together through a landscape and human life. The poem traces their movement from sheoaks and oaks, through a swamp ominously named the Dead Man’s Crime, to a river where they perish, then returns to the creek’s ongoing course. It implies continuity amid transience.
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