The Well-Beloved 



HE Christmas bells are here 

 again in their ruddy beauty. 

 Out on the uplands, amongst 

 the grey rocks and dry sand, 

 they rear their grey clusters 

 at the end of slender stalks. 

 In marshy places, where the 

 tall red gums spread shady 

 branches casting the earth 

 beneath them into a soft 

 gloom, the bells, trying to 

 reach the sun, lift their 

 heads on stems quite four 



feet long, which wave and sway above the bead fern 

 and the harsh green cutty grass. But those whose red 

 is deepest, and whose gold is purest, grow in the dry sand 

 amongst the rocks. The short suckers of the grey gums, with 

 their broad purple and silver leaves, are their only shelter; all 

 around them are burnt and blackened branches of stunted 

 banksias and dwarf apple, which leave dirty marks upon your 

 hands and clothes as you stoop amongst them. From a little 

 way off, the scene looks as dingy and unpromising as any piece 

 of bush could be; the great grey spiders, which have spun 



