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Thought.

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Author of work:
Robert Crawford
How mystical is thought! We do but think,Be it of heaven or hell, and we are there!Such feet has phantasy, more fleet than light,We flash ourselves away where'er we will,And in a wink return we know not how.It is our Genius haply makes it all —The vision of the things we seem to see,Which yet are not, or were not, had we notThe miracle of thought within us still,Like Love's begetting, making all things new,And still unmaking all we have done with;So with creative joy as in a dreamFolding us in ourselves, as if it were,Who are still one with all that we have made,Revisioning the mystic entitiesAs each one reads as with undying eyesThe hyacinthine wonder of the soul,As if alone in an enchanted isleOn the meridian of his own desire.

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Robert Crawford
204 works
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About the poet

Robert Crawford was an Australian poet.

Crawford was born in Doonside, New South Wales, the son of Robert Crawford senior, and was educated at The King's School, Parramatta, and the University of Sydney. Crawford settled on a farm as his forefathers had done, but not being successful, became a clerk in Sydney and afterwards had a typewriting business. Some of Crawford's poems were published in The Bulletin and other periodicals. Crawford is believed to have been the first prize-winning haiku poet published in Australia, in The Bulletin on 12 August 1899. In 1904 a small collection, Lyric Moods:Various Verses, was published in Sydney. An enlarged edition was later published in Melbourne retitled simply Lyric Moods (1909). In 1921 another volume, Leafy Bliss, was published, and an enlarged edition appeared three years later. Crawford died suddenly at Lindfield, Sydney, on 13 January 1930.

Not a great deal is known about Crawford; he was short of stature, poetical in spirit. He mixed little in literary circles and seems to be forgotten a few years after his death. The statement that he was educated at The King's School originally appeared in the Bookfellow, and may have come direct from Crawford. If so there is no reason to doubt it, yet in the records of The King's School of his period the only R. Crawford is listed as Richard Crawford. It was also not possible to identify him positively with the Robert James G. W. Crawford who graduated B.A. at the University of Sydney in 1912, when the poet was about 44 years of age. Crawford is represented in some of the anthologies, and A. G. Stephens thought highly of his work. His work has a delicate charm and, though at times one fears it will not rise above merely pretty verse, in some of his quatrains and lyrics Crawford does succeed in writing poetry of importance. Perhaps, as Stephens once suggested, he may be better appreciated in the 21st century.

ity of Sydney. Crawford settled on a farm as his forefathers had done, but not being successful, bec
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