The Consumptive

Leon Gellert 1892 (Australia) – 1977



The stars, the fields, will know him never-
more;
his friends, his trees, the restless swerving sea.
‘Three days to live,’ they said – the kind gave four.
They glide about his bed silently.
‘Twas not the lead of battle nor the shell
the spitting of Maxim’s basiliskine breath –
‘Twas through the falseness of the winds he fell;
the snow’s mock-warmth – a chill. His humble
death
will ne’er be sung in elegy and rhyme,
his passage bloodless was, unstained and still.
It brought no stir; and smiling all the time
He waved his last farewell behind the Hill.
I saw him die with my half-closed eyes,
And closing them I thought of Paradise.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
22

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCBCDEDFEGHGHIJ
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 648
Words 118
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16

Leon Gellert

Leon Maxwell Gellert was an Australian poet. He was born in Walkerville, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. He was subjected to bullying by his father, a Methodist of Hungarian extraction, to which he reacted by learning self-defence at the YMCA. After an education at Adelaide High School, he embarked on a teaching career; first as a student-teacher at Unley High School then at the University of Adelaide's Teacher Training College. He enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces 10th Battalion within weeks of the outbreak of the Great War and sailed for Cairo on 22 October 1914. He landed at Ari Burnu Beach, Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, was wounded and repatriated as medically unfit in June 1916. He attempted to re-enlist but was soon found out. He returned to teaching at Norwood Public School. During periods of inactivity he had been indulging his appetite for writing poetry. Songs of a Campaign was his first published book of verse, and was favourably reviewed by The Bulletin. Angus & Robertson soon published a new edition, illustrated by Norman Lindsay. His second, The Isle of San, also illustrated by Lindsay, was not so well received however. more…

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