The collection contains 31 poems, most of which had been previously published in Australian literary publications such as The Bulletin, Hermes, Meanjin, Southerly and various original poetry anthologies.[2]
Contents
"Invocation"
"Black Swans : 1946-1955"
"At Dawn"
"Jesus"
"To a Dead Bird of Paradise"
"Mating Swans"
"Tune for Swans"
"Memorial (to Some residents of New Guinea)"
"Sequence"
"Canticle"
"To the Holy Spirit"
"Nativity"
"An Art of Poetry"
"Palm"
"Prefiguration"
"New Guinea"
"Meditation (from Hugo von Hofmannsthal)"
"The Royal Fireworks"
"Prologue"
"The Middle of Life (from Friedrich Holderlin)"
"Vespers"
"Late Winter"
"Celebration of Divine Love"
"To Any Poet"
"A Leaf of Sage"
"The Hero and the Hydra"
"Prometheus : A Secular Masque"
"The Death of Chiron"
"The Ascent of Heracles"
"The Tomb of Heracles"
"A Letter to John Dryden"
Critical reception
Writing in The Bulletin a reviewer noted McAuley's "shrewd, nuggety plainness of style" and the poet being "more often digged than solemn."[3]
Ian Mair, in The Age, thought of the poet that the "irony and hard glitter that once he had have now gone" cloncluding that McAuley is best "when he is a romantic."[4]