Judith Wright

Egrets

memory serene

Egrets - meaning Summary

A Single Luminous Vision

Judith Wright's Egrets describes a moment of sudden, almost miraculous stillness: the speaker encounters a jet-black, mirror-still pool at evening where white paperbark trees and thirty egrets are perfectly reflected. The poem frames the sight as a once-in-a-lifetime, transformative encounter that fills the observer with quiet wonder and inner clarity. It stresses the rarity and emotional fullness of witnessing natural beauty in complete stillness.

Read Complete Analyses

Once as I travelled through a quiet evening, I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still. Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding; each on its own white image looked its fill, and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading - thirty egrets in a quiet evening. Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing, your lucky eyes may light on such a pool. As though for many years I had been waiting, I watched in silence, till my heart was full of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving, and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.

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