Northern River

loss memory ode reflective

Northern River - meaning Summary

River as Memory and Loss

Judith Wright's 'Northern River' follows a speaker who remembers a mountain-fed river loved by birds and vines. The poem contrasts the river's quiet, natural life with human alteration: trees felled, channels checked, and watering places muddied by domesticated herds. Ultimately the river, weary among mangroves, meets the sea. That meeting restores a sense of renewal: the sea takes in both sorrow and delight and preserves the memories of every stream.

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When summer days grow harsh my thoughts return to my river, fed by white mountain springs, beloved of the shy bird, the bellbird, whose cry is like falling water. O nighted with the green vine, lit with the rock-lilies, the river speaks in the silence, and my heart will also be quiet. Where you valley grows wide in the plains they have felled the trees, wild river. Your course they have checked, and altered your sweet Alcaic metre. Not the grey kangaroo, deer-eyes, timorous, will come to your pools at dawn; but, their tames and humbled herds will muddy the watering places. Passing their roads and cities you will not escape unsoiled. But where, grown old and weary, stagnant among the mangroves, you hope no longer – there on a sudden with a shock like joy, beats up the cold clean pulse of the tide, the touch of sea in greeting; the sea that encompasses all sorrow and delight and holds the memories of every stream and river.