Bell-Birds

"Bell-Birds"
by Henry Kendall
Original title	"Bell Birds"
First published in	The Sydney Morning Herald
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publication date	25 November 1867 (1867-11-25)
Full text
Bell-Birds at Wikisource

"Bell-Birds" is a poem by Australian writer Henry Kendall that was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 25 November 1867. ^[1]

It was later included in the author's poetry collection Leaves from Australian Forests (1869), and was subsequently reprinted in various newspapers, magazines and poetry anthologies (see below). ^[2]

Reception

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature states: "Like Wordsworth with his 'sensations sweet', Kendall is sustained by his recollections of natural beauty amid the ugliness of later years in the 'city and alleys'." ^[3]

Further publications

• "Colonial Monthly: An Australian Magazine", May 1869
• Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall (1869)
• A Century of Australian Song edited by Douglas Sladen (1888)
• The Oxford Book of Australian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch (1918)
• Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stevens (1925)
• Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore (1957)
• From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore (1964)
• The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry P. Heseltine (1972)
• Australia Fair: Poems and Paintings edited Douglas Stewart (1974)
• A Treasury of Australian Poetry (1982)
• Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes (1984)
• The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis (1984)
• My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer (1985)
• The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse edited by Les Murray (1986)
• Favourite Australian Poems (1987)
• The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Ken L. Goodwin and Alan Lawson (1990)
• A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G.A. Wilkes (1991)
• The Penguin Book of 19th Century Australian Literature edited by Michael Ackland (1993)
• Henry Kendall: Poetry, Prose and Selected Correspondence edited by Michael Ackland (1993)
• An Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Ch'oe Chin-yong and Dynthia Van Den Driesen (1995)
• Classic Australian Verse edited by Maggie Pinkney (2001)
• Our Country: Classic Australian Verse: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook (2004)
• Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell (2007)
• 100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant (2008)
• The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella (2009)
• Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore and Elizabeth Webby (2009)

Trivia

• Although the original title of the poem as printed was "Bell Birds", the Austlit catalog lists it as "Bell-Birds", the title as used in subsequent reprints. ^[2]

See also

• 1867 in poetry
• List of years in Australian literature
• Australian literature
• Bell miner - the bird commonly known as a "bell bird"

References

1. ""Bell Birds" by Henry Kendall". The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 November 1867, p5. Retrieved 14 March 2025.
2. "Austlit — "Bell-Birds" by Henry Kendall". Austlit. Retrieved 14 March 2025.
3. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, 2nd edition, p89