The Gateway (poetry collection)

The Gateway

Author	Judith Wright
Language	English
Publisher	Angus and Robertson
Publication date	1953
Publication place	Australia
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	63p
Preceded by	Woman to Man
Followed by	The Two Fires

The Gateway (1953) is the third collection of poetry by Australian poet Judith Wright. ^[1]

The collection consists of 57 poems, some with their original publication in this book, and some of which were had been previously published in magazines such as The Age , Southerly , The Bulletin , and various Australian poetry collections. ^[2]

Contents

• "Dark Gift"
• "The Grave"
• "The Fire"
• "The Stone"
• "The Cedars"
• "Train Journey"
• "Fairytale"
• "Myth"
• "The Play"
• "The Journey"
• "Eroded Hills"
• "Old House"
• "Remembered Drought"
• "Flood Year"
• "Old Man"
• "Botanical Gardens"
• "Song for a Drowning Sailor"
• "Girl and Death"
• "Two Songs of Mad Tom : I"
• "Two Songs of Mad Tom : II"
• "Birds"
• "Lion"
• "The Lory"
• "The Orange-Tree"
• "Sandy Swamp"
• "Phaius Orchid"
• "Rain at Night"
• "Eden"
• "Song for Winter"
• "Sonnet for Christmas"
• "The Pool and the Star"
• "All Things Conspire"
• "Our Love is So Natural"
• "Song for Easter"
• "The Flame-Tree"
• "Song"
• "Two Hundred Miles"
• "Legend"
• "Nursery Rhyme for a Seventh Son"
• "The Cicadas"
• "Ishtar"
• "The Promised One"
• "A Song to Sing You"
• "Waiting Ward"
• "The Watcher"
• "Full Moon Rhyme"
• "To a Child"
• "Two Songs for the World's End : I"
• "Two Songs for the World's End : II"
• "Drought"
• "Unknown Water"
• "Walker in Darkness"
• "The Ancestors"
• "The Forest Path"
• "The Lost Man"
• "The Traveller and the Angel"
• "The Gateway"

Critical reception

In a short review of three poetry collections a reviewer in The Advertiser stated: "Judith Wright is vitally concerned with the continuity of living experience, and, with few exceptions, her themes are interrelated in her anxiety to seek the true answer to the mystery of existence." ^[3]

The Age newspaper commented that this collection Wright's "advance to a new kind of symbolism, at the moment perhaps too much reliant on Blake, in which she seeks to embody her view of cosmic beauty and terror." ^[4]

See also

• 1953 in literature
• 1953 in Australian literature

References

1. "The Gateway by Judith Wright". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 28 November 2025.
2. "The Gateway by Judith Wright". Austlit. Retrieved 25 November 2025.
3. ""Three Australian Poets"". The Advertiser, 25 July 1953, p9. Retrieved 28 November 2025.
4. ""Australian Poetry of the Year"". The Age, 12 December 1953, p16. ProQuest   2520423336 . Retrieved 28 November 2025.