SOURCE: Elliott, Brian. “The Eye of the Beholder.” In The Landscape of Australian Poetry, pp. 57-74. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1967.

In the following excerpt, Elliott establishes Harpur as an original, impressionist landscape poet whose works, although flawed, are perceptive and poignant.

… The first poet who may be considered to belong firmly to the Australian repertory is Charles Harpur.¹ That he was an original poet is fairly to be claimed, in spite of much in his work that appears acquiescent or imitative. An admirer of Wordsworth and of Shelley, he still adhered in many ways to the notions (and particularly the prosody) of an earlier generation. Like his friend—until they quarrelled—Parkes, he found himself torn between twin impulses to elevate and to moralise his song. But his instrument was always in either case, the intimate landscape image.

It is not easy to become excited about all that...