"Panther and Peacock" is a poem by Australian author Gwen Harwood.
It was first published in Australian Poetry 1957 edited by Hal Porter, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's collections and other poetry anthologies.
The poem forms part of the author's "Professor Eisenbart" series of poems. This professor "has been interpreted as a 'mask' through which the poet expresses certain anarchic or anti-Establishment views and as a persona which allows her to reflect ironically on the human condition."The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature edited by Wilde, Hooton and Andrews, 2nd edition, 1986, p232. Accessed: 8 February 2026
Synopsis "Eisenbart is a powerful man, successful in his field, celebrated in the community, yet he is full of rage, anguish, and self-doubt. He likes to see himself as the panther of the poem 'Panther and Peacock', brooding and deadly but cannot rid himself of the fear that he is really the vain and vapid peacock, helpless like everyone else before the 'dark beast' of time and death."The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry edited by Ann Vickery, Cambridge University Press, 2024, p169. Accessed: 8 February 2026
Critical reception While reviewing Australian Poetry 1957 for The Age newspaper, critic Vincent Buckley wrote the poem "has moments of strength and passion, but is muddled, and, in places, derivative."
In his book Reading Australian Poetry Andrew Taylor commented that the poem is "a particularly dizzying series of reversals and subversions. Power displays itself as vulnerability, civilization as the other side of barbarism or bestiality, conscious intellect as the obverse of unconscious's vertiginous dreams, prise as weakness."Reading Australian Poetry by Andrew Taylor, University of NSW Press, 1987, p117. Accessed: 8 February 2026.
Publication history After the poem's initial publication in Australian Poetry 1957 it was reprinted as follows:
Poems by Gwen Harwood, Angus and Robertson, 1963 Modern Australian Verse edited by Douglas Stewart, Angus and Robertson, 1964 New Impulses in Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall and Thomas Shapcott, University of Queensland Press, 1968 Australian Literary Studies, vol. 5 no. 3 May 1972 Selected Poems by Gwen Harwood, Angus and Robertson, 1975 The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981 Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry edited by Rose Lucas and Lyn McCredden, Oxford University Press, 1996 Selected Poems : A New Edition by Gwen Harwood, Angus and Robertson, 2001
Notes You can read the full text of the poem in Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry edited by Rose Lucas and Lyn McCredden, Oxford University Press, 1996, on the Internet Archive
See also 1957 in Australian literature
References