Red sins were yours: the avid greedOf pirate fathers, smocked as Grace,Sent Judas missioners to readChrist's Word to many a feebler race —False priests of Truth who made their trystAt Mammon's shrine, and reft or slew —Some hands you taught to pray to ChristHave prayed His curse to rest on you!
Your way has been to pluck the bladeToo readily, and train the guns.We here, apart and unafraidOf envious foes, are but your sons:We stretched a heedless hand to smutchOur spotless flag with Murder's blight —For one less sacrilegious touchGod's vengeance blasted Uzza white!
You vaunted most of forts and fleets,And courage proved in battle-feasts,The courage of the beast that eatsHis torn and quivering fellow-beasts;Your pride of deadliest armament —What is it but the self-same dintOf joy with which the Caveman bentTo shape a bloodier axe of flint?
But praise to you, and more than praiseAnd thankfulness, for some things done;And blessedness, and length of daysAs long as earth shall last, or sun!You first among the peoples spokeSharp words and angry questioningsWhich burst the bonds and shed the yokeThat made your men the slaves of Kings!
You set and showed the whole world's schoolThe lesson it will surely read,That each one ruled has right to rule —The alphabet of Freedom's creedWhich slowly wins it proselytesAnd makes uneasier many a throne;You taught them all to prate of RightsIn language growing like your own!
And now your holiest and bestAnd wisest dream of such a tieAs, holding hearts from East to West,Shall strengthen while the years go by:And of a time when every manFor every fellow-man will doHis kindliest, working by the planGod set him. May the dream come true!
And greater dreams! O Englishmen,Be sure the safest time of allFor even the mightiest State is whenNot even the least desires its fall!Make England stand supreme for aye,Because supreme for peace and good,Warned well by wrecks of yesterdayThat strongest feet may slip in blood!
Arthur Patchett Martin.
Bushland
Not sweeter to the storm-tossed marinerIs glimpse of home, where wife and children waitTo welcome him with kisses at the gate,Than to the town-worn man the breezy stirOf mountain winds on rugged pathless heights:His long-pent soul drinks in the deep delightsThat Nature hath in store. The sun-kissed bayGleams thro' the grand old gnarled gum-tree boughsLike burnished brass; the strong-winged bird of preySweeps by, upon his lonely vengeful way —While over all, like breath of holy vows,The sweet airs blow, and the high-vaulted skyLooks down in pity this fair Summer dayOn all poor earth-born creatures doomed to die.
Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen.
Under the Wattle
"Why should not wattle doFor mistletoe?"Asked one — they were but two —Where wattles grow.
He was her lover, too,Who urged her so —"Why should not wattle doFor mistletoe?"
A rose-cheek rosier grew;Rose-lips breathed low;"Since it is here, and YOU,I hardly knowWhy wattle should not do."
Victor James Daley.
Players
And after all — and after all,Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,Is life a reckless carnival?And are they lost, our golden years?
Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,Ere time could sear, or care could fret,There was a youth called Romeo,There was a maid named Juliet.
The players of the past are gone;The races rise; the races pass;And softly over all is drawnThe quiet Curtain of the Grass.
But when the world went wild with Spring,What days we had! Do you forget?When I of all the world was King,And you were my Queen Juliet?
The things that are; the things that seem —Who shall distinguish shape from show?The great processional, splendid dreamOf life is all I wish to know.
The gods their faces turn awayFrom nations and their little wars;But we our golden drama playBefore the footlights of the stars.
There lives — though Time should cease to flow,And stars their courses should forget —There lives a grey-haired Romeo,Who loves a golden Juliet.
Anna
The pale discrowned stacks of maize,Like spectres in the sun,Stand shivering nigh Avonaise,Where all is dead and gone.
The sere leaves make a music vain,With melancholy chords;Like cries from some old battle-plain,Like clash of phantom swords.
But when the maize was lush and greenWith musical green waves,She went, its plumed ranks between,Unto the hill of graves.
There you may see sweet flowers setO'er damsels and o'er dames —Rose, Ellen, Mary, Margaret —The sweet old quiet names.
The gravestones show in long array,Though white or green with moss,How linked in Life and Death are they —The Shamrock and the Cross.
The gravestones face the Golden East,And in the morn they takeThe blessing of the Great High Priest,Before the living wake.
Who was she? Never ask her name,Her beauty and her graceHave passed, with her poor little shame,Into the Silent Place.
In Avonaise, in Avonaise,Where all is dead and done,The folk who rest there all their daysCare not for moon or sun.
They care not, when the living pass,Whether they sigh or smile;They hear above their graves the grassThat sighs — "A little while!"
A white stone marks her small green bedWith "Anna" and "Adieu".Madonna Mary, rest her headOn your dear lap of blue!
The Night Ride
The red sun on the lonely landsGazed, under clouds of rose,As one who under knitted handsTakes one last look and goes.
Then Pain, with her white sister Fear,Crept nearer to my bed:"The sands are running; dost thou hearThy sobbing heart?" she said.
There came a rider to the gate,And stern and clear spake he:"For meat or drink thou must not wait,But rise and ride with me."
I waited not for meat or drink,Or kiss, or farewell kind —But oh! my heart was sore to thinkOf friends I left behind.
We rode o'er hills that seemed to sweepSkyward like swelling waves;The living stirred not in their sleep,The dead slept in their graves.
And ever as we rode I heardA moan of anguish sore —No voice of man or beast or bird,But all of these and more.
"Is it the moaning of the Earth?Dark Rider, answer me!""It is the cry of life at birth"He answered quietly:
"But thou canst turn a face of cheerTo good days still in store;Thou needst not care for Pain or Fear —They cannot harm thee more."
Yet I rode on with sullen heart,And said with breaking breath,"If thou art he I think thou art,Then slay me now, O Death!"
The veil was from my eyesight drawn —"Thou knowest now," said he:"I am the Angel of the Dawn!Ride back, and wait for me."
So I rode back at morning light,And there, beside my bed,Fear had become a lily whiteAnd Pain a rose of red.
Alice Werner.
Bannerman of the Dandenong
I rode through the Bush in the burning noon,Over the hills to my bride, —The track was rough and the way was long,And Bannerman of the Dandenong,He rode along by my side.
A day's march off my Beautiful dwelt,By the Murray streams in the West; —Lightly lilting a gay love-songRode Bannerman of the Dandenong,With a blood-red rose on his breast.
"Red, red rose of the Western streams"Was the song he sang that day —Truest comrade in hour of need, —Bay Mathinna his peerless steed —I had my own good grey.
There fell a spark on the upland grass —The dry Bush leapt into flame; —And I felt my heart go cold as death,And Bannerman smiled and caught his breath, —But I heard him name Her name.
Down the hill-side the fire-floods rushed,On the roaring eastern wind; —Neck and neck was the reckless race, —Ever the bay mare kept her pace,But the grey horse dropped behind.
He turned in the saddle — "Let's change, I say!"And his bridle rein he drew.He sprang to the ground, — "Look sharp!" he saidWith a backward toss of his curly head —"I ride lighter than you!"
Down and up — it was quickly done —No words to waste that day! —Swift as a swallow she sped along,The good bay mare from Dandenong, —And Bannerman rode the grey.
The hot air scorched like a furnace blastFrom the very mouth of Hell: —The blue gums caught and blazed on highLike flaming pillars into the sky; . . .The grey horse staggered and fell.
"Ride, ride, lad, — ride for her sake!" he cried; —Into the gulf of flameWere swept, in less than a breathing spaceThe laughing eyes, and the comely face,And the lips that named HER name.
She bore me bravely, the good bay mare; —Stunned, and dizzy and blind,I heard the sound of a mingling roar —'Twas the Lachlan River that rushed before,And the flames that rolled behind.
Safe — safe, at Nammoora gate,I fell, and lay like a stone.O love! thine arms were about me then,Thy warm tears called me to life again, —But — O God! that I came alone! —
We dwell in peace, my beautiful oneAnd I, by the streams in the West, —But oft through the mist of my dreams alongRides Bannerman of the Dandenong,With the blood-red rose on his breast.
Ethel Castilla.
An Australian Girl
"She's pretty to walk with,And witty to talk with,And pleasant, too, to think on."Sir John Suckling.
She has a beauty of her own,A beauty of a paler toneThan English belles;Yet southern sun and southern airHave kissed her cheeks, until they wearThe dainty tints that oft appearOn rosy shells.
Her frank, clear eyes bespeak a mindOld-world traditions fail to bind.She is not shyOr bold, but simply self-possessed;Her independence adds a zestUnto her speech, her piquant jest,Her quaint reply.
O'er classic volumes she will poreWith joy; and true scholastic loreWill often gain.In sports she bears away the bell,Nor, under music's siren spell,To dance divinely, flirt as well,Does she disdain.
A Song of Sydney
(1894)
High headlands all jealously hide thee,O fairest of sea-girdled towns!Thine Ocean-spouse smileth beside thee,While each headland threatens and frowns.Like Venice, upheld on sea-pinion,And fated to reign o'er the free,Thou wearest, in sign of dominion,The zone of the sea.
No winter thy fertile slope hardens,O new Florence, set in the South!All lands give their flowers to thy gardens,That glow to thy bright harbour's mouth;The waratah and England's red rosesWith stately magnolias entwine,Gay sunflowers fill sea-scented closes,All sweet with woodbine.
Thy harbour's fair flower-crowned islandsSee flags of all countries unfurled,Thou smilest from green, sunlit highlandsTo open thine arms to the world!Dark East's and fair West's emulationsResound from each hill-shadowed quay,And over the songs of all nations,The voice of the sea.
Francis William Lauderdale Adams.
Something
It is something in this darker dream dementedto have wrestled with its pleasure and its pain:it is something to have sinned, and have repented:it is something to have failed, and tried again!
It is something to have loved the brightest Beautywith no hope of aught but silence for your vow:it is something to have tried to do your duty:it is something to be trying, trying now!
And, in the silent solemn hours,when your soul floats down the far faint flood of time —to think of Earth's lovers who are ours,of her saviours saving, suffering, sublime:
And that you with THESE may be her lover,with THESE may save and suffer for her sake —IT IS JOY TO HAVE LIVED, SO TO DISCOVERYOU'VE A LIFE YOU CAN GIVE AND SHE CAN TAKE!
Gordon's Grave
All the heat and the glow and the hushof the summer afternoon;the scent of the sweet-briar bushover bowing grass-blades and broom;
the birds that flit and pass;singing the song he knows,the grass-hopper in the grass;the voice of the she-oak boughs.
Ah, and the shattered columncrowned with the poet's wreath.Who, who keeps silent and solemnhis passing place beneath?
~This was a poet that loved God's breath;his life was a passionate quest;he looked down deep in the wells of death,and now he is taking his rest.~
To A. L. Gordon
In night-long days, in aeons where all Time's nights are one; where life and death sing paeans as of Greeks and Galileans, never begun or done;
where fate, the slow swooping condor, comes glooming all the sky — as you have pondered I ponder, as you have wandered I wander, as you have died, shall I die?
Love and Death
Death? is it death you give? So be it! O Death, thou hast been long my friend, and now thy pale cool cheek shall have my kiss, while the faint breath expires on thy still lips, O lovely Death!
Come then, loose hands, fair Life, without a wail! We've had good hours together, and you were sweet what time love whispered with the nightingale, tho' ever your music by the lark's would fail.
Come then, loose hands! Our lover time is done.Now is the marriage with the eternal sun.The hours are few that rest, are few and fleet.Good-bye! The game is lost: the game is won.
Thomas William Heney.
Absence
Ah, happy air that, rough or soft,May kiss that face and stay;And happy beams that from aboveMay choose to her their way;And happy flowers that now and thenTouch lips more sweet than they!
But it were not so blest to beOr light or air or rose;Those dainty fingers tear and tossThe bloom that in them glows;And come or go, both wind and rayShe heeds not, if she knows.
But if I come thy choice should beEither to love or not —For if I might I would not kissAnd then be all forgot;And it were best thy love to loseIf love self-scorn begot.
A Riverina Road
Now while so many turn with love and longingTo wan lands lying in the grey North Sea,To thee we turn, hearts, mem'ries, all belonging,Dear land of ours, to thee.
West, ever west, with the strong sunshine marchingBeyond the mountains, far from this soft coast,Until we almost see the great plains arching,In endless mirage lost.
A land of camps where seldom is sojourning,Where men like the dim fathers of our race,Halt for a time, and next day, unreturning,Fare ever on apace.
Last night how many a leaping blaze affrightedThe wailing birds of passage in their file;And dawn sees ashes dead and embers whitedWhere men had dwelt awhile.
The sun may burn, the mirage shift and vanishAnd fade and glare by turns along the sky;The haze of heat may all the distance banishTo the uncaring eye.
By speech, or tongue of bird or brute, unbrokenSilence may brood upon the lifeless plain,Nor any sign, far off or near, betokenMan in this vast domain.
Though tender grace the landscape lacks, too spacious,Impassive, silent, lonely, to be fair,Their kindness swiftly comes more soft and gracious,Who live or tarry there.
All that he has, in camp or homestead, proffersTo stranger guest at once a stranger host,Proudest to see accepted what he offers,Given without a boast.
Pass, if you can, the drover's cattle stringingAlong the miles of the wide travelled road,Without a challenge through the hot dust ringing,Kind though abrupt the mode.
A cloud of dust where polish'd wheels are flashingPasses along, and in it rolls the mail.Comes from the box as on the coach goes dashingThe lonely driver's hail.
Or in the track a station youngster mountedSits in his saddle smoking for a "spell",Rides a while onward; then, his news recounted,Parts with a brief farewell.
To-day these plains may seem a face defiant,Turn'd to a mortal foe, yet scorning fear;As when, with heaven at war, an Earth-born giantSaw the Olympian near.
Come yet again! No child's fair face is sweeterWith young delight than this cool blooming land,Silent no more, for songs than wings are fleeter,No blaze, but sunshine bland.
Thus in her likeness that strange nature mouldingMakes man as moody, sad and savage too;Yet in his heart, like her, a passion holding,Unselfish, kind and true.
Therefore, while many turn with love and longingTo wan lands lying on the grey North Sea,To-day possessed by other mem'ries throngingWe turn, wild West, to thee!
23rd December, 1891.
Patrick Edward Quinn.
A Girl's Grave
"Aged 17, OF A BROKEN HEART, January 1st, 1841."
What story is here of broken love,What idyllic sad romance,What arrow fretted the silken doveThat met with such grim mischance?
I picture you, sleeper of long ago,When you trifled and danced and smiled,All golden laughter and beauty's glowIn a girl life sweet and wild.
Hair with the red gold's luring tinge,Fine as the finest silk,Violet eyes with a golden fringeAnd cheeks of roses and milk.
Something of this you must have been,Something gentle and sweet,To have broken your heart at seventeenAnd died in such sad defeat.
Hardly one of your kinsfolk live,It was all so long ago,The tale of the cruel love to giveThat laid you here so low.
Loving, trusting, and foully paid —The story is easily guessed,A blotted sun and skies that fadeAnd this grass-grown grave the rest.
Whatever the cynic may sourly say,With a dash of truth, I ween,Of the girls of the period, in your dayThey had hearts at seventeen.
Dead of a fashion out of date,Such folly has passed awayLike the hoop and patch and modish gaitThat went out with an older day.
The stone is battered and all awry,The words can be scarcely read,The rank reeds clustering thick and highOver your buried head.
I pluck one straight as a Paynim's lanceTo keep your memory green,For the lordly sake of old RomanceAnd your own, sad seventeen.
John Sandes.
`With Death's Prophetic Ear'
Lay my rifle here beside me, set my Bible on my breast,For a moment let the warning bugles cease;As the century is closing I am going to my rest,Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant go in peace.But loud through all the bugles rings a cadence in mine ear,And on the winds my hopes of peace are strowed.Those winds that waft the voices that already I can hearOf the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.
Yes, the red-coats are returning, I can hear the steady tramp,After twenty years of waiting, lulled to sleep,Since rank and file at Potchefstroom we hemmed them in their camp,And cut them up at Bronkerspruit like sheep.They shelled us at Ingogo, but we galloped into range,And we shot the British gunners where they showed.I guessed they would return to us, I knew the chance must change —Hark! the rooi-baatjes singing on the road!
But now from snow-swept Canada, from India's torrid plains,From lone Australian outposts, hither led,Obeying their commando, as they heard the bugle's strains,The men in brown have joined the men in red.They come to find the colours at Majuba left and lost,They come to pay us back the debt they owed;And I hear new voices lifted, and I see strange colours tossed,'Mid the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.
The old, old faiths must falter, and the old, old creeds must fail —I hear it in that distant murmur low —The old, old order changes, and 'tis vain for us to rail,The great world does not want us — we must go.And veldt, and spruit, and kopje to the stranger will belong,No more to trek before him we shall load;Too well, too well, I know it, for I hear it in the songOf the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.
Inez K. Hyland.
To a Wave
Where were you yesterday? In Gulistan,With roses and the frenzied nightingales?Rather would I believe you shining ranWith peaceful floods, where the soft voice prevailsOf building doves in lordly trees set high,Trees which enclose a home where love abides —His love and hers, a passioned ecstasy;Your tone has caught its echo and deridesMy joyless lot, as face down pressed I lieUpon the shifting sand, and hear the reedsVoicing a thin, dissonant threnodyUnto the cliff and wind-tormented weeds.As with the faint half-lights of jade towardThe shore you come and show a violet hue,I wonder if the face of my adoredWas ever held importraitured by you.Ah, no! if you had seen his face, still prestWithin your hold the picture dear would be,Like that bright portrait which so moved the breastOf fairest Gurd with soft unrest that she,Born in ice halls, she who but raised her eyesAnd scornful questioned, "What is love, indeed?None ever viewed it 'neath these northern skies," —Seeing the face soon learned love's gentle creed;But you hold nothing to be counted dear —Only a gift of weed and broken shells;Yet I will gather one, so I can hearThe soft remembrance which still in it dwells:For in the shell, though broken, ever liesThe murmur of the sea whence it was torn —So in a woman's heart there never diesThe memory of love, though love be lorn.
Bread and Wine
A cup of opalThrough which there glowsThe cream of the pearl,The heart of the rose;And the blue of the seaWhere Australia lies,And the amber flushOf her sunset skies,And the emerald tintsOf the dragon flyShall stain my cupWith their brilliant dye.And into this cupI would pour the wineOf youth and healthAnd the gifts divineOf music and song,And the sweet contentWhich must ever belongTo a life well spent.And what bread would I breakWith my wine, think you?The bread of a loveThat is pure and true.
George Essex Evans.
An Australian Symphony
Not as the songs of other landsHer song shall beWhere dim Her purple shore-line standsAbove the sea!As erst she stood, she stands alone;Her inspiration is her own.From sunlit plains to mangrove strandsNot as the songs of other landsHer song shall be.
O Southern Singers! Rich and sweet,Like chimes of bells,The cadence swings with rhythmic beatThe music swells;But undertones, weird, mournful, strong,Sweep like swift currents thro' the song.In deepest chords, with passion fraught,In softest notes of sweetest thought,This sadness dwells.
Is this her song, so weirdly strange,So mixed with pain,That whereso'er her poets rangeIs heard the strain?Broods there no spell upon the airBut desolation and despair?No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrudeUpon her mountain solitudeOr sun-kissed plain?
The silence and the sunshine creepWith soft caressO'er billowy plain and mountain steepAnd wilderness —A velvet touch, a subtle breath,As sweet as love, as calm as death,On earth, on air, so soft, so fine,Till all the soul a spell divineO'ershadoweth.
The gray gums by the lonely creek,The star-crowned height,The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak,The cold white light,The solitude spread near and farAround the camp-fire's tiny star,The horse-bell's melody remote,The curlew's melancholy noteAcross the night.
These have their message; yet from theseOur songs have thrownO'er all our Austral hills and leasOne sombre tone.Whence doth the mournful keynote start?From the pure depths of Nature's heart?Or from the heart of him who singsAnd deems his hand upon the stringsIs Nature's own?
Could tints be deeper, skies less dim,More soft and fair,Dappled with milk-white clouds that swimIn faintest air?The soft moss sleeps upon the stone,Green scrub-vine traceries enthroneThe dead gray trunks, and boulders red,Roofed by the pine and carpetedWith maidenhair.
But far and near, o'er each, o'er all,Above, below,Hangs the great silence like a pallSofter than snow.Not sorrow is the spell it brings,But thoughts of calmer, purer things,Like the sweet touch of hands we love,A woman's tenderness aboveA fevered brow.
These purple hills, these yellow leas,These forests lone,These mangrove shores, these shimmering seas,This summer zone —Shall they inspire no nobler strainThan songs of bitterness and pain?Strike her wild harp with firmer hand,And send her music thro' the land,With loftier tone!
. . . . .
Her song is silence; unto herIts mystery clings.Silence is the interpreterOf deeper things.O for sonorous voice and strongTo change that silence into song,To give that melody releaseWhich sleeps in the deep heart of peaceWith folded wings!
A Nocturne
Like weary sea-birds spent with flightAnd faltering,The slow hours beat across the nightOn leaden wing.The wild bird knows where rest shall beSoe'er he roam.Heart of my heart! apart from theeI have no home.
Afar from thee, yet not alone,Heart of my heart!Like some soft haunting whisper blownFrom Heaven thou art.I hear the magic music rollIts waves divine;The subtle fragrance of thy soulHas passed to mine.
Nor dawn nor Heaven my heart can knowSave that which liesIn lights and shades that come and goIn thy soft eyes.Here in the night I dream the day,By love upborne,When thy sweet eyes shall shine and say"It is the morn!"
A Pastoral
Nature feels the touch of noon;Not a rustle stirs the grass;Not a shadow flecks the sky,Save the brown hawk hovering nigh;Not a ripple dims the glassOf the wide lagoon.
Darkly, like an armed hostSeen afar against the blue,Rise the hills, and yellow-greySleeps the plain in cove and bay,Like a shining sea that dreamsRound a silent coast.
From the heart of these blue hills,Like the joy that flows from peace,Creeps the river far belowFringed with willow, sinuous, slow.Surely here there seems surceaseFrom the care that kills.
Surely here might radiant LoveFill with happiness his cup,Where the purple lucerne-bloomFloods the air with sweet perfume,Nature's incense floating upTo the Gods above.
'Neath the gnarled-boughed apple treesMotionless the cattle stand;Chequered cornfield, homestead white,Sleeping in the streaming light,For deep trance is o'er the land,And the wings of peace.
Here, O Power that moves the heart,Thou art in the quiet air;Here, unvexed of code or creed,Man may breathe his bitter need;Nor with impious lips declareWhat Thou wert and art.
All the strong souls of the raceThro' the aeons that have run,They have cried aloud to Thee —"Thou art that which stirs in me!"As the flame leaps towards the sunThey have sought Thy face.
But the faiths have flowered and flown,And the truth is but in part;Many a creed and many a gradeFor Thy purpose Thou hast made.None can know Thee what Thou art,Fathomless! Unknown!
The Women of the West
They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best:For love they faced the wilderness — the Women of the West.
The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,And the old-time joys and faces — they were gone for many a day;In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains,O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.
In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run,In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun,In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest,On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.
The red sun robs their beauty, and, in weariness and pain,The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say —The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.
The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires,When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast —Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.
For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts —They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts.But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above —The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.
Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by.We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die.And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest,The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.
Mary Colborne-Veel.
`What Look hath She?'
What look hath she,What majestie,That must so high approve her?What graces moveThat I so love,That I so greatly love her?
No majestieBut Truth hath She;Thoughts sweet and gracious move her;That straight approveMy heart to love,And all my life to love her!
Saturday Night
Saturday night in the crowded town;Pleasure and pain going up and down,Murmuring low on the ear there beatEchoes unceasing of voice and feet.Withered age, with its load of care,Come in this tumult of life to share,Childhood glad in its radiance brief,Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief,Meet alike, as the stars look downWeek by week on the crowded town.
~And in a kingdom of mystery,Rapt from this weariful world to seeMagic sights in the yellow glare,Breathing delight in the gas-lit air,Careless of sorrow, of grief or pain,Two by two, again and again,Strephon and Chloe together move,Walking in Arcady, land of love.~
What are the meanings that burden allThese murmuring voices that rise and fall?Tragedies whispered of, secrets told,Over the baskets of bought and sold;Joyous speech of the lately wed;Broken lamentings that name the dead:Endless runes of the gossip's rede,And gathered home with the weekly need,Kindly greetings as neighbours meetThere in the stir of the busy street.
Then is the glare of the gaslight rayGifted with potency strange to-day,Records of time-written historyFlash into sight as each face goes by.There, as the hundreds slow moving go,Each with his burden of joy or woe,Souls, in the meeting of stranger's eyes,Startled this kinship to recognise, —Meet and part, as the stars look down,Week by week on the crowded town.
~And still, in the midst of the busy hum,Rapt in their dream of delight they come.Heedless of sorrow, of grief or care,Wandering on in enchanted air,Far from the haunting shadow of pain:Two by two, again and again,Strephon and Chloe together move,Walking in Arcady, land of love.~
`Resurgam'
(Autumn Song)
Chill breezes moaning areWhere leaves hang yellow:O'er the grey hills afarFlies the last swallow;To come again, my love, to come againBlithe with the summer.But Ah! the long months ere we welcome thenThat bright new comer.
Cold lie the flowers and deadWhere leaves are falling.Meekly they bowed and spedAt Autumn's calling.To come again, my love, to come againBlithe with the swallow.Ah! might I dreaming lie at rest till then,Or rise and follow!
The summer blooms are gone,And bright birds darting;Cold lies the earth forlorn;And we are parting.To meet again, my love, to meet againIn deathless greeting,But ah! what wintry bitterness of painEre that far meeting!
Distant Authors
"Aqui esta encerrada el alma licenciado Pedro Garcias."
Dear books! and each the living soul,Our hearts aver, of men unseen,Whose power to strengthen, charm, control,Surmounts all earth's green miles between.
For us at least the artists showApart from fret of work-day jars:We know them but as friends may know,Or they are known beyond the stars.
Their mirth, their grief, their soul's desire,When twilight murmuring of streams,Or skies far touched by sunset fire,Exalt them to pure worlds of dreams;
Their love of good; their rage at wrong;Their hours when struggling thought makes way;Their hours when fancy drifts to songLightly and glad as bird-trills may;
All these are truths. And if as trueMore graceless scrutiny that reads,"These fruits amid strange husking grew;""These lilies blossomed amongst weeds;"
Here no despoiling doubts shall blow,No fret of feud, of work-day jars.We know them but as friends may know,Or they are known beyond the stars.
John Bernard O'Hara.
Happy Creek
The little creek goes windingThro' gums of white and blue,A silver armAround the farmIt flings, a lover true;And softly, where the rushes lean,It sings (O sweet and low)A lover's song,And winds along,How happy — lovers know!
The little creek goes singingBy maidenhair and moss,Along its banksIn rosy ranksThe wild flowers wave and toss;And ever where the ferns dip downIt sings (O sweet and low)A lover's song,And winds along,How happy — lovers know!
The little creek takes colour,From summer skies above;Now blue, now gold,Its waters foldThe clouds in closest love;But loudly when the thunders rollIt sings (nor sweet, nor low)No lover's song,But sweeps along,How angry — lovers know!
The little creek for everGoes winding, winding down,Away, away,By night, by day,Where dark the ranges frown;But ever as it glides it sings,It sings (O sweet and low)A lover's song,And winds along,How happy — lovers know!
A Country Village
Among the folding hillsIt lies, a quiet nook,Where dreaming nature fillsSweet pages of her book,While through the meadow flowersShe sings in summer hours,Or weds the woodland rillsLow-laughing to the brook.
The graveyard whitely gleamsAcross the soundless vale,So sad, so sweet, yet seemsA watcher cold and paleThat waits through many springsThe tribute old Time brings,And knows, though life be loud,The reaper may not fail.
Here come not feet of changeFrom year to fading year;Ringed by the rolling rangeNo world-wide notes men hear.The wheels of time may standHere in a lonely land,Age after age may passUntouched of change or cheer;
As still the farmer keepsThe same dull round of things;He reaps and sows and reaps,And clings, as ivy clings,To old-time trust, nor caresWhat science does or dares,What lever moves the world,What progress spreads its wings.
Yet here, of woman born,Are lives that know not rest,With fierce desires that scornThe quiet life as best;That see in wider waysLife's richer splendours blaze,And feel ambition's fireBurn in their ardent breast.
Yea, some that fain would knowLife's purpose strange and vast,How wide is human woe,What wailing of the pastStill strikes the present dumb,What phantoms go and comeOf wrongs that cry aloud,"At last, O God! at last!"
Here, too, are dreams that wingRich regions of Romance;Love waking when the SpringBegins its first wild dance,Love redder than the rose,Love paler than the snows,Love frail as corn that tiltsWith morning winds a lance.
For never land so loneThat love could find not wingsIn every wind that's blownBy lips of jewelled springs,For love is life's sweet pain,And when sweet life is slainIt finds a radiant restBeyond the change of things.
Beyond the shocks that jar,The chance of changing fate,Where fraud and violence are,And heedless lust and hate;Yet still where faith is clear,And honour held most dear,And hope that seeks the dawnLooks up with heart elate.
Flinders
He left his island homeFor leagues of sleepless foam,For stress of alien seas,Where wild winds ever blow;For England's sake he soughtFresh fields of fame, and foughtA stormy world for theseA hundred years ago.
And where the Austral shoreHeard southward far the roarOf rising tides that cameFrom lands of ice and snow,Beneath a gracious skyTo fadeless memoryHe left a deathless nameA hundred years ago.
Yea, left a name sublimeFrom that wild dawn of Time,Whose light he haply sawIn supreme sunrise flow,And from the shadows vast,That filled the dim dead past,A brighter glory draw,A hundred years ago.
Perchance, he saw in dreamsBeside our sunlit streamsIn some majestic hourOld England's banners blow;Mayhap, the radiant mornOf this great nation born,August with perfect power,A hundred years ago.
We know not, — yet for theeFar may the season be,Whose harp in shameful sleepIs soundless lying low!Far be the noteless hourThat holds of fame no flowerFor those who dared our deepA hundred years ago.
M. A. Sinclair.
The Chatelaine
I have built one, so have you;Paved with marble, domed with blue,Battlement and ladies' bower,Donjon keep and watchman's tower.
I have climbed, as you have done,To the tower at set of sun —Crying from its parlous height,"Watchman, tell us of the night."
I have stolen at midnight bell,Like you, to the secret cell,Shuddering at its charnel breath —Left lockfast the spectre, Death.
I have used your lure to callChoice guests to my golden hall:Rarely welcome, rarely freeTo my hospitality.
In a glow of rosy lightHours, like minutes, take their flight —As from you they fled away,When, like you, I bade them stay.
Ah! the pretty flow of wit,And the good hearts under it;While the wheels of life go roundWith a most melodious sound.
Not a vestige anywhereOf our grim familiar, Care —Roses! from the trees of yoreBlooming by the rivers four.
Not a jar, and not a fret;Ecstasy and longing met.But why should I thus define —Is not your chateau like mine?
Scarcely were it strange to meetIn that magic realm so sweet,So! I'll take this dreamland trainBound for my chateau in Spain.
Sydney Jephcott.
Chaucer
O gracious morning eglantine,Making the far old English ways divine!Though from thy stock our mateless rose was bred,Staining the world's skies with its red,Our garden gives no scent so fresh as thine,Sweet, thorny-seeming eglantine.
White Paper
Smooth white paper 'neath the pen;Richest field that iron ploughs,Germinating thoughts of men,Though no heaven its rain allows;
Till they ripen, thousand fold,And our spirits reap the corn,In a day-long dream of gold;Food for all the souls unborn.
Like the murmur of the earth,When we listen stooping low;Like the sap that sings in mirth,Hastening up the trees that grow;
Evermore a tiny songSings the pen unto it, whileThought's elixir flows along,Diviner than the holy Nile.
Greater than the sphering sea,For it holds the sea and land;Seed of all ideas to beDown its current borne like sand.
How our fathers in the darkPored on it the plans obscure,By star-light or stake-fires starkTracing there the path secure.
The poor paper drawn askanceWith the spell of Truth half-known,Holds back Hell of ignorance,Roaring round us, thronged, alone.
O white list of champions,Spirit born, and schooled for fight,Mailed in armour of the sun'sWho shall win our utmost right!
Think of paper lightly sold,Which few pence had made too dearOn its blank to have enscrolledBeatrice, Lucifer, or Lear!
Think of paper Milton took,Written, in his hands to feel,Musing of what things a lookDown its pages would reveal.
O the glorious Heaven wroughtBy Cadmean souls of yore,From pure element of thought!And thy leaves they are its door!
Light they open, and we standPast the sovereignty of Fate,Glad amongst them, calm and grand,The Creators and Create!
Splitting
Morning.
Out from the hut at break of day,And up the hills in the dawning grey;With the young wind flowingFrom the blue east, growingRed with the white sun's ray!
Lone and clear as a deep-bright dreamUnder mid-night's and mid-slumber's stream,Up rises the mount against the sunrise shower,Vast as a kingdom, fair as a flower:O'er it doth the foam of foliage ream
In vivid softness serene,Pearly-purple and marble green;Clear in their mingling tinges,Up away to the crest that fringesSkies studded with cloud-crags sheen.
Day.
Like birds frayed from their lurking-shaw,Like ripples fleet 'neath a furious flaw,The echoes re-echo, flyingDown from the mauls hot-plying;Clatter the axes, grides the saw.
Ruddy and white the chips out-spring,Like money sown by a pageant king;The free wood yields to the driven wedges,With its white sap-edges,And heart in the sunshine glistening.
Broadly the ice-clear azure floods down,Where the great tree-tops are overthrown;As on through the endless day we labour;The sun for our nearest neighbour,Up o'er the mountains lone.
And so intensely it doth illume,That it shuts by times to gloom;In the open spaces thrilling;From the dead leaves distillingA hot and harsh perfume.
Evening.
Give over! All the valleys in sightFill, fill with the rising tide of night;While the sunset with gold-dust bridgesThe black-ravined ridges,Whose mighty muscles curve in its light.
In our weary climb, while night dyes deep,Down the broken and stony steep,How our jaded bodies are shakenBy each step in half-blindness taken —One's thoughts lie heaped like brutes asleep.
Open the door of the dismal hut,Silence and darkness lone were shutIn it, as a tidal pool, until returningNight drowns the land, — no ember's burning, —One is too weary the food to cut.
Body and soul with every blow,Wasted for ever, and who will know,Where, past this mountained night of toiling,Red life in its thousand veins is boiling,Of chips scattered on the mountain's brow?
Home-woe
The wreckage of some name-forgotten barque,Half-buried by the dolorous shore;Whereto the living waters never moreTheir urgent billows pour;But the salt spray can reach and cark —
So lies my spirit, lonely and forlorn,On Being's strange and perilous strand.And rusted sword and fleshless handPoint from the smothering sand;And anchor chainless and out-worn.
But o'er what Deep, unconquered and uncharted,And steering by what vanished star;And where my dim-imagined consorts are,Or hidden harbour far,From whence my sails, unblessed, departed,
Can memory, nor still intuition teach.And so I watch with alien eyesThis World's remote and unremembered skies;While around me weary riseThe babblings of a foreign speech.
A Ballad of the last King of Thule
There was a King of ThuleWhom a Witch-wife stole at birth;In a country known but newly,All under the dumb, huge Earth.
That King's in a Forest toiling;And he never the green sward delvesBut he sees all his green waves boilingOver his sands and shelves;
In these sunsets vast and fiery,In these dawns divine he seesHy-Brasil, Mannan and Eire,And the Isle of Appletrees;
He watches, heart-still and breathless,The clouds through the deep day trailing,As the white-winged vessels gathered,Into his harbours sailing;
Ranked Ibis and lazy EaglesIn the great blue flame may rise,But ne'er Sea-mew or Solan beatingUp through their grey low skies;
When the storm-led fires are breaking,Great waves of the molten night,Deep in his eyes comes achingThe icy Boreal Light.
. . . . .
O, lost King, and O, people perished,Your Thule has grown one grave!Unvisited as uncherished,Save by the wandering wave!
The billows burst in his doorways,The spray swoops over his walls! —O, his banners that throb dishonouredO'er arms that hide in his halls —
Deserved is your desolation! —Why could you not stir and saveThe last-born heir of your nation? —Sold into the South, a slave
Till he dies, and is buried dulyIn the hot Australian earth —The lorn, lost King of Thule,Whom a Witch-wife stole at birth.
A Fragment
But, under all, my heart believes the dayWas not diviner over Athens, norThe West wind sweeter thro' the CycladesThan here and now; and from the altar of To-dayThe eloquent, quick tongues of flame upriseAs fervid, if not unfaltering as of old,And life atones with speed and plenitudeFor coarser texture. Our poor present will,Far in the brooding future, make a pastFull of the morning's music still, and starredWith great tears shining on the eyelids' eavesOf our immortal faces yearning t'wards the sun.
Andrew Barton Paterson (`Banjo').
The Daylight is Dying
The daylight is dyingAway in the west,The wild birds are flyingIn silence to rest;In leafage and frondageWhere shadows are deep,They pass to their bondage —The kingdom of sleep.And watched in their sleepingBy stars in the height,They rest in your keeping,Oh, wonderful night.
When night doth her gloriesOf starshine unfold,'Tis then that the storiesOf bushland are told.Unnumbered I hold themIn memories bright,But who could unfold them,Or read them aright?
Beyond all denialsThe stars in their gloriesThe breeze in the myallsAre part of these stories.The waving of grasses,The song of the riverThat sings as it passesFor ever and ever,The hobble-chains' rattle,The calling of birds,The lowing of cattleMust blend with the words.Without these, indeed, youWould find it ere long,As though I should read youThe words of a songThat lamely would lingerWhen lacking the rune,The voice of the singer,The lilt of the tune.
But, as one half-hearingAn old-time refrain,With memory clearing,Recalls it again,These tales, roughly wrought ofThe bush and its ways,May call back a thought ofThe wandering days.And, blending with eachIn the mem'ries that throng,There haply shall reachYou some echo of song.
Clancy of the Overflow
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of betterKnowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
. . . . .
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of ClancyGone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet himIn the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
. . . . .
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingyRay of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattleOf the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt meAs they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal —But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".
Black Swans
As I lie at rest on a patch of cloverIn the Western Park when the day is done,I watch as the wild black swans fly overWith their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;And I hear the clang of their leader cryingTo a lagging mate in the rearward flying,And they fade away in the darkness dying,Where the stars are mustering one by one.
Oh! ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonderFor a while to join in your westward flight,With the stars above and the dim earth under,Through the cooling air of the glorious night.As we swept along on our pinions winging,We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,Or the distant note of a torrent singing,Or the far-off flash of a station light.
From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,Where the hills are clothed with a purple haze,Where the bell-birds chime and the songs of thrushesMake music sweet in the jungle maze,They will hold their course to the westward ever,Till they reach the banks of the old grey river,Where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiverIn the burning heat of the summer days.
Oh! ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greetingTo the folk that live in that western land?Then for every sweep of your pinions beating,Ye shall bear a wish to the sunburnt band,To the stalwart men who are stoutly fightingWith the heat and drought and the dust-storm smiting,Yet whose life somehow has a strange inviting,When once to the work they have put their hand.
Facing it yet! Oh, my friend stout-hearted,What does it matter for rain or shine,For the hopes deferred and the gain departed?Nothing could conquer that heart of thine.And thy health and strength are beyond confessingAs the only joys that are worth possessing.May the days to come be as rich in blessingAs the days we spent in the auld lang syne.
I would fain go back to the old grey river,To the old bush days when our hearts were light,But, alas! those days they have fled for ever,They are like the swans that have swept from sight.And I know full well that the strangers' facesWould meet us now in our dearest places;For our day is dead and has left no tracesBut the thoughts that live in my mind to-night.
There are folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken —We would grieve for them with a bitter pain,If the past could live and the dead could quicken,We then might turn to that life again.But on lonely nights we would hear them calling,We should hear their steps on the pathways falling,We should loathe the life with a hate appallingIn our lonely rides by the ridge and plain.
. . . . .
In the silent park is a scent of clover,And the distant roar of the town is dead,And I hear once more as the swans fly overTheir far-off clamour from overhead.They are flying west, by their instinct guided,And for man likewise is his fate decided,And griefs apportioned and joys dividedBy a mighty power with a purpose dread.
The Travelling Post Office
The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway,The sleepy river murmurs low, and loiters on its way,It is the land of lots o' time along the Castlereagh.
. . . . .
The old man's son had left the farm, he found it dull and slow,He drifted to the great North-west where all the rovers go."He's gone so long," the old man said, "he's dropped right out of mind,But if you'd write a line to him I'd take it very kind;He's shearing here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray,He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.The sheep are travelling for the grass, and travelling very slow;They may be at Mundooran now, or past the Overflow,Or tramping down the black soil flats across by Waddiwong,But all those little country towns would send the letter wrong,The mailman, if he's extra tired, would pass them in his sleep,It's safest to address the note to `Care of Conroy's sheep',For five and twenty thousand head can scarcely go astray,You write to `Care of Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh'."
. . . . .
By rock and ridge and riverside the western mail has gone,Across the great Blue Mountain Range to take that letter on.A moment on the topmost grade while open fire doors glare,She pauses like a living thing to breathe the mountain air,Then launches down the other side across the plains awayTo bear that note to "Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh".
And now by coach and mailman's bag it goes from town to town,And Conroy's Gap and Conroy's Creek have marked it "further down".Beneath a sky of deepest blue where never cloud abides,A speck upon the waste of plain the lonely mailman rides.Where fierce hot winds have set the pine and myall boughs asweepHe hails the shearers passing by for news of Conroy's sheep.By big lagoons where wildfowl play and crested pigeons flock,By camp fires where the drovers ride around their restless stock,And past the teamster toiling down to fetch the wool awayMy letter chases Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.