The Old Australian Ways
The London lights are far abeamBehind a bank of cloud,Along the shore the gaslights gleam,The gale is piping loud;And down the Channel, groping blind,We drive her through the hazeTowards the land we left behind —The good old land of "never mind",And old Australian ways.
The narrow ways of English folkAre not for such as we;They bear the long-accustomed yokeOf staid conservancy:But all our roads are new and strange,And through our blood there runsThe vagabonding love of changeThat drove us westward of the rangeAnd westward of the suns.
The city folk go to and froBehind a prison's bars,They never feel the breezes blowAnd never see the stars;They never hear in blossomed treesThe music low and sweetOf wild birds making melodies,Nor catch the little laughing breezeThat whispers in the wheat.
Our fathers came of roving stockThat could not fixed abide:And we have followed field and flockSince e'er we learnt to ride;By miner's camp and shearing shed,In land of heat and drought,We followed where our fortunes led,With fortune always on aheadAnd always further out.
The wind is in the barley-grass,The wattles are in bloom;The breezes greet us as they passWith honey-sweet perfume;The parrakeets go screaming byWith flash of golden wing,And from the swamp the wild-ducks cryTheir long-drawn note of revelry,Rejoicing at the Spring.
So throw the weary pen asideAnd let the papers rest,For we must saddle up and rideTowards the blue hill's breast;And we must travel far and fastAcross their rugged maze,To find the Spring of Youth at last,And call back from the buried pastThe old Australian ways.
When Clancy took the drover's trackIn years of long ago,He drifted to the outer backBeyond the Overflow;By rolling plain and rocky shelf,With stockwhip in his hand,He reached at last, oh lucky elf!The Town of Come-and-help-yourselfIn Rough-and-ready Land.
And if it be that you would knowThe tracks he used to ride,Then you must saddle up and goBeyond the Queensland side —Beyond the reach of rule or law,To ride the long day through,In Nature's homestead — filled with awe:You then might see what Clancy sawAnd know what Clancy knew.
By the Grey Gulf-Water
Far to the Northward there lies a land,A wonderful land that the winds blow over,And none may fathom nor understandThe charm it holds for the restless rover;A great grey chaos — a land half made,Where endless space is and no life stirreth;And the soul of a man will recoil afraidFrom the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth.But old Dame Nature, though scornful, cravesHer dole of death and her share of slaughter;Many indeed are the nameless gravesWhere her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.
Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide,Drifting along with a languid motion,Lapping the reed-beds on either side,Wending their way to the Northern Ocean.Grey are the plains where the emus passSilent and slow, with their staid demeanour;Over the dead men's graves the grassMaybe is waving a trifle greener.Down in the world where men toil and spinDame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her;Only the dead men her smiles can winIn the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water.
For the strength of man is an insect's strengthIn the face of that mighty plain and river,And the life of a man is a moment's lengthTo the life of the stream that will run for ever.And so it cometh they take no partIn small-world worries; each hardy roverRideth abroad and is light of heart,With the plains around and the blue sky over.And up in the heavens the brown lark singsThe songs that the strange wild land has taught her;Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings —And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water.
Jessie Mackay.
The Grey Company
O the grey, grey companyOf the pallid dawn!O the ghostly faces,Ashen-like and drawn!The Lord's lone sentinelsDotted down the years,The little grey companyBefore the pioneers.
Dreaming of UtopiasEre the time was ripe,They awoke to scorning,The jeering and the strife.Dreaming of millenniumsIn a world of wars,They awoke to shudderAt a flaming Mars.
Never was a LutherBut a Huss was first —A fountain unregardedIn the primal thirst.Never was a NewtonCrowned and honoured well,But first, alone, GalileoWasted in a cell.
In each other's facesLooked the pioneers;Drank the wine of courageAll their battle years.For their weary sowingThrough the world wide,Green they saw the harvestEre the day they died.
But the grey, grey companyStood every man aloneIn the chilly dawnlight,Scarcely had they knownEre the day they perished,That their beacon-starWas not glint of marsh-lightIn the shadows far.
The brave white witnessesTo the truth withinTook the dart of folly,Took the jeer of sin;Crying "Follow, follow,Back to Eden gate!"They trod the Polar desert,Met a desert fate.
Be laurel to the victor,And roses to the fair,And asphodel ElysianLet the hero wear;But lay the maiden liliesUpon their narrow biers —The lone grey companyBefore the pioneers.
A Folk Song
I came to your town, my love,And you were away, away!I said "She is with the Queen's maidens:They tarry long at their play.They are stringing her words like pearlsTo throw to the dukes and earls."But O, the pity!I had but a morn of windy redTo come to the town where you were bred,And you were away, away!
I came to your town, my love,And you were away, away!I said, "She is with the mountain elvesAnd misty and fair as they.They are spinning a diamond netTo cover her curls of jet."But O, the pity!I had but a noon of searing heatTo come to your town, my love, my sweet,And you were away, away!
I came to your town, my love,And you were away, away!I said, "She is with the pale white saints,And they tarry long to pray.They give her a white lily-crown,And I fear she will never come down."But O, the pity!I had but an even grey and wanTo come to your town and plead as man,And you were away, away!
Dunedin in the Gloaming
Like a black, enamoured King whispered low the thunderTo the lights of Roslyn, terraced far asunder:Hovered low the sister cloud in wild, warm wonder.
"O my love, Dunedin town, the only, the abiding!Who can look undazzled up where the Norn is riding, —Watch the sword of destiny from the scabbard gliding!
"Dark and rich and ringing true — word and look for ever;Taking to her woman heart all forlorn endeavour;Heaven's sea about her feet, not the bounded river!"
"Sister of the mountain mist, and never to be holdenWith the weary sophistries that dimmer eyes embolden, —O the dark Dunedin town, shot with green and golden!"
Then a silver pioneer netted in the rift,Leaning over Maori Hill, dreaming in the lift,Dropped her starry memories through the passioned drift: —
"Once — I do remember them, the glory and the garden,Ere the elder stars had learnt God's mystery of pardon,Ere the youngest, I myself, had seen the flaming warden —
"Once even after even I stole ever shy and earlyTo mirror me within a glade of Eden cool and pearly,Where shy and cold and holy ran a torrent sought but rarely.
"And fondly could I swear that this my glade had risen newly, —Burst the burning desert tomb wherein she lieth truly,To keep an Easter with the birds and me who loved her duly."
Wailing, laughing, loving, hoar, spake the lordly ocean:"You are sheen and steadfastness: I am sheen and motion,Gulfing argosies for whim, navies for a notion.
"Sleep you well, Dunedin Town, though loud the lulling lyre is;Lady of the stars terrene, where quick the human fire is,Lady of the Maori pines, the turrets, and the eyries!"
The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie
(1901)
They played him home to the House of StonesAll the way, all the way,To his grave in the sound of the winter sea:The sky was dour, the sky was gray.They played him home with the chieftain's dirge,Till the wail was wed to the rolling surge,They played him home with a sorrowful willTo his grave at the foot of the Holy HillAnd the pipes went mourning all the way.
Strong hands that had struck for rightAll the day, all the day,Folded now in the dark of earth,Veiled dawn of the upper way!Strong hands that struck with hisFrom days that were to the day that isCarry him now from the house of woeTo ride the way the Chief must go:And his peers went mourning all the way.
Son and brother at his right handAll the way, all the way!And O for them and O for herWho stayed within, the dowie day!Son and brother and near of kinGo out with the chief who never comes in!And of all who loved him far and near'Twas the nearest most who held him dear —And his kin went mourning all the way!
The clan went on with the pipes beforeAll the way, all the way;A wider clan than ever he knewFollowed him home that dowie day.And who were they of the wider clan?The landless man and the no man's man,The man that lacked and the man unlearned,The man that lived but as he earned —And the clan went mourning all the way.
The heart of New Zealand went besideAll the way, all the way,To the resting-place of her Highland Chief;Much she thought she could not say;He found her a land of many domains,Maiden forest and fallow plains —He left her a land of many homes,The pearl of the world where the sea wind roams,And New Zealand went mourning all the way.
Henry Lawson.
Andy's gone with Cattle
Our Andy's gone to battle now'Gainst Drought, the red marauder;Our Andy's gone with cattle nowAcross the Queensland border.
He's left us in dejection now;Our hearts with him are roving.It's dull on this selection now,Since Andy went a-droving.
Who now shall wear the cheerful faceIn times when things are slackest?And who shall whistle round the placeWhen Fortune frowns her blackest?
Oh, who shall cheek the squatter nowWhen he comes round us snarling?His tongue is growing hotter nowSince Andy cross'd the Darling.
The gates are out of order now,In storms the "riders" rattle;For far across the border nowOur Andy's gone with cattle.
Oh, may the showers in torrents fall,And all the tanks run over;And may the grass grow green and tallIn pathways of the drover;
And may good angels send the rainOn desert stretches sandy;And when the summer comes againGod grant 'twill bring us Andy.
Out Back
The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought,The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out;The publican's words were short and few,and the publican's looks were black —And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back.
~For time means tucker, and tramp you must,where the scrubs and plains are wide,With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;All day long in the dust and heat — when summer is on the track —With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags Out Back.~
He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and hot,With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not.The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack,But only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares Out Back.
He begged his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more,And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore;But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack —The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped for a year Out Back.
In stifling noons when his back was wrung by its load, and the air seemed dead, And the water warmed in the bag that hung to his aching arm like lead, Or in times of flood, when plains were seas, and the scrubs were cold and black, He ploughed in mud to his trembling knees, and paid for his sins Out Back.
He blamed himself in the year "Too Late" — in the heaviest hours of life —'Twas little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife;There are times when wrongs from your kindred come,and treacherous tongues attack —When a man is better away from home, and dead to the world, Out Back.
And dirty and careless and old he wore, as his lamp of hope grew dim;He tramped for years till the swag he bore seemed part of himself to him.As a bullock drags in the sandy ruts, he followed the dreary track,With never a thought but to reach the huts when the sun went down Out Back.
It chanced one day, when the north wind blewin his face like a furnace-breath,He left the track for a tank he knew — 'twas a short-cut to his death;For the bed of the tank was hard and dry, and crossed with many a crack,And, oh! it's a terrible thing to die of thirst in the scrub Out Back.
A drover came, but the fringe of law was eastward many a mile;He never reported the thing he saw, for it was not worth his while.The tanks are full and the grass is high in the mulga off the track,Where the bleaching bones of a white man lie by his mouldering swag Out Back.
~For time means tucker, and tramp they must,where the plains and scrubs are wide,With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;All day long in the flies and heat the men of the outside trackWith stinted stomachs and blistered feet must carry their swags Out Back.~
The Star of Australasia
We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time.From grander clouds in our "peaceful skies" than ever were there beforeI tell you the Star of the South shall rise — in the lurid clouds of war.It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase;For ever the nations rose in storm, to rot in a deadly peace.There comes a point that we will not yield, no matter if right or wrong,And man will fight on the battle-field while passion and pride are strong —So long as he will not kiss the rod, and his stubborn spirit sours,And the scorn of Nature and curse of God are heavy on peace like ours.
. . . . .
There are boys out there by the western creeks, who hurry away from schoolTo climb the sides of the breezy peaks or dive in the shaded pool,Who'll stick to their guns when the mountains quaketo the tread of a mighty war,And fight for Right or a Grand Mistake as men never fought before;When the peaks are scarred and the sea-walls cracktill the furthest hills vibrate,And the world for a while goes rolling back in a storm of love and hate.
. . . . .
There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and prideWho'll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by side,Who'll hold the cliffs 'gainst the armoured hells that batter a coastal town,Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down.And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day,Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away —Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun,And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, —As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white,And pray to God in her darkened home for the "men in the fort to-night."
. . . . .
All creeds and trades will have soldiers there — give every class its due —And there'll be many a clerk to spare for the pride of the jackeroo.They'll fight for honour and fight for love, and a few will fight for gold,For the devil below and for God above, as our fathers fought of old;And some half-blind with exultant tears, and some stiff-lipped, stern-eyed,For the pride of a thousand after-years and the old eternal pride;The soul of the world they will feel and seein the chase and the grim retreat —They'll know the glory of victory — and the grandeur of defeat.
The South will wake to a mighty change ere a hundred years are done With arsenals west of the mountain range and every spur its gun. And many a rickety "son of a gun", on the tides of the future tossed, Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk the facts that are hard to explain, As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again — How "this was our centre, and this a redoubt, and that was a scrub in the rear, And this was the point where the guards held out, and the enemy's lines were here."
. . . . .
And fools, when the fiends of war are out and the city skies aflame,Will have something better to talk about than an absent woman's shame,Will have something nobler to do by far than jest at a friend's expense,Or blacken a name in a public bar or over a backyard fence.And this you learn from the libelled past,though its methods were somewhat rude —A nation's born where the shells fall fast, or its lease of life renewed.We in part atone for the ghoulish strife,and the crimes of the peace we boast,And the better part of a people's life in the storm comes uppermost.
The self-same spirit that drives the man to the depths of drink and crimeWill do the deeds in the heroes' van that live till the end of time.The living death in the lonely bush, the greed of the selfish town,And even the creed of the outlawed push is chivalry — upside down.'Twill be while ever our blood is hot, while ever the world goes wrong,The nations rise in a war, to rot in a peace that lasts too long.And southern nation and southern state, aroused from their dream of ease,Must sign in the Book of Eternal Fate their stormy histories.
Middleton's Rouseabout
Tall and freckled and sandy,Face of a country lout;This was the picture of Andy,Middleton's Rouseabout.
Type of a coming nation,In the land of cattle and sheep,Worked on Middleton's station,"Pound a week and his keep."
On Middleton's wide dominionsPlied the stockwhip and shears;Hadn't any opinions,Hadn't any "idears".
Swiftly the years went over,Liquor and drought prevailed;Middleton went as a drover,After his station had failed.
Type of a careless nation,Men who are soon played out,Middleton was: — and his stationWas bought by the Rouseabout.
Flourishing beard and sandy,Tall and robust and stout;This is the picture of Andy,Middleton's Rouseabout.
Now on his own dominionsWorks with his overseers;Hasn't any opinions,Hasn't any "idears".
The Vagabond
White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pierAs we glide to the grand old sea —But the song of my heart is for none to hearIf one of them waves for me.A roving, roaming life is mine,Ever by field or flood —For not far back in my father's lineWas a dash of the Gipsy blood.
Flax and tussock and fern,Gum and mulga and sand,Reef and palm — but my fancies turnEver away from land;Strange wild cities in ancient state,Range and river and tree,Snow and ice. But my star of fateIs ever across the sea.
A god-like ride on a thundering sea,When all but the stars are blind —A desperate race from EternityWith a gale-and-a-half behind.A jovial spree in the cabin at night,A song on the rolling deck,A lark ashore with the ships in sight,Till — a wreck goes down with a wreck.
A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day,When life is a waking dream,And care and trouble so far awayThat out of your life they seem.A roving spirit in sympathy,Who has travelled the whole world o'er —My heart forgets, in a week at sea,The trouble of years on shore.
A rolling stone! — 'tis a saw for slaves —Philosophy false as old —Wear out or break 'neath the feet of knaves,Or rot in your bed of mould!But I'D rather trust to the darkest skiesAnd the wildest seas that roar,Or die, where the stars of Nations rise,In the stormy clouds of war.
Cleave to your country, home, and friends,Die in a sordid strife —You can count your friends on your finger endsIn the critical hours of life.Sacrifice all for the family's sake,Bow to their selfish rule!Slave till your big soft heart they break —The heart of the family fool.
Domestic quarrels, and family spite,And your Native Land may beControlled by custom, but, come what might,The rest of the world for me.I'd sail with money, or sail without! —If your love be forced from home,And you dare enough, and your heart be stout,The world is your own to roam.
I've never a love that can sting my pride,Nor a friend to prove untrue;For I leave my love ere the turning tide,And my friends are all too new.The curse of the Powers on a peace like ours,With its greed and its treachery —A stranger's hand, and a stranger land,And the rest of the world for me!
But why be bitter? The world is coldTo one with a frozen heart;New friends are often so like the old,They seem of the past a part —As a better part of the past appears,When enemies, parted long,Are come together in kinder years,With their better nature strong.
I had a friend, ere my first ship sailed,A friend that I never deserved —For the selfish strain in my blood prevailedAs soon as my turn was served.And the memory haunts my heart with shame —Or, rather, the pride that's there;In different guises, but soul the same,I meet him everywhere.
I had a chum. When the times were tightWe starved in Australian scrubs;We froze together in parks at night,And laughed together in pubs.And I often hear a laugh like hisFrom a sense of humour keen,And catch a glimpse in a passing phizOf his broad, good-humoured grin.
And I had a love — 'twas a love to prize —But I never went back again . . .I have seen the light of her kind brown eyesIn many a face since then.
. . . . .
The sailors say 'twill be rough to-night,As they fasten the hatches down,The south is black, and the bar is white,And the drifting smoke is brown.The gold has gone from the western haze,The sea-birds circle and swarm —But we shall have plenty of sunny days,And little enough of storm.
The hill is hiding the short black pier,As the last white signal's seen;The points run in, and the houses veer,And the great bluff stands between.So darkness swallows each far white speckOn many a wharf and quay.The night comes down on a restless deck, —Grim cliffs — and — The Open Sea!
The Sliprails and the Spur
The colours of the setting sunWithdrew across the Western land —He raised the sliprails, one by one,And shot them home with trembling hand;Her brown hands clung — her face grew pale —Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim! —One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,And, "Good-bye, Mary!" "Good-bye, Jim!"~Oh, he rides hard to race the painWho rides from love, who rides from home;But he rides slowly home again,Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.~
A hand upon the horse's mane,And one foot in the stirrup set,And, stooping back to kiss again,With "Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret!When I come back" — he laughed for her —"We do not know how soon 'twill be;I'll whistle as I round the spur —You let the sliprails down for me."
She gasped for sudden loss of hope,As, with a backward wave to her,He cantered down the grassy slopeAnd swiftly round the dark'ning spur.Black-pencilled panels standing high,And darkness fading into stars,And blurring fast against the sky,A faint white form beside the bars.
And often at the set of sun,In winter bleak and summer brown,She'd steal across the little run,And shyly let the sliprails down.And listen there when darkness shutThe nearer spur in silence deep;And when they called her from the hutSteal home and cry herself to sleep.
. . . . .
~And he rides hard to dull the painWho rides from one that loves him best;And he rides slowly back again,Whose restless heart must rove for rest.~
Arthur Albert Dawson Bayldon.
Sunset
The weary wind is slumbering on the wing:Leaping from out meek twilight's purpling blueBurns the proud star of eve as though it knewIt was the big king jewel quiveringOn the black turban of advancing night.In the dim west the soldiers of the sunStrike all their royal colours one by one,Reluctantly surrender every height.
The Sea
Ere Greece soared, showering sovranties of light,Ere Rome shook earth with her tremendous tread,Ere yon blue-feasting sun-god burst blood-red,Beneath thee slept thy prodigy, O Night!Aeons have ta'en like dreams their strange, slow flight,And vastest, tiniest, creatures paved her bed,E'en cities sapped by the usurping spreadOf her imperious waves have sunk from sightSince she first chanted her colossal psalmsThat swell and sink beneath the listening stars;Oft, as with myriad drums beating to arms,She thunders out the grandeur of her wars;Then shifts through moaning moods her wizard charmsOf slow flutes and caressing, gay guitars.
To Poesy
These vessels of verse, O Great Goddess, are filled with invisible tears,With the sobs and sweat of my spirit and her desolate brooding for years;See, I lay them — not on thine altar, for they are unpolished and plain,Not rounded enough by the potter, too much burnt in the furnace of pain;But here in the dust, in the shadow, with a sudden wild leap of the heartI kneel to tenderly kiss them, then in silence arise to depart.
I linger awhile at the portal with the light of the crimsoning sunOn my wreathless brow bearing the badges of battles I've fought in not won.At the sound of the trumpet I've ever been found in thy thin fighting line,And the weapons I've secretly sharpened have flashed in defence of thy shrine.I've recked not of failure and losses, nor shrunk from the soilure of strifeFor thy magical glamour was on me and art is the moonlight of life.
I move from the threshold, Great Goddess, with steps meditative and slow;Night steals like a dream to the landscape and slips like a pallo'er its glow.I carry no lamp in my bosom and dwindling in gloom is the track,No token of man's recognition to prompt me to ever turn back.I strike eastward to meet the great day-dawn with the soul of my soulby my side,My goal though unknown is assured me, and the planet of Love is my guide.
Jennings Carmichael.
An Old Bush Road
Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken,Winding thro' the forest green,Barred with shadow and with sunshine,Misty vistas drawn between.Grim, scarred bluegums ranged austerely,Lifting blackened columns eachTo the large, fair fields of azure,Stretching ever out of reach.
See the hardy bracken growingRound the fallen limbs of trees;And the sharp reeds from the marshes,Washed across the flooded leas;And the olive rushes, leaningAll their pointed spears to castSlender shadows on the roadway,While the faint, slow wind creeps past.
Ancient ruts grown round with grasses,Soft old hollows filled with rain;Rough, gnarled roots all twisting queerly,Dark with many a weather-stain.Lichens moist upon the fences,Twiners close against the logs;Yellow fungus in the thickets,Vivid mosses in the bogs.
Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken,What delights in thee I find!Subtle charm and tender fancy,Like a fragrance in the mind.Thy old ways have set me dreaming,And out-lived illusions rise,And the soft leaves of the landscapeOpen on my thoughtful eyes.
See the clump of wattles, standingDead and sapless on the rise;When their boughs were full of beauty,Even to uncaring eyes,I was ever first to rifleThe soft branches of their store.O the golden wealth of blossomI shall gather there no more!
Now we reach the dun morasses,Where the red moss used to grow,Ruby-bright upon the water,Floating on the weeds below.Once the swan and wild-fowl glidedBy those sedges, green and tall;Here the booming bitterns nested;Here we heard the curlews call.
Climb this hill and we have rambledTo the last turn of the way;Here is where the bell-birds tinkledFairy chimes for me all day.These were bells that never wearied,Swung by ringers on the wing;List! the elfin strains are waking,Memory sets the bells a-ring!
Dear old road, no wonder, surely,That I love thee like a friend!And I grieve to think how surelyAll thy loveliness will end.For thy simple charm is passing,And the turmoil of the streetSoon will mar thy sylvan silenceWith the tramp of careless feet.
And for this I look more fondlyOn the sunny landscape, seenFrom the road, wheel-worn and broken,Winding thro' the forest green,Something still remains of Nature,Thoughts of other days to bring: —For the staunch old trees are standing,And I hear the wild birds sing!
A Woman's Mood
I think to-night I could bear it all,Even the arrow that cleft the core, —Could I wait again for your swift footfall,And your sunny face coming in at the door.With the old frank look and the gay young smile,And the ring of the words you used to say;I could almost deem the pain worth while,To greet you again in the olden way!
But you stand without in the dark and cold,And I may not open the long closed door,Nor call thro' the night, with the love of old, —"Come into the warmth, as in nights of yore!"I kneel alone in the red fire-glow,And hear the wings of the wind sweep by;You are out afar in the night, I know,And the sough of the wind is like a cry.
You are out afar — and I wait within,A grave-eyed woman whose pulse is slow;The flames round the red coals softly spin,And the lonely room's in a rosy glow.The firelight falls on your vacant chair,And the soft brown rug where you used to stand;Dear, never again shall I see you there,Nor lift my head for your seeking hand.
Yet sometimes still, and in spite of all,I wistful look at the fastened door,And wait again for the swift footfall,And the gay young voice as in hours of yore.It still seems strange to be here alone,With the rising sob of the wind without;The sound takes a deep, insisting tone,Where the trees are swinging their arms about.
Its moaning reaches the sheltered room,And thrills my heart with a sense of pain;I walk to the window, and pierce the gloom,With a yearning look that is all in vain.You are out in a night of depths that holdNo promise of dawning for you and me,And only a ghost from the life of oldHas come from the world of memory!
You are out evermore! God wills it so!But ah! my spirit is yearning yet!As I kneel alone by the red fire-glow,My eyes grow dim with the old regret.O when shall the aching throb grow still,The warm love-life turn cold at the core!Must I be watching, against my will,For your banished face in the opening door?
It may be, dear, when the sequel's toldOf the story, read to its bitter close;When the inner meanings of life unfold,And the under-side of our being shows —It may be then, in that truer light,When all our knowledge has larger grown,I may understand why you stray to-night,And I am left, with the past, alone.
Agnes L. Storrie.
Twenty Gallons of Sleep
Measure me out from the fathomless tunThat somewhere or other you keepIn your vasty cellars, O wealthy one,Twenty gallons of sleep.
Twenty gallons of balmy sleep,Dreamless, and deep, and mild,Of the excellent brand you used to keepWhen I was a little child.
I've tasted of all your vaunted stock,Your clarets and ports of Spain,The liquid gold of your famous hock,And your matchless dry champagne.
Of your rich muscats and your sherries fine,I've drunk both well and deep,Then, measure me out, O merchant mine,Twenty gallons of sleep.
Twenty gallons of slumber softOf the innocent, baby kind,When the angels flutter their wings aloftAnd the pillow with down is lined;
I have drawn the corks, and drained the leesOf every vintage pressed,If I've felt the sting of my honey beesI've taken it with the rest.
I have lived my life, and I'll not repine,As I sowed I was bound to reap;Then, measure me out, O merchant mine,Twenty gallons of sleep.
A Confession
You did not know, — how could you, dear, —How much you stood for? Life in youRetained its touch of Eden dew,And ever through the droughtiest yearMy soul could bring her flagon hereAnd fill it to the brim with clearDeep draughts of purity:And time could never quench the flameOf youth that lit me through your eyes,And cozened winter from my skiesThrough all the years that went and came.You did not know I used your nameTo conjure by, and still the sameI found its potency.You did not know that, as a phialMay garner close through dust and gloomThe essence of a rich perfume,Romance was garnered in your smileAnd touched my thoughts with beauty, whileThe poor world, wise with bitter guile,Outlived its chivalry.You did not know — our lives were laidSo far apart — that thus I drewThe sunshine of my days from you,That by your joy my own was weighedThat thus my debts your sweetness paid,And of my heart's deep silence madeA lovely melody.
Martha M. Simpson.
To an Old Grammar
Oh, mighty conjuror, you raiseThe ghost of my lost youth —The happy, golden-tinted daysWhen earth her treasure-trove displays,And everything is truth.
Your compeers may be sage and dry,But in your page appearsA very fairyland, where IPlayed 'neath a changeful Irish sky —A sky of smiles and tears.
Dear native land! this little bookBrings back the varied charmOf emerald hill and flashing brook,Deep mountain glen and woodland nook,And homely sheltered farm.
I see the hayrick where I satIn golden autumn days,And conned thy page, and wondered whatCould be the use, excepting thatIt gained the master's praise.
I conjugate thy verbs againBeside the winter's fire,And, as the solemn clock strikes ten,I lay thee on the shelf, and thenTo dreams of thee retire.
Thy Saxon roots reveal to meA silent, empty school,And one poor prisoner who could see,As if to increase her misery,Her mates released from rule,
Rushing to catch the rounder ball,Or circling in the ring.Those merry groups! I see them all,And even now I can recallThe songs they used to sing.
Thy syntax conjures forth a mornOf spring, when blossoms rareConspired the solemn earth to adorn,And spread themselves on bank and thorn,And perfumed all the air.
The dewdrops lent their aid and threwTheir gems with lavish handOn every flower of brilliant hue,On every blade of grass that grewIn that enchanted land.
The lark her warbling music lent,To give an added charm,And sleek-haired kine, in deep content,Forth from their milking slowly wentTowards the homestead farm.
And here thy page on logic showsA troop of merry girls,A meadow smooth where clover grows,And lanes where scented hawthorn blows,And woodbine twines and curls.
And, turning o'er thy leaves, I findOf many a friend the trace;Forgotten scenes rush to my mind,And some whom memory left behindNow stare me in the face.
. . . . .
Ah, happy days! when hope was high,And faith was calm and deep!When all was real and God was nigh,And heaven was "just beyond the sky",And angels watched my sleep.
Your dreams are gone, and here insteadFair science reigns alone,And, when I come to her for bread,She smiles and bows her stately headAnd offers me — a stone.
William Gay.
Primroses
They shine upon my table there,A constellation mimic sweet,No stars in Heaven could shine more fair,Nor Earth has beauty more complete;And on my table there they shine,And speak to me of things Divine.
In Heaven at first they grew, and whenGod could no fairer make them, HeDid plant them by the ways of menFor all the pure in heart to see,That each might shine upon its stemAnd be a light from Him to them.
They speak of things above my verse,Of thoughts no earthly language knows,That loftiest Bard could ne'er rehearse,Nor holiest prophet e'er disclose,Which God Himself no other wayThan by a Primrose could convey.
To M.
(With some Verses)
If in the summer of thy bright regardFor one brief season these poor Rhymes shall liveI ask no more, nor think my fate too hardIf other eyes but wintry looks should give;Nor will I grieve though what I here have writO'erburdened Time should drop among the ways,And to the unremembering dust commitBeyond the praise and blame of other days:The song doth pass, but I who sing, remain,I pluck from Death's own heart a life more deep,And as the Spring, that dies not, in her trainDoth scatter blossoms for the winds to reap,So I, immortal, as I fare along,Will strew my path with mortal flowers of song.
Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum
O steep and rugged Life, whose harsh ascentSlopes blindly upward through the bitter night!They say that on thy summit, high in light,Sweet rest awaits the climber, travel-spent;But I, alas, with dusty garments rent,With fainting heart and failing limbs and sight,Can see no glimmer of the shining height,And vainly list, with body forward bent,To catch athwart the gloom one wandering noteOf those glad anthems which (they say) are sungWhen one emerges from the mists below:But though, O Life, thy summit be remoteAnd all thy stony path with darkness hung,Yet ever upward through the night I go.
Edward Dyson.
The Old Whim Horse
He's an old grey horse, with his head bowed sadly,And with dim old eyes and a queer roll aft,With the off-fore sprung and the hind screwed badly,And he bears all over the brands of graft;And he lifts his head from the grass to wonderWhy by night and day the whim is still,Why the silence is, and the stampers' thunderSounds forth no more from the shattered mill.
In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowedOn the riven summit of Giant's Hand,And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowedAll the wide, long sweep of enchanted land;And he knew his shift, and the whistle's warning,And he knew the calls of the boys below;Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning,He had taken his stand by the old whim bow.
But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallowIn the silent shaft hangs her home of clay,And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes followO'er the grass-grown brace in the summer day;And the corn springs high in the cracks and cornersOf the forge, and down where the timber lies;And the crows are perched like a band of mournersOn the broken hut on the Hermit's Rise.
All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out,And the company waits till the calls come in;But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out,And no market's near for his bones and skin.So they let him live, and they left him grazingBy the creek, and oft in the evening dimI have seen him stand on the rises, gazingAt the ruined brace and the rotting whim.
The floods rush high in the gully under,And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees,Or the cattle down from the ranges blunderAs the fires drive by on the summer breeze.Still the feeble horse at the right hour wandersTo the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb,And with hanging head by the bow he pondersWhere the whim boy's gone — why the shifts don't come.
But there comes a night when he sees lights glowingIn the roofless huts and the ravaged mill,When he hears again all the stampers going —Though the huts are dark and the stampers still:When he sees the steam to the black roof clingingAs its shadows roll on the silver sands,And he knows the voice of his driver singing,And the knocker's clang where the braceman stands.
See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,On the ring once more his accustomed place;But the moonbeams full on the ruins streamingShow the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace.Yet HE hears the sled in the smithy falling,And the empty truck as it rattles back,And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;And he turns and backs, and he "takes up slack".
While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiverAs the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiverIn the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,Hears again the voice that was dear to him,Sees the form he knew — and his heart grows bolderAs he works his shift by the broken whim.
He hears in the sluices the water rushingAs the buckets drain and the doors fall back;When the early dawn in the east is blushing,He is limping still round the old, old track.Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replyingTo a call unspoken, with eyes aglow,And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying;From the ring no more will the grey horse go.
In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming,And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim,And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreamingOn the timbers grey and a charred hut frame,Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squattingIn the high rank grass by the dried-up course,Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rottingAre the bleaching bones of the old grey horse.
Dowell O'Reilly.
The Sea-Maiden
Like summer waves on sands of snow,Soft ringlets clasp her neck and brow,And wandering breezes kiss awayA threaded light of glimmering spray,That drifts and floats and softly fliesIn a golden mist about her eyes.Her laugh is fresh as foam that springsThrough tumbling shells and shining things,And where the gleaming margin driesIs heard the music of her sighs.Her gentle bosom ebbs and swellsWith the tide of life that deeply wellsFrom a throbbing heart that loves to breakIn the tempest of love for love's sweet sake.O, the fragrance of earth, and the song of the sea,And the light of the heavens, are only threeOf the thousand glories that Love can trace,In her life, and her soul, and her beautiful face.
. . . . .
This tangled weed of poesy,Torn from the heart of a stormy sea,I fling upon the love divineOf her, who fills this heart of mine.
David MacDonald Ross.
Love's Treasure House
I went to Love's old treasure house last night,Alone, when all the world was still — asleep,And saw the miser Memory, grown grayWith years of jealous counting of his gems,There seated. Keen was his eye, his handFirm as when first his hoarding he beganOf precious things of Love, long years ago."And this," he said, "is gold from out her hair,And this the moonlight that she wandered in,With here a rose, enamelled by her breath,That bloomed in glory 'tween her breasts, and hereThe brimming sun-cup that she quaffed at noon,And here the star that cheered her in the night;In this great chest, see curiously wrought,Are purest of Love's gems." A ruby key,Enclasped upon a golden ring, he took,With care, from out some secret hiding-place,And delicately touched the lock, whereatI staggered, blinded by the light of thingsMore luminous than stars, and questioned thus —"What are these treasures, miser Memory?"And slowly bending his gray head, he spoke:"These are the multitudes of kisses sweetLove gave so gladly, and I treasure here."
The Sea to the Shell
The sea, my mother, is singing to me,She is singing the old refrain,Of passion, of love, and of mystery,And her world-old song of pain;Of the mirk midnight and the dazzling day,That trail their robes o'er the wet sea-way.
The sea, my mother, is singing to meWith the white foam caught in her hair,With the seaweed swinging its long arms free,To grapple the blown sea air:The sea, my mother, with billowy swell,Is telling her tale to the wave-washed shell.
The sea, my mother, is singing to me,With the starry gleam in her wave,A dirge of the dead, of the sad, sad sea,A requiem song of the brave;Tenderly, sadly, the surges tellTheir tale of death to the wave-washed shell.
The sea, my mother, confides to me,As she turns to the soft, round moon,The secrets that lie where the spirits be,That hide from the garish noon:The sea, my mother, who loves me well,Is telling their woe to the wave-washed shell.
O mother o' mine, with the foam-flecked hair,O mother, I love and knowThe heart that is sad and the soul that is bareTo your daughter of ebb and flow;And I hold your whispers of Heaven and HellIn the loving heart of a wave-washed shell.
The Silent Tide
I heard Old Ocean raise her voice and cry,In that still hour between the night and day;I saw the answering tides, green robed and gray,Turn to her with a low contented sigh;Marching with silent feet they passed me by,For the white moon had taught them to obey,And scarce a wavelet broke in fretful spray,As they went forth to kiss the stooping sky.
So, to my heart, when the last sunray sleeps,And the wan night, impatient for the moon,Throws her gray mantle over land and sea,There comes a call from out Life's nether deeps,And tides, like some old ocean in a swoon,Flow out, in soundless majesty, to thee.
The Watch on Deck
Becalmed upon the equatorial seas,A ship of gold lay on a sea of fire;Each sail and rope and spar, as in desire,Mutely besought the kisses of a breeze;Low laughter told the mariners at ease;Sweet sea-songs hymned the red sun's fun'ral pyre:Yet One, with eyes that never seemed to tire,Watched for the storm, nursed on the thunder's knees.
Thou watcher of the spirit's inner keep,Scanning Death's lone, illimitable deep,Spread outward to the far immortal shore!While the vault sleeps, from the upheaving deck,Thou see'st the adamantine reefs that wreck,And Life's low shoals, where lusting billows roar.
Autumn
When, with low moanings on the distant shore,Like vain regrets, the ocean-tide is rolled:When, thro' bare boughs, the tale of death is toldBy breezes sighing, "Summer days are o'er";When all the days we loved — the days of yore —Lie in their vaults, dead Kings who ruled of old —Unrobed and sceptreless, uncrowned with gold,Conquered, and to be crowned, ah! never more.
If o'er the bare fields, cold and whiteningWith the first snow-flakes, I should see thy form,And meet and kiss thee, that were enough of Spring;Enough of sunshine, could I feel the warmGlad beating of thy heart 'neath Winter's wing,Tho' Earth were full of whirlwind and of storm.
Mary Gilmore.
A Little Ghost
The moonlight flutters from the skyTo meet her at the door,A little ghost, whose steps have passedAcross the creaking floor.
And rustling vines that lightly tapAgainst the window-pane,Throw shadows on the white-washed wallsTo blot them out again.
The moonlight leads her as she goesAcross a narrow plain,By all the old, familiar waysThat know her steps again.
And through the scrub it leads her onAnd brings her to the creek,But by the broken dam she stopsAnd seems as she would speak.
She moves her lips, but not a soundRipples the silent air;She wrings her little hands, ah, me!The sadness of despair!
While overhead the black-duck's wingCuts like a flash uponThe startled air, that scarcely shrinksEre he afar is gone.
And curlews wake, and wailing cryCur-lew! cur-lew! cur-lew!Till all the Bush, with nameless dreadIs pulsing through and through.
The moonlight leads her back againAnd leaves her at the door,A little ghost whose steps have passedAcross the creaking floor.
Good-Night
Good-night! . . . my darling sleeps so soundShe cannot hear me where she lies;White lilies watch the closed eyes,Red roses guard the folded hands.
Good-night! O woman who once layUpon my breast, so still, so sweetThat all my pulses, throbbing, beatAnd flamed — I cannot touch you now.
Good-night, my own! God knows we lovedSo well, that all things else seemed slight —We part forever in the night,We two poor souls who loved so well.
Bernard O'Dowd.
Love's Substitute
This love, that dares not warm before its flameOur yearning hands, or from its tempting treeYield fruit we may consume, or let us claimIn Hymen's scroll of happy heraldryThe twining glyphs of perfect you and me —May kindle social fires whence curls no blame,Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be,And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame.
For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waitsFor such as you to cherish it to Youth:Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verveThat Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates:And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuthThe perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!"
Our Duty
Yet what were Love if man remains unfree,And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise:If children's Hope is blasted ere they seeIts shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise:If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and LiesEnthroned as Law befoul posterity,And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguiseInsults the face of God where'er men be?
Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not loveOur stricken brothers so, as to resignFor Its own sake, the foison of Its dower:That, so, we two may help them mount aboveThese layers of charnel air in which they pine,To seek with us the Presence and the Power?
Edwin James Brady.
The Wardens of the Seas
Like star points in the ether to guide a homing soulTowards God's Eternal Haven; above the wash and roll,Across and o'er the oceans, on all the coasts they standTall seneschals of commerce, High Wardens of the Strand —The white lights slowly turningTheir kind eyes far and wide,The red and green lights burningAlong the waterside.
When Night with breath of aloes, magnolia, spice, and balmCreeps down the darkened jungles and mantles reef and palm,By velvet waters making soft music as they surgeThe shore lights of dark Asia will one by one emerge —Oh, Ras Marshig by AdenShows dull on hazy nights;And Bombay Channel's laid inIts "In" and "Outer" lights.
When Night, in rain-wet garments comes sobbing cold and greyAcross the German Ocean and South from Stornoway,Thro' snarling darkness slowly, some fixed and some a-turn,The bright shore-lights of Europe like welcome tapers burn, —From fierce Fruholmen streamingO'er Northern ice and snow,To Cape St. Vincent gleaming, —These lamps of danger glow.
The dark Etruscan tending his watchfires by the shore,On sacred altars burning, the world shall know no more;His temple's column standing against the ancient starsIs gone; Now bright catoptrics flash out electric bars, —Slow swung his stately ArgosUnto the Tiber's mouth;But now the Tuscan cargoesScrew-driven, stagger South.
The lantern of Genoa guides home no Eastern fleetsAs when the boy Columbus played in its narrow streets:No more the Keltic `dolmens' their fitful warnings throwAcross the lone Atlantic, so long, so long ago —No more the beaked prows dashingShall dare a shoreward foam;No more will great oars threshingSweep Dorian galleys home.
No more the Vikings roaring their sagas wild and weirdProclaim that Rome has fallen; no more a consul fearedShall quench the Roman pharos lest Northern pirates freeBe pointed to their plunder on coasts of Italy —Nor shall unwilling lovers,From Lethean pleasures torn,Fare nor'ward with those rovers,To frozen lands forlorn.
The bale-fires and the watch-fires, the wrecker's foul false lureNo more shall vex the shipmen; and on their course securePast Pharos in the starlight the tow'ring hulls of TradeRace in and out from Suez in iron cavalcade, —So rode one sunset oldenAcross the dark'ning sea,With banners silk and golden,The Barge of Antony!
They loom along the foreshores; they gleam across the Straits;They guide the feet of Commerce unto the harbor gates.In nights of storm and thunder, thro' fog and sleet and rain,Like stars on angels' foreheads, they give man heart again, —Oh, hear the high waves smashingOn Patagonia's shore!Oh, hear the black waves threshingTheir weight on Skerryvore!
He searches night's grim chances upon his bridge aloneAnd seeks the distant glimmer of hopeful Eddystone:And thro' a thick fog creeping, with chart and book and lead,The homeward skipper follows their green and white and red —By day his lighthouse wardensIn sunlit quiet stand,But in the night the burdensAre theirs of Sea and Land.
They fill that night with Knowledge. A thousand ships go by,A thousand captains bless them, so bright and proud and high:The world's dark capes they glamour; or low on sand banks dread,They, crouching, mark a pathway between the Quick and Dead —Like star points in the etherThey bring the seamen ease,These Lords of Wind and WeatherThese Wardens of the Seas!
Will. H. Ogilvie.
Queensland Opal
Opal, little opal, with the red fire glancing,Set my blood a-spinning, set my pulse a-stir,Strike the harp of memory, set my dull heart dancingSouthward to the Sunny Land and the love of Her!
Opal, shining opal, let them call you luckless jewel,Let them curse or let them covet, you are still my heart's desire,You that robbed the sun and moon and green earth for fuelTo gather to your milky breast and fill your veins with fire!
Green of fluttering gum-leaves above dim water-courses,Red of rolling dust-clouds, blue of summer skies,Flash of flints afire beneath the hoofs of racing horses,Sunlight and moonlight and light of lovers' eyes
Pink clasping hands amid a Southern summer gloaming,Green of August grasses, white of dew-sprung pearls,Grey of winging wild geese into the Sunset homing,Twined with all the kisses of a Queen of Queensland girls!
Wind o' the Autumn
I love you, wind o' the Autumn, that came from I know not where,To lead me out of the toiling world to a ballroom fresh and fair,Where the poplars tall and golden and the beeches rosy and redAre setting to woodland partners and dancing the stars to bed!
Oh! say, wild wind o' the Autumn, may I dance this dance with youDecked out in your gown of moonmist and jewelled with drops of dew?For I know no waiting lover with arms that so softly twine,And I know no dancing partner whose step is so made for mine!
Daffodils
Ho! You there, selling daffodils along the windy street,Poor drooping, dusty daffodils — but oh! so Summer sweet!Green stems that stab with loveliness, rich petal-cups to holdThe wine of Spring to lips that cling like bees about their gold!
What price to you for daffodils? I'll give what price you please,For light and love and memory lie leaf by leaf with these!And if I bought all Sydney Town I could not hope to buyThe wealth you bring of everything that goes with open sky!
My money for your daffodils: why do you thank me so?If I have paid a reckless price, take up my gift and go,And from the golden garden beds where gold the sunbeams shineBring in more flowers to light the hours for lover-hearts like mine!
A Queen of Yore
Slowly she hobbles past the town, grown old at heart and gray;With misty eyes she stumbles down along the well-known way;She sees her maiden march unrolled by billabong and bend,And every gum's a comrade old and every oak's a friend;But gone the smiling faces that welcomed her of yore —They crowd her tented places and hold her hand no more.And she, the friend they once could trust to serve their eager wish,Shall show no more the golden dust that hides in many a dish;And through the dismal mullock-heaps she threads her mournful wayWhere here and there some gray-beard keeps his windlass-watch to-day;Half-flood no more she looses her reins as once of oldTo wash the busy sluices and whisper through the gold.She sees no wild-eyed steers above stand spear-horned on the brink;The brumby mobs she used to love come down no more to drink;Where green the grasses used to twine above them, shoulder-deep,Through the red dust — a long, slow line — crawl in the starving sheep;She sees no crossing cattle that Western drovers bring,No swimming steeds that battle to block them when they ring.