Turn from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name—She is fairer than flowers of the fire—she is brighter than brightness of flame.As a song that strikes swift to the heartwith the beat of the blood of the South,And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth.Her eyes are as splendours that break in the rain at the set of the sun,But turn from the steps of Campaspe—a Woman to look at and shun!Dost thou know of the cunning of Beauty? Take heed to thyself and bewareOf the trap in the droop in the raiment—the snare in the folds of the hair!She is fulgent in flashes of pearl, the breeze with her breathing is sweet,But fly from the face of the girl—there is death in the fall of her feet!Is she maiden or marvel of marble? Oh, rather a tigress at waitTo pounce on thy soul for her pastime—a leopard for love or for hate.Woman of shadow and furnace! She biteth her lips to restrainSpeech that springs out when she sleepeth,by the stirs and the starts of her pain.As music half-shapen of sorrow, with its wants and its infinite wail,Is the voice of Campaspe, the beauty at bay with her passion dead-pale.Go out from the courts of her loving, nor tempt the fierce dance of desireWhere thy life would be shrivelled like stubblein the stress and the fervour of fire!I know of one, gentle as moonlight—she is sad as the shine of the moon,But touching the ways of her eyes are: she comes to my soul like a tune—Like a tune that is filled with faint voicesof the loved and the lost and the lone,Doth this stranger abide with my silence: like a tune with a tremulous tone.The leopard, we call her, Campaspe! I pluck at a rose and I stirTo think of this sweet-hearted maiden—what name is too tender for her?
Where the strength of dry thunder splits hill-rocks asunder,And the shouts of the desert-wind break,By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,Lo, the cattle track twists like a snake!Like a sea of dead embers, burnt white by Decembers,A plain to the left of it lies;And six fleeting horses dash down the creek coursesWith the terror of thirst in their eyes.The false strength of fever, that deadly deceiver,Gives foot to each famishing beast;And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten,The mirage gleams out in the east.Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and riddenIn a stream where the cattle track dips;And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces,And the drouth is a fire on their lips.It is far to the station, and gaunt DesolationIs a spectre that glooms in the way;Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is,And as flame are the feet of the day.The wastes are like metal that forges unsettleWhen the heat of the furnace is white;And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth,Is unknown to the wild desert night.A cry of distress there! a horseman the less there!The mock-waters shine like a moon!It is "Speed, and speed faster from this hole of disaster!And hurrah for yon God-sent lagoon!"Doth a devil deceive them? Ah, now let us leave them—We are burdened in life with the sad;Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble,And the gladdest is never too glad.From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile,To a sweet river shadowed with reeds,Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly,The hoof-rutted cattle track leads.There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light;There fiery things falter and fall;And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now,And the wings of a peace over all.Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy coverAway by the snow-smitten Pole!The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth;And what is the end of the whole?Some men are successful after seasons distressful[Now, masters, the drift of my tale];But the brink of salvation is a lair of damnationFor others who struggle, yet fail.
Where the sinister sun of the Syrians beatOn the brittle, bright stubble,And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat,Came Saul, with a fire in the soles of his feet,And a forehead of trouble.And terrified faces to left and to right,Before and behind him,Fled away with the speed of a maddening frightTo the cloughs of the bat and the chasms of night,Each hoping the zealot would fail in his flightTo find him and bind him.For, behold you! the strong man of Tarsus came downWith breathings of slaughter,From the priests of the city, the chiefs of the town(The lords with the sword, and the sires with the gown),To harry the Christians, and trample, and drown,And waste them like water.He was ever a fighter, this son of the Jews—A fighter in earnest;And the Lord took delight in the strength of his thews,For He knew he was one of the few He could chooseTo fight out His battles and carry His newsOf a marvellous truth through the dark and the dews,And the desert lands furnaced!He knew he was one of the few He could takeFor His mission supernal,Whose feet would not falter, whose limbs would not ache,Through the waterless lands of the thorn and the snake,And the ways of the wild—bearing up for the sakeOf a Beauty eternal.And therefore the road to Damascus was burnedWith a swift, sudden brightness;While Saul, with his face in the bitter dust, learnedOf the sin which he did ere he tumbled, and turnedAghast at God's whiteness!Of the sin which he did ere he covered his headFrom the strange revelation.But, thereafter, you know of the life that he led—How he preached to the peoples, and suffered, and spedWith the wonderful words which his Master had said,From nation to nation.Now would we be like him, who suffer and see,If the Chooser should choose us!For I tell you, brave brothers, whoever you be,It is right, till all learn to look further, and see,That our Master should use us!It is right, till all learn to discover and class,That our Master should task us:For now we may judge of the Truth through a glass;And the road over which they must evermore pass,Who would think for the many, and fight for the mass,Is the road to Damascus.
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling;It lives in the mountain, where moss and the sedgesTouch with their beauty the banks and the ledges;Through brakes of the cedar and sycamore bowersStruggles the light that is love to the flowers.And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time,They sing in September their songs of the May-time.When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle,They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled togetherThey start up like fairies that follow fair weather,And straightway the hues of their feathers unfoldenAre the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;Loiters knee-deep in the grasses to listen,Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten.Then is the time when the water-moons splendidBreak with their gold, and are scattered or blendedOver the creeks, till the woodlands have warningOf songs of the bell-bird and wings of the morning.Welcome as waters unkissed by the summersAre the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.When fiery December sets foot in the forest,And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,Pent in the ridges for ever and ever.The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrentsAre toned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.Often I sit, looking back to a childhoodMixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,Longing for power and the sweetness to fashionLyrics with beats like the heart-beats of passion—Songs interwoven of lights and of laughtersBorrowed from bell-birds in far forest rafters;So I might keep in the city and alleysThe beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys,Charming to slumber the pain of my lossesWith glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.
The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs,That wore the marks of many rains, and showedDry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.Moreover, round the bases of the barkWere left the tracks of flying forest fires,As you may see them on the lower boleOf every elder of the native woods.For, ere the early settlers came and stockedThese wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grewSo that they took the passing pilgrim inAnd whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.And therefore, through the fiercer summer months,While all the swamps were rotten; while the flatsWere baked and broken; when the clayey riftsYawned wide, half-choked with drifted herbage past,Spontaneous flames would burst from thence and raceAcross the prairies all day long.At nightThe winds were up, and then, with four-fold speedA harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fireWould roar along the bottoms, in the wakeOf fainting flocks of parrots, wallaroos,And 'wildered wild things, scattering right and left,For safety vague, throughout the general gloom.Anon the nearer hillside-growing treesWould take the surges; thus from bough to boughWas borne the flaming terror! Bole and spire,Rank after rank, now pillared, ringed, and rolledIn blinding blaze, stood out against the dead,Down-smothered dark, for fifty leagues away.For fifty leagues; and when the winds were strongFor fifty more! But in the olden timeThese fires were counted as the harbingersOf life-essential storms, since out of smokeAnd heat there came across the midnight waysAbundant comfort, with upgathered cloudsAnd runnels babbling of a plenteous fall.So comes the southern gale at evenfall(The swift brick-fielder of the local folk),About the streets of Sydney, when the dustLies burnt on glaring windows, and the menLook forth from doors of drouth and drink the changeWith thirsty haste, and that most thankful cryOf "Here it is—the cool, bright, blessed rain!"The hut, I say, was built of bark and slabs,And stood, the centre of a clearing, hemmedBy hurdle-yards, and ancients of the blacks;These moped about their lazy fires, and sangWild ditties of the old days, with a soundOf sorrow, like an everlasting windWhich mingled with the echoes of the noonAnd moaned amongst the noises of the night.From thence a cattle track, with link to link,Ran off against the fish-pools to the gapWhich sets you face to face with gleaming milesOf broad Orara*, winding in amongstBlack, barren ridges, where the nether spursAre fenced about by cotton scrub, and grassBlue-bitten with the salt of many droughts.—* A tributary of the river Clarence, N.S.W.—'Twas here the shepherd housed him every night,And faced the prospect like a patient soul,Borne up by some vague hope of better days,And God's fine blessing in his faithful wife,Until the humour of his maladyTook cunning changes from the good to bad,And laid him lastly on a bed of death.Two months thereafter, when the summer heatHad roused the serpent from his rotten lair,And made a noise of locusts in the boughs,It came to this, that as the blood-red sunOf one fierce day of many slanted downObliquely past the nether jags of peaksAnd gulfs of mist, the tardy night came vexedBy belted clouds and scuds that wheeled and whirledTo left and right about the brazen cliftsOf ridges, rigid with a leaden gloom.Then took the cattle to the forest campsWith vacant terror, and the hustled sheepStood dumb against the hurdles, even likeA fallen patch of shadowed mountain snow;And ever through the curlew's call afar,The storm grew on, while round the stinted slabsSharp snaps and hisses came, and went, and came,The huddled tokens of a mighty blastWhich ran with an exceeding bitter cryAcross the tumbled fragments of the hills,And through the sluices of the gorge and glen.So, therefore, all about the shepherd's hutThat space was mute, save when the fastened dog,Without a kennel, caught a passing glimpseOf firelight moving through the lighted chinks,For then he knew the hints of warmth within,And stood and set his great pathetic eyes,In wind and wet, imploring to be loosed.Not often now the watcher left the couchOf him she watched, since in his fitful sleepHis lips would stir to wayward themes, and closeWith bodeful catches. Once she moved away,Half-deafened by terrific claps, and stoopedAnd looked without—to see a pillar dimOf gathered gusts and fiery rain.AnonThe sick man woke, and, startled by the noise,Stared round the room with dull, delirious sight,At this wild thing and that: for through his eyesThe place took fearful shapes, and fever showedStrange crosswise lights about his pillow-head.He, catching there at some phantasmic help,Sat upright on the bolster with a cryOf "Where is Jesus? It is bitter cold!"And then, because the thunder-calls outsideWere mixed for him with slanders of the past,He called his weeping wife by name, and said,"Come closer, darling! We shall speed awayAcross the seas, and seek some mountain homeShut in from liars and the wicked wordsThat track us day and night and night and day."So waned the sad refrain. And those poor lips,Whose latest phrases were for peace, grew mute,And into everlasting silence passed.As fares a swimmer who hath lost his breathIn 'wildering seas afar from any help—Who, fronting Death, can never realizeThe dreadful Presence, but is prone to clutchAt every weed upon the weltering wave—So fared the watcher, poring o'er the lastOf him she loved, with dazed and stupid stare;Half conscious of the sudden loss and lackOf all that bound her life, but yet withoutThe power to take her mighty sorrow in.Then came a patch or two of starry sky,And through a reef of cloven thunder-cloudThe soft moon looked: a patient face beyondThe fierce impatient shadows of the slopesAnd the harsh voices of the broken hills!A patient face, and one which came and wroughtA lovely silence, like a silver mist,Across the rainy relics of the storm.For in the breaks and pauses of her lightThe gale died out in gusts: yet, evermoreAbout the roof-tree on the dripping eaves,The damp wind loitered, and a fitful driftSloped through the silent curtains, and athwartThe dead.There, when the glare had dropped behindA mighty ridge of gloom, the woman turnedAnd sat in darkness, face to face with God,And said, "I know," she said, "that Thou art wise;That when we build and hope, and hope and build,And see our best things fall, it comes to passFor evermore that we must turn to Thee!And therefore, now, because I cannot findThe faintest token of DivinityIn this my latest sorrow, let Thy lightInform mine eyes, so I may learn to lookOn something past the sight which shuts and blindsAnd seems to drive me wholly, Lord, from Thee."Now waned the moon beyond complaining depths,And as the dawn looked forth from showery woods(Whereon had dropped a hint of red and gold)There went about the crooked cavern-eavesLow flute-like echoes, with a noise of wings,And waters flying down far-hidden fells.Then might be seen the solitary owlPerched in the clefts, scared at the coming light,And staring outward (like a sea-shelled thingChased to his cover by some bright, fierce foe),As at a monster in the middle waste.At last the great kingfisher came, and calledAcross the hollows, loud with early whips,And lighted, laughing, on the shepherd's hut,And roused the widow from a swoon like death.This day, and after it was noised abroadBy blacks, and straggling horsemen on the roads,That he was dead "who had been sick so long",There flocked a troop from far-surrounding runs,To see their neighbour, and to bury him;And men who had forgotten how to cry(Rough, flinty fellows of the native bush)Now learned the bitter way, beholding thereThe wasted shadow of an iron frame,Brought down so low by years of fearful pain,And marking, too, the woman's gentle face,And all the pathos in her moaned replyOf "Masters, we have lived in better days."One stooped—a stockman from the nearer hills—To loose his wallet-strings, from whence he tookA bag of tea, and laid it on her lap;Then sobbing, "God will help you, missus, yet,"He sought his horse, with most bewildered eyes,And, spurring, swiftly galloped down the glen.Where black Orara nightly chafes his brink,Midway between lamenting lines of oakAnd Warra's Gap, the shepherd's grave was built;And there the wild dog pauses, in the midstOf moonless watches, howling through the gloomAt hopeless shadows flitting to and fro,What time the east wind hums his darkest hymn,And rains beat heavy on the ruined leaf.There, while the autumn in the cedar treesSat cooped about by cloudy evergreensThe widow sojourned on the silent road,And mutely faced the barren mound, and pluckedA straggling shrub from thence, and passed away,Heart-broken, on to Sydney, where she tookHer passage in an English vessel boundTo London, for her home of other years.At rest! Not near, with Sorrow on his grave,And roses quickened into beauty—wraptIn all the pathos of perennial bloom;But far from these, beneath the fretful clayOf lands within the lone perpetual cryOf hermit plovers and the night-like oaks,All moaning for the peace which never comes.At rest! And she who sits and waits behindIs in the shadows; but her faith is sure,Andonefine promise of the coming daysIs breaking, like a blessed morning, farOn hills that "slope through darkness up to God."
From Andalusian gardensI bring the rose and rue,And leaves of subtle odour,To weave a gift for you.You'll know the reason whereforeThe sad is with the sweet;My flowers may lie, as I would,A carpet for your feet!The heart—the heart is constant;It holds its secret, Dear!But often in the night timeI keep awake for fear.I have no hope to whisper,I have no prayer to send,God save you from such passion!God help you from such end!You first, you last, you false love!In dreams your lips I kiss,And thus I greet your Shadow,"Take this, and this, and this!"When dews are on the casement,And winds are in the pine,I have you close beside me—In sleep your mouth is mine.I never see you elsewhere;You never think of me;But fired with fever for youContent I am to be.You will not turn, my Darling,Nor answer when I call;But yours are soul are bodyAnd love of mine and all!You splendid Spaniard! Listen—My passion leaps to flameFor neck and cheek and dimple,And cunning shades of shame!I tell you, I would gladlyGive Hell myself to keep,To cling to, half a moment,The lips I taste in sleep.
He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,And hides in the dark of his hair;For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,Or think of the loneliness there—Of the loss and the loneliness there.The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,And turn to their coverts for fear;But he sits in the ashes and lets them passWhere the boomerangs sleep with the spear—With the nullah, the sling and the spear.Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaksOn the tops of the rocks with the rain,And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,Have made him a hunter again—A hunter and fisher again.For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought;But he dreams of the hunts of yore,And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he foughtWith those who will battle no more—Who will go to the battle no more.It is well that the water which tumbles and fills,Goes moaning and moaning along;For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,And he starts at a wonderful song—At the sound of a wonderful song.And he sees, through the rents of the scattering fogs,The corroboree warlike and grim,And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,To watch, like a mourner, for him—Like a mother and mourner for him.Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands,Like a chief, to the rest of his race,With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands,And gleams like a dream in his face—Like a marvellous dream in his face?
—* A promontory on the coast of New South Wales.—
Lo! in storms, the triple-headedHill, whose dreadedBases battle with the seas,Looms across fierce widths of fleetingWaters beatingEvermore on roaring leas!Arakoon, the black, the lonely!Housed with onlyCloud and rain-wind, mist and damp;Round whose foam-drenched feet and netherDepths, togetherSullen sprites of thunder tramp!There the East hums loud and surly,Late and early,Through the chasms and the caves,And across the naked vergesLeap the surges!White and wailing waifs of waves.Day by day the sea-fogs gathered—Tempest-fathered—Pitch their tents on yonder peak,Yellow drifts and fragments lyingWhere the flyingTorrents chafe the cloven creek!And at nightfall, when the drivenBolts of heavenSmite the rock and break the bluff,Thither troop the elves whose home isWhere the foam is,And the echo and the clough.Ever girt about with noises,Stormy voices,And the salt breath of the Strait,Stands the steadfast Mountain Giant,Grim, reliant,Dark as Death, and firm as Fate.So when trouble treads, like thunder,Weak men under—Treads and breaks the thews of these—Set thyself to bear it bravely,Greatly, gravely,Like the hill in yonder seas;Since the wrestling and enduranceGive assuranceTo the faint at bay with pain,That no soul to strong endeavourYoked for ever,Works against the tide in vain.
Ill fares it with the man whose lips are setTo bitter themes and words that spite the gods;For, seeing how the son of Saturn swaysWith eyes and ears for all, this one shall haltAs on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall knowThe plaintive front of sorrow; level looksWith cries ill-favoured shall be dealt to him;Andthisshall be that he may think of peaceAs one might think of alienated lipsOf sweetness touched for once in kind, warm dreams.Yea, fathers of the high and holy face,This soul thus sinning shall have cause to sob"Ah, ah," for sleep, and space enough to learnThe wan, wild Hyrie's aggregated songThat starts the dwellers in distorted heights,With all the meaning of perpetual sighsHeard in the mountain deserts of the world,And where the green-haired waters glide betweenThe thin, lank weeds and mallows of the marsh.But thou to whom these things are like to shapesThat come of darkness—thou whose life slips pastRegarding rather these with mute fast mouth—Hear none the less how fleet Telegonus,The brass-clad hunter, first took oar and smoteSwift eastward-going seas, with face directFor narrowing channels and the twofold coastsPast Colchis and the fierce Symplegades,And utmost islands, washed by streams unknown.For in a time when Phasis whitened wideAnd drove with violent waters blown of windAgainst the bare, salt limits of the land,It came to pass that, joined with Cytheraea,The black-browed Ares, chafing for the wrongUlysses did him on the plains of Troy,Set heart against the king; and when the stormsSang high in thunder and the Thracian rain,The god bethought him of a pale-mouthed priestOf Thebae, kin to ancient Chariclo,And of an omen which the prophet gaveThat touched on death and grief to Ithaca;Then, knowing how a heavy-handed fateHad laid itself on Circe's brass-clad son,He pricked the hunter with a lust that turnedAll thoughts to travel and the seas remote;But chiefly now he stirred TelegonusTo longings for his father's exiled face,And dreams of rest and honey-hearted loveAnd quiet death with much of funeral flameFar in the mountains of a favoured landBeyond the wars and wailings of the waves.So, past the ridges where the coast abruptDips greyly westward, Circe's strong-armed sonSwept down the foam of sharp-divided straitsAnd faced the stress of opening seas. Sheer outThe vessel drave; but three long moons the galeMoaned round; and swift, strong streams of fire revealedThe labouring rowers and the lightening surf,Pale watchers deafened of sonorous storm,And dipping decks and rents of ruined sails.Yea, when the hollow ocean-driven shipWheeled sideways, like a chariot cloven throughIn hard hot battle, and the night came upAgainst strange headlands lying east and north,Behold a black, wild wind with death to allRan shoreward, charged with flame and thunder-smoke,Which blew the waters into wastes of white,And broke the bark, as lightning breaks the pine;Whereat the sea in fearful circles showedUnpitied faces turned from Zeus and light—Wan swimmers wasted with their agony,And hopeless eyes and moaning mouths of men.But one held by the fragments of the wreck,And Ares knew him for Telegonus,Whom heavy-handed Fate had chained to deedsOf dreadful note with sin beyond a name.So, seeing this, the black-browed lord of war,Arrayed about by Jove's authentic light,Shot down amongst the shattered clouds and calledWith mighty strain, betwixt the gaps of storm"Oceanus! Oceanus!" WhereatThe surf sprang white, as when a keel dividesThe gleaming centre of a gathered wave;And, ringed with flakes of splendid fire of foam,The son of Terra rose half-way and blewThe triple trumpet of the water-gods,At which great winds fell back and all the seaGrew dumb, as on the land a war-feast breaksWhen deep sleep falls upon the souls of men.Then Ares of the night-like brow made knownThe brass-clad hunter of the facile feet,Hard clinging to the slippery logs of pine,And told the omen to the hoary godThat touched on death and grief to Ithaca;Wherefore Oceanus, with help of hand,Bore by the chin the warrior of the North,A moaning mass, across the shallowing surge,And cast him on the rocks of alien shoresAgainst a wintry morning shot with storm.Hear also, thou, how mighty gods sustainThe men set out to work the ends of FateWhich fill the world with tales of many tearsAnd vex the sad face of humanity:Six days and nights the brass-clad chief abodePent up in caverns by the straitening seasAnd fed on ferns and limpets; but the dawn,Before the strong sun of the seventh, broughtA fume of fire and smells of savoury meatAnd much rejoicing, as from neighbouring feasts;At which the hunter, seized with sudden lust,Sprang up the crags, and, like a dream of fear,Leapt, shouting, at a huddled host of hindsAmongst the fragments of their steaming food;And as the hoarse wood-wind in autumn sweepsTo every zone the hissing latter leaves,So fleet Telegonus, by dint of spearAnd strain of thunderous voice, did scatter theseEast, south, and north. 'Twas then the chief had rest,Hard by the outer coast of Ithaca,Unknown to him who ate the spoil and slept.Nor stayed he hand thereafter; but when noonBurned dead on misty hills of stunted fir,This man shook slumber from his limbs and spedAgainst hoar beaches and the kindled cliffsOf falling waters. These he waded through,Beholding, past the forests of the West,A break of light and homes of many men,And shining corn, and flowers, and fruits of flowers.Yea, seeing these, the facile-footed chiefGrasped by the knot the huge Aeaean lanceAnd fell upon the farmers; wherefore theyLeft hoe and plough, and crouched in heights remote,Companioned with the grey-winged fogs; but heMade waste their fields and throve upon their toil—As throve the boar, the fierce four-footed curseWhich Artemis did raise in CalydonTo make stern mouths wax white with foreign fear,All in the wild beginning of the world.So one went down and told Laertes' sonOf what the brass-clad stranger from the straitsHad worked in Ithaca; whereat the KingRose, like a god, and called his mighty heir,Telemachus, the wisest of the wise;And these two, having counsel, strode without,And armed them with the arms of warlike days—The helm, the javelin, and the sun-like shield,And glancing greaves and quivering stars of steel.Yea, stern Ulysses, rusted not with rest,But dread as Ares, gleaming on his carGave out the reins; and straightway all the landsWere struck by noise of steed and shouts of men,And furious dust, and splendid wheels of flame.Meanwhile the hunter (starting from a sleepIn which the pieces of a broken dreamHad shown him Circe with most tearful face),Caught at his spear, and stood like one at bayWhen Summer brings about Arcadian hornsAnd headlong horses mixt with maddened hounds;Then huge Ulysses, like a fire of fight,Sprang sideways on the flying car, and draveFull at the brass-clad warrior of the NorthHis massive spear; but fleet TelegonusStooped from the death, but heard the speedy lanceSing like a thin wind through the steaming air;Yet he, dismayed not by the dreadful foe—Unknown to him—dealt out his strength, and aimedA strenuous stroke at great Laertes' son,Which missed the shield, but bit through flesh and bone,And drank the blood, and dragged the soul from thence.So fell the King! And one cried "Ithaca!Ah, Ithaca!" and turned his face and wept.Then came another—wise Telemachus—Who knelt beside the man of many daysAnd pored upon the face; but lo, the lifeWas like bright water spilt in sands of thirst,A wasted splendour swiftly drawn away.Yet held he by the dead: he heeded notThe moaning warrior who had learnt his sin—Who waited now, like one in lairs of pain,Apart with darkness, hungry for his fate;For had not wise Telemachus the loreWhich makes the pale-mouthed seer content to sleepAmidst the desolations of the world?So therefore he, who knew Telegonus,The child of Circe by Laertes' son,Was set to be a scourge of Zeus, smote not,But rather sat with moody eyes, and mused,And watched the dead. For who may brave the gods?Yet, O my fathers, when the people came,And brought the holy oils and perfect fire,And built the pile, and sang the tales of Troy—Of desperate travels in the olden time,By shadowy mountains and the roaring sea,Near windy sands and past the Thracian snows—The man who crossed them all to see his sire,And had a loyal heart to give the king,Instead of blows—this man did little moreThan moan outside the fume of funeral rites,All in a rushing twilight full of rain,And clap his palms for sharper pains than swords.Yea, when the night broke out against the flame,And lonely noises loitered in the fens,This man nor stirred nor slept, but lay at wait,With fastened mouth. For who may brave the gods?
Ah! the solace in the sitting,Sitting by the fire,When the wind without is callingAnd the fourfold clouds are falling,With the rain-racks intermitting,Over slope and spire.Ah! the solace in the sitting,Sitting by the fire.Then, and then, a man may ponder,Sitting by the fire,Over fair far days, and facesShining in sweet-coloured placesEre the thunder broke asunderLife and dear Desire.Thus, and thus, a man may ponder,Sitting by the fire.Waifs of song pursue, perplex me,Sitting by the fire:Just a note, and lo, the change then!Like a child, I turn and range then,Till a shadow starts to vex me—Passion's wasted pyre.So do songs pursue, perplex me,Sitting by the fire.Night by night—the old, old story—Sitting by the fire,Night by night, the dead leaves grieve me:Ah! the touch when youth shall leave me,Like my fathers, shrunken, hoary,With the years that tire.Night by night—that old, old story,Sitting by the fire.Sing for slumber, sister Clara,Sitting by the fire.I could hide my head and sleep now,Far from those who laugh and weep now,Like a trammelled, faint wayfarer,'Neath yon mountain-spire.Sing for slumber, sister Clara,Sitting by the fire.
Sing her a song of the sun:Fill it with tones of the stream,—Echoes of waters that runGlad with the gladdening gleam.Let it be sweeter than rain,Lit by a tropical moon:Light in the words of the strain,Love in the ways of the tune.Softer than seasons of sleep:Dearer than life at its best!Give her a ballad to keep,Wove of the passionate West:Give it and say of the hours—"Haunted and hallowed of thee,Flower-like woman of flowers,What shall the end of them be?"You that have loved her so much,Loved her asleep and awake,Trembled because of her touch,What have you said for her sake?Far in the falls of the day,Down in the meadows of myrrh,What has she left you to sayFilled with the beauty of her?Take her the best of your thoughts,Let them be gentle and grave,Say, "I have come to thy courts,Maiden, with all that I have."So she may turn with her sweetFace to your love and to you,Learning the way to repeatWords that are brighter than dew.
Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams,And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping,Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,And hoarse with sounds of storms unsleeping.Fit grave it is for one whose songWas tuned by tones he caught from torrents,And filled with mountain breaths, and strong,Wild notes of falling forest currents.So let him sleep, the rugged hymnsAnd broken lights of woods above him!And let me sing how sorrow dimsThe eyes of those that used to love him.As April in the wilted woldTurns faded eyes on splendours waning,What time the latter leaves are old,And ruin strikes the strays remaining;So we that knew this singer dead,Whose hands attuned the harp Australian,May set the face and bow the head,And mourn his fate and fortunes alien.The burden of a perished faithWent sighing through his speech of sweetness,With human hints of time and death,And subtle notes of incompleteness.But when the fiery power of youthHad passed away and left him nameless,Serene as light, and strong as truth,He lived his life, untired and tameless.And, far and free, this man of men,With wintry hair and wasted feature,Had fellowship with gorge and glen,And learned the loves and runes of Nature.Strange words of wind, and rhymes of rain,And whispers from the inland fountainsAre mingled, in his various strain,With leafy breaths of piny mountains.But as the undercurrents sighBeneath the surface of a river,The music of humanityDwells in his forest-psalms for ever.No soul was he to sit on heightsAnd live with rocks apart and scornful:Delights of men were his delights,And common troubles made him mournful.The flying forms of unknown powersWith lofty wonder caught and filled him;But there were days of gracious hoursWhen sights and sounds familiar thrilled him.The pathos worn by wayside things,The passion found in simple faces,Struck deeper than the life of springsOr strength of storms and sea-swept places.But now he sleeps, the tired bard,The deepest sleep; and, lo! I profferThese tender leaves of my regard,With hands that falter as they offer.
Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee, Coogee in the distance white,With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light;Haunt of gledes, and restless plovers of the melancholy wailEver lending deeper pathos to the melancholy gale.There, my brothers, down the fissures, chasms deep and wan and wild,Grows the sea-bloom, one that blushes like a shrinking, fair, blind child;And amongst the oozing forelands many a glad, green rock-vine runs,Getting ease on earthy ledges, sheltered from December suns.Often, when a gusty morning, rising cold and grey and strange,Lifts its face from watery spaces, vistas full with cloudy change,Bearing up a gloomy burden which anon begins to wane,Fading in the sudden shadow of a dark, determined rain,Do I seek an eastern window, so to watch the breakers beatRound the steadfast crags of Coogee, dim with drifts of driving sleet:Hearing hollow mournful noises sweeping down a solemn shore,While the grim sea-caves are tideless, and the storm strives at their core.Often when the floating vapours fill the silent autumn leas,Dreaming mem'ries fall like moonlight over silver sleeping seas.Youth and I and Love together! Other times and other themesCome to me unsung, unwept for, through the faded evening gleams:Come to me and touch me mutely—I that looked and longed so well,Shall I look and yet forget them?—who may know or who foretell?Though the southern wind roams, shadowed with its immemorial grief,Where the frosty wings of Winter leave their whiteness on the leaf.Friend of mine beyond the waters, here and here these perished daysHaunt me with their sweet dead faces and their old divided ways.You that helped and you that loved me, take this song, and when you read,Let the lost things come about you, set your thoughts and hear and heed.Time has laid his burden on us—we who wear our manhood now,We would be the boys we have been, free of heart and bright of brow—Be the boys for just an hour, with the splendour and the speechOf thy lights and thunders, Coogee, flying up thy gleaming beach.Heart's desire and heart's division! who would come and say to me,With the eyes of far-off friendship, "You are as you used to be"?Something glad and good has left me here with sickening discontent,Tired of looking, neither knowing what it was or where it went.So it is this sight of Coogee, shining in the morning dew,Sets me stumbling through dim summers once on fire with youth and you—Summers pale as southern evenings when the year has lost its powerAnd the wasted face of April weeps above the withered flower.Not that seasons bring no solace, not that time lacks light and rest;But the old things were the dearest and the old loves seem the best.We that start at songs familiar, we that tremble at a toneFloating down the ways of music, like a sigh of sweetness flown,We can never feel the freshness, never find again the moodLeft among fair-featured places, brightened of our brotherhood.This and this we have to think of when the night is over all,And the woods begin to perish and the rains begin to fall.