(A Juvenile Fragment.)
Above the skirts of yellow clouds,The god-like Sun, arrayedIn blinding splendour, swiftly rose,And looked athwart the glade;The sleepy dingo watched him breakThe bonds that curbed his flight;And from his golden tresses shakeThe fading gems of Night!And wild goburras laughed aloudTheir merry morning songs,As Echo answered in the depthsWith a thousand thousand tongues;The gully-depths where many a vineOf ancient growth had crept,To cluster round the hoary pine,Where scanty mosses wept.Huge stones, and damp and broken crags,In wild chaotic heap,Were lying at the barren baseOf the ferny hillside steep;Between those fragments hollows lay,Upfilled with fruitful ground,Where many a modest floweret grew,To scent the wind-breaths round;As fertile patches bloom withinA dried and worldly heart,When some that look can only seeThe cold, the barren part!The Miser, full with thoughts of gain,The meanest of his race,May in his breast some verdure hide,Though none that verdure trace.Where time-worn cliffs were jutting out,With rough and ragged edges,The snowy mountain-lily sleptBehind the earthy ledges;Like some sweet Oriental Maid,Who blindly deems it dutyTo wear a veil before her face,And hide her peerless beauty;Or like to Innocence that thrivesIn midst of sin and sorrows,Nor from the cheerless scene aroundThe least infection borrows,But stayeth out her mortal life—Though in that lifetime lonely—With Virtue's lustre round her heart,And Virtue's lustre only.A patch of sunshine here and thereLay on a leaf-strewn water-pool,Whose tribute trickled down the rocksIn gurgling ripples, clear and cool!As iguanas, from the clefts,Would steal along with rustling sound,To where the restless eddies roamedAmongst the arrowy rushes round.While, scanning them with angry eyesFrom off a fallen myrtle logThat branchless bridged the brushy creek,There stood and barked, a Shepherd's Dog!And underneath a neighbouring massOf wattles intertwining,His Master lay—his back againstThe grassy banks reclining.Beneath the shade of ironbarks,Stretched o'er the valley's sloping bed—Half hidden in a tea-tree scrub,A flock of dusky sheep were spread;And fitful bleating faintly cameOn every joyous breath of wind,That up the stony hills would fly,And leave the hollows far behind!Wild tones of music from the CreekWere intermingling with the breeze,The loud, rich lays of countless birdsPerched on the dark mimosa trees;Those merry birds, with wings of lightWhich rival every golden rayOut-flashing from the lamps of Night,Or streaming o'er the brow of Day.Amongst the gnarly apple-trees,A gorgeous tribe of parrots came;And screaming, leapt from bough to bough,Like living jets of crimson flame!And where the hillside-growing gumsTheir web-like foliage upward threw,Old Nature rang with echoes fromThe loud-voiced mountain cockatoo;And a thousand nameless twittering things,Between the rustling sapling sprays,Were flashing through the fragrant leaves,And dancing like to fabled fays;Rejoicing in the glorious lightThat beauteous Morning had unfurledTo make the heart of Nature glad,And clothe with smiles a weeping World.
(New Words to an Old Air.)
With sweet Regret—(the dearest thing that Yesterday has left us)—We often turn our homeless eyes to scenes whence Fate has reft us.Here sitting by a fading flame, wild waifs of song remind meOf Annie with her gentle ways, the Girl I left behind me.I stood beside the surging sea, with lips of silent passion—I faced you by the surging sea, O brows of mild repression!I never said—"my darling, stay!"—the moments seemed to bind meTo something stifling all my words for the Girl I left behind me.The pathos worn by common things—by every wayside flower,Or Autumn leaf on lonely winds, revives the parting hour.Ye swooning thoughts without a voice—ye tears which rose to blind me,Why did she fade into the Dark, the Girl I left behind me.At night they always come to me, the tender and true-hearted;And in my dreams we join again the hands which now are parted;And, looking through the gates of Sleep, the pleasant Moon doth find meFor ever wandering with my Love, the Girl I left behind me.You know my life is incomplete, O far-off faint Ideal!When shall I reach you from a depth of darkness which is real?So I may mingle, soul in soul, with her that Heaven assigned me;So she may lean upon my love, the Girl I left behind me.
I walked through a Forest, beneath the hot noon,On Etheline calling and calling!One said:Â "She will hear you and come to you soon,When the coolness, my brother, is falling."But I whispered:Â "O Darling, I falter with pain!"And the thirsty leaves rustled, and hissed for the rain,Where a wayfarer halted and slept on the plain;And dreamt of a garden of Roses!Of a cool sweet place,And a nestling faceIn a dance and a dazzle of Roses.In the drouth of a Desert, outwearied, I wept,O Etheline, darkened with dolours!But, folded in sunset, how long have you sleptBy the Roses all reeling with colours?A tree from its tresses a blossom did shake,It fell on her face, and I feared she would wake,So I brushed it away forhersweet sake;In that garden of beautiful Roses!In the dreamy perfumesFrom ripe-red bloomsIn a dance and a dazzle of Roses.
It is better, O day, that you go to your rest,For you go like a guest who was loth to remain!Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west,And let out the wild shadows—the night and the rain.Ye winds, ye are dead, with your voices attuned,That thrilled the green life in the sweet-scented sheaves,When I touched a warm hand which has faded, and swoonedTo a trance of the darkness, and blight on the leaves.I had studied the lore in her maiden-like ways,And the large-hearted love of my Annie was won,'Ere Summer had passed into passionate days,Or Autumn made ready her fruits for the Sun.So my life was complete, and the hours that went by,And the moon and the willow-wooed waters around,Might have known that we rested, my Annie and I,In happiness calm as the slumber of sound.On Sundays we wandered, as glad as a breeze,By the rocks and the waves on a glittering beach;Or we loitered in gardens melodious with bees,And sucked the sweet pulp of the plum and the peach."The Forest will show me the secrets of Fame,"I said to myself in the gum-shadowed glen,"I will call every blossom and tree by its name,And the people shall deem me a man of the men."I will gather Roses of Sharon, my Soul,—The Roses of Sharon so cool and so sweet;And our brothers shall see me entwining the wholeFor a garland to drop at my dear Annie's feet."It is better, O day, that you go to your rest,For you go like a guest who was loth to remain!Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west,And let out the wild shadows—the night and the rain.
A Brother wandered forth with me,Beside a barren beach:He harped on things beyond the sea,And out of reach.He hinted once of unknown skies,And then I would not hark,But turned away from steadfast eyes,Into the dark.And said—"an ancient faith is deadAnd wonder fills my mind:I marvel how the blind have ledSo long the blind."Behold this truth we only knowThat night is on the land!And we a weary way must goTo find God's hand."I wept—"Our fathers told us, Lord,That Thou wert kind and just,But lo! our wailings fly abroadFor broken trust."How many evil ones are hereWho mocking go about,Because we are too faint with fearTo wrestle Doubt!"Thy riddles are beyond the kenOf creatures of the sod:Remember that we are but men,And Thou art God!"O, doting world, methinks your stayIs weaker than a reed!Our Father turns His face away;'Tis dark indeed."The evening woods lay huddled there,All wrapped in silence strange:A sudden wind—and lo! the airWas filled with change."Your words are wild," my brother said,"For God's voice fills the breeze;Go—hide yourself, as Adam did,Amongst the trees."I pluck the shoes from off my feet,But dare to look around;Behold," he said, "my Lord I greet,On holy ground!"And God spake through the wind to me—"Shake off that gloom of Fear,You fainting soul who could not seeThat I was near."Why vex me crying day and night?—You call on me to hark!But when I bless your world with light,Who makes it dark?"Is there a ravelled riddle leftThat you would have undone?What other doubts are there to sift?"I answered—"None.""My son, look up, if you would seeThe Promise on your way,And turn a trustful face to me."I whispered—"Yea."
My head is filled with olden rhymes beside this moaning sea,But many and many a day has gone since I was dear to thee!I know my passion fades away, and therefore oft regretThat some who love indeed can part and in the years forget.Ah! through the twilights when we stood the wattle trees between,We did not dream of such a time as this, fair Geraldine.I do not say that all has gone of passion and of pain;I yearn for many happy thoughts I shall not think again!And often when the wind is up, and wailing round the eaves,You sigh for withered Purpose shred and scattered like the leaves,The Purpose blooming when we met each other on the green;The sunset heavy in your curls, my golden Geraldine.I think we lived a loftier life through hours of Long Ago,For in the largened evening earth our spirits seemed to grow.Well, that has passed, and here I stand, upon a lonely place,While Night is stealing round the land, like Time across my face;But I can calmly recollect our shadowy parting scene,And swooning thoughts that had no voice—no utterance, Geraldine.
(From "Jephthah".)
Hath he not followed a star through the darkness,Ye people who sit at the table of Jephthah?Oh! turn with the face to a light in the mountains,Behold it is further from Achan than ever!"I know how it is with my brothers in Mizpeh,"Said Achan, the swift-footed runner of Zorah,"They look at the wood they have hewn for the altar;And think of a shadow in sackcloth and ashes."I know how it is with the daughter of Jephthah,(O Ada, my love, and the fairest of women!)She wails in the time when her heart is so zealousFor God who hath stricken the children of Ammon."I said I would bring her the odours of Edom,And armfuls of spices to set at the banquet!Behold I have fronted the chieftain her father;And strong men have wept for the leader of thousands!"My love is a rose of the roses of Sharon,All lonely and bright as the Moon in the myrtles!Her lips, like to honeycombs, fill with the sweetnessThat Achan the thirsty is hindered from drinking."Her women have wept for the love that is wastedLike wine, which is spilt when the people are wanting,And hot winds have dried all the cisterns of Elim!For love that is wasted her women were wailing!"The timbrels fall silent! And dost thou not hear it,A voice, like the sound of a lute when we loiter,And sit by the pools in the valleys of Arnon,And suck the cool grapes that are growing in clusters?"She glides, like a myrrh-scented wind, through the willows,O Ada! behold it is Achan that speaketh:I know thou art near me, but never can see thee,Because of the horrible drouth in mine eyelids."
[End of Poems and Songs.]
To her who, cast with me in trying days,Stood in the place of health and power and praise;Who, when I thought all light was out, becameA lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;Who faced for love's sole sake the life austereThat waits upon the man of letters here;Who, unawares, her deep affection showedBy many a touching little wifely mode;Whose spirit, self-denying, dear, divine,Its sorrows hid, so it might lessen mine—To her, my bright, best friend, I dedicateThis book of songs—'t will help to compensateFor much neglect. The act, if not the rhyme,Will touch her heart, and lead her to the timeOf trials past. That which is most intenseWithin these leaves is of her influence;And if aught here is sweetened with a toneSincere, like love, it came of love alone.
II purposed once to take my pen and write,Not songs, like some, tormented and awryWith passion, but a cunning harmonyOf words and music caught from glen and height,And lucid colours born of woodland lightAnd shining places where the sea-streams lie.But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,And since I've put the faded purpose by.I have no faultless fruits to offer youWho read this book; but certain syllablesHerein are borrowed from unfooted dellsAnd secret hollows dear to noontide dew;And these at least, though far between and few,May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.
IISo take these kindly, even though there beSome notes that unto other lyres belong,Stray echoes from the elder sons of song;And think how from its neighbouring native seaThe pensive shell doth borrow melody.I would not do the lordly masters wrongBy filching fair words from the shining throngWhose music haunts me as the wind a tree.Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian gloomsShot through with sunset, treads the cedar dells,And hears the breezy ring of elfin bellsFar down be where the white-haired cataract booms,He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.
Now comes the fierce north-easter, boundAbout with clouds and racks of rain,And dry, dead leaves go whirling roundIn rings of dust, and sigh like painAcross the plain.Now twilight, with a shadowy handOf wild dominionship, doth keepStrong hold of hollow straits of land,And watery sounds are loud and deepBy gap and steep.Keen, fitful gusts, that fly beforeThe wings of storm when day hath shutIts eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,Against the hut.And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,Far eastern cliffs start up, and takeThick steaming vapours from a swampThat lieth like a great blind lake,Of face opaque.The moss that, like a tender grief,About an English ruin clings—What time the wan autumnal leafFaints, after many wanderingsOn windy wings—That gracious growth, whose quiet greenIs as a love in days austere,Was never seen—hath never been—On slab or roof, deserted hereFor many a year.Nor comes the bird whose speech is song—Whose songs are silvery syllablesThat unto glimmering woods belong,And deep, meandering mountain dellsBy yellow wells.But rather here the wild-dog halts,And lifts the paw, and looks, and howls;And here, in ruined forest vaults,Abide dim, dark, death-featured owls,Like monks in cowls.Across this hut the nettle runs,And livid adders make their lairIn corners dank from lack of suns,And out of foetid furrows stareThe growths that scare.Here Summer's grasp of fire is laidOn bark and slabs that rot, and breedSquat ugly things of deadly shade,The scorpion, and the spiteful seedOf centipede.Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,And flaming noontides, mute with heat,Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,Upon these rifted rafters beatWith torrid feet.And night by night the fitful galeDoth carry past the bittern's boom,The dingo's yell, the plover's wail,While lumbering shadows start, and loom,And hiss through gloom.No sign of grace—no hope of green,Cool-blossomed seasons marks the spot;But chained to iron doom, I ween,'Tis left, like skeleton, to rotWhere ruth is not.For on this hut hath murder writ,With bloody fingers, hellish things;And God will never visit itWith flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,Or gentle wings.
Grey Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest,And, behold, for repayment,September comes in with the wind of the WestAnd the Spring in her raiment!The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers,While the forest discoversWild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours,And the music of lovers.September, the maid with the swift, silver feet!She glides, and she gracesThe valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat,With her blossomy traces;Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose,She lightens and lingersIn spots where the harp of the evening glows,Attuned by her fingers.The stream from its home in the hollow hill slipsIn a darling old fashion;And the day goeth down with a song on its lips,Whose key-note is passion.Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the seaI stand, and rememberDead things that were brothers and sisters of thee,Resplendent September!The West, when it blows at the fall of the noonAnd beats on the beaches,Is filled with a tender and tremulous tuneThat touches and teaches;The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time,And the death of Devotion,Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhymeIn the waves of the ocean.We, having a secret to others unknown,In the cool mountain-mosses,May whisper together, September, aloneOf our loves and our losses!One word for her beauty, and one for the graceShe gave to the hours;And then we may kiss her, and suffer her faceTo sleep with the flowers.High places that knew of the gold and the whiteOn the forehead of MorningNow darken and quake, and the steps of the NightAre heavy with warning.Her voice in the distance is lofty and loudThrough the echoing gorges;She hath hidden her eyes in a mantle of cloud,And her feet in the surges.On the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones—Chief temples of thunder—The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans,Gliding over and under.The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain,Leapeth wild at the forelands;And the plover, whose cry is like passion with pain,Complains in the moorlands.Oh, season of changes—of shadow and shine—September the splendid!My song hath no music to mingle with thine,And its burden is ended;But thou, being born of the winds and the sun,By mountain, by river,Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run,With thy voices for ever!
"Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;Shut your ears, stranger," saith the grey mother, crooningHer sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.To-night the north-easter goes travelling slowly,But it never stoops down to that hollow unholy;To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten.For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing—The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under),Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving,Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving—You may see the saw heaving, and falling, and heaving,Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving!And across a burnt body, as black as an adder,Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog (was ever sight sadder?)For, as the dry thunder splits louder and faster,This sprite of a sheep-dog howls for his master."Oh, count your beads deftly," saith the grey mother, crooningHer sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.And well may she mutter, for the dark, hollow laughterYou will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after.Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary,For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary.Pray for your peace in these perilous places,And pray for the laying of horrible faces.One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid,Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid;One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there(Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there:The stranger, who came from the loved, the romanticIsland that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic,Leaving behind him a patient home, yearningFor the steps in the distance—never returning;Who was left in the forest, shrunken and starkly,Burnt by his slayers (so men have said, darkly),With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there,And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there.Yea, cross your breast humbly and hold your breath tightly,Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly,From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too),And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to.I tell you—that bushman is braver than most menWho even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen,Although in that hollow, unholy and lonely,He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only.
Daphne! Ladon's daughter, Daphne! Set thyself in silver light,Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white—Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade,Flying love of bright Apollo,—fleeting type of faultless maid!She, when followed from the forelands by the lord of lyre and lute,Sped towards far-singing waters, past deep gardens flushed with fruit;Took the path against Peneus, panted by its yellow banks;Turned, and looked, and flew the faster through grey-tufted thicket ranks;Flashed amongst high flowered sedges: leaped across the brook, and ranDown to where the fourfold shadows of a nether glade began;There she dropped, like falling Hesper, heavy hair of radiant headHiding all the young abundance of her beauty's white and red.Came the yellow-tressed Far-darter—came the god whose feet are fire,On his lips the name of Daphne, in his eyes a great desire;Fond, full lips of lord and lover, sad because of suit denied;Clear, grey eyes made keen by passion, panting, pained, unsatisfied.Here he turned, and there he halted, now he paused, and now he flew,Swifter than his sister's arrows, through soft dells of dreamy dew.Vext with gleams of Ladon's daughter, dashed along the son of Jove,Fast upon flower-trammelled Daphne fleeting on from grove to grove;Flights of seawind hard behind him, breaths of bleak and whistling straits;Drifts of driving cloud above him, like a troop of fierce-eyed Fates!So he reached the water-shallows; then he stayed his steps, and heardDaphne drop upon the grasses, fluttering like a wounded bird.Was there help for Ladon's daughter? Saturn's son is high and just:Did he come between her beauty and the fierce Far-darter's lust?As she lay, the helpless maiden, caught and bound in fast eclipse,Did the lips of god drain pleasure from her sweet and swooning lips?Now that these and all Love's treasures blushed, before the spoiler, bare,Was the wrong that shall be nameless done, and seen, and suffered there?No! for Zeus is King and Father. Weary nymph and fiery god,Bend the knee alike before him—he is kind, and he is lord!Therefore sing how clear-browed Pallas—Pallas, friend of prayerful maid,Lifted dazzling Daphne lightly, bore her down the breathless glade,Did the thing that Zeus commanded: so it came to pass that heWho had chased a white-armed virgin, caught at her, and clasped a tree.
—* The Dingo, or Wild Dog of Australia.—
The warrigal's lair is pent in bare,Black rocks at the gorge's mouth;It is set in ways where Summer straysWith the sprites of flame and drouth;But when the heights are touched with lightsOf hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,His bed is made of the dead grass-bladeAnd the leaves of the windy pine.Through forest boles the storm-wind rolls,Vext of the sea-driv'n rain;And, up in the clift, through many a rift,The voices of torrents complain.The sad marsh-fowl and the lonely owlAre heard in the fog-wreaths grey,When the warrigal wakes, and listens, and takesTo the woods that shelter the prey.In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,And the silver, showery moonGlides over the hills, and floats, and fills,And dreams in the dark lagoon;While halting hard by the station yard,Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,The warrigal yells—and flats and fellsAre loud with his dismal cry.On the topmost peak of mountains bleakThe south wind sobs, and straysThrough moaning pine and turpentine,And the rippling runnel ways;And strong streams flow, and great mists go,Where the warrigal starts to hearThe watch-dog's bark break sharp in the dark,And flees like a phantom of fear.The swift rains beat, and the thunders fleetOn the wings of the fiery gale,And down in the glen of pool and fen,The wild gums whistle and wail,As over the plains and past the chainsOf waterholes glimmering deep,The warrigal flies from the shepherd's cries,And the clamour of dogs and sheep.He roves through the lands of sultry sands,He hunts in the iron range,Untamed as surge of the far sea verge,And fierce and fickle and strange.The white man's track and the haunts of the blackHe shuns, and shudders to see;For his joy he tastes in lonely wastesWhere his mates are torrent and tree.
On the storm-cloven CapeThe bitter waves roll,With the bergs of the Pole,And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:For the storm-cloven CapeIs an alien ShapeWith a fearful face; and it moans, and it standsOutside all landsEverlastingly!When the fruits of the yearHave been gathered in Spain,And the Indian rainIs rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,There comes to this CapeTo this alien Shape,As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,The Wind of the North,Euroclydon!And the wilted thyme,And the patches pastOf the nettles castIn the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,Are tumbled and blownTo every zoneWith the famished glede, and the plovers thinnedBy this fourfold Wind—This Wind sublime!On the wrinkled hills,By starts and fits,The wild Moon sits;And the rindles fill and flash and fallIn the way of her light,Through the straitened night,When the sea-heralds clamour, and elves of the war,In the torrents afar,Hold festival!From ridge to ridgeThe polar firesOn the naked spires,With a foreign splendour, flit and flow;And clough and caveAnd architraveHave a blood-coloured glamour on roof and on wall,Like a nether hallIn the hells below!The dead, dry lipsOf the ledges, splitBy the thunder fitAnd the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,Anon break out,With a shriek and a shout,Like a hard, bitter laughter, cracked and thin,From a ghost with a sinToo dark for a name!And all thro' the year,The fierce seas runFrom sun to sun,Across the face of a vacant world!And the Wind flies forthFrom the wild, white North,That shivers and harries the heart of things,And shapes with its wingsA chaos uphurled!Like one who seesA rebel lightIn the thick of the night,As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar—Who looks to it still,Up hill and hill,With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,And rough, and steep),Like a steadfast star—So I, that standOn the outermost peaksOf peril, with cheeksBlue with the salts of a frosty sea,Have learnt to wait,With an eye elateAnd a heart intent, for the fuller blazeOf the Beauty that raysLike a glimpse for me—Of the Beauty that growsWhenever I hearThe winds of FearFrom the tops and the bases of barrenness call;And the duplicate loreWhich I learn evermore,Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,And the marvellous FormThat governs all!
—* A stream in the Braidwood district, New South Wales.—
River, myrtle rimmed, and setDeep amongst unfooted dells—Daughter of grey hills of wet,Born by mossed and yellow wells;Now that soft September laysTender hands on thee and thine,Let me think of blue-eyed days,Star-like flowers and leaves of shine!Cities soil the life with rust;Water banks are cool and sweet;River, tired of noise and dust,Here I come to rest my feet.Now the month from shade to sunFleets and sings supremest songs,Now the wilful wood-winds runThrough the tangled cedar throngs.Here are cushioned tufts and turnsWhere the sumptuous noontide lies:Here are seen by flags and fernsSummer's large, luxurious eyes.On this spot wan Winter castsEyes of ruth, and spares its greenFrom his bitter sea-nursed blasts,Spears of rain and hailstones keen.Rather here abideth Spring,Lady of a lovely land,Dear to leaf and fluttering wing,Deep in blooms—by breezes fanned.Faithful friend beyond the main,Friend that time nor change makes cold;Now, like ghosts, return againPallid, perished days of old.Ah, the days!—the old, old theme,Never stale, but never new,Floating like a pleasant dream,Back to me and back to you.Since we rested on these slopesSeasons fierce have beaten downArdent loves and blossoming hopes—Loves that lift and hopes that crown.But, believe me, still mine eyesOften fill with light that springsFrom divinity, which liesEver at the heart of things.Solace do I sometimes findWhere you used to hear with meSongs of stream and forest wind,Tones of wave and harp-like tree.Araluen—home of dreams,Fairer for its flowerful gladeThan the face of Persian streamsOr the slopes of Syrian shade;Why should I still love it so,Friend and brother far away?Ask the winds that come and go,What hath brought me here to-day.Evermore of you I think,When the leaves begin to fall,Where our river breaks its brink,And a rest is over all.Evermore in quiet lands,Friend of mine beyond the sea,Memory comes with cunning hands,Stays, and paints your face for me.
—* Charles Harpur was buried at Euroma, N.S.W., but this poem refersto the grave of a stranger whose name is unknown.—
They built his mound of the rough, red ground,By the dip of a desert dell,Where all things sweet are killed by the heat,And scattered o'er flat and fell;In a burning zone they left him alone,Past the uttermost western plain,And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymnIn the voices of wind and rain.The songs austere of the forests drear,And the echoes of clift and cave,When the dark is keen where the storm hath been,Fleet over the far-away grave.And through the days when the torrid raysStrike down on a coppery gloom,Some spirit grieves in the perished leaves,Whose theme is that desolate tomb.No human foot or paw of bruteHalts now where the stranger sleeps;But cloud and star his fellows are,And the rain that sobs and weeps.The dingo yells by the far iron fells,The plover is loud in the range,But they never come near to the slumberer here,Whose rest is a rest without change.Ah! in his life, had he mother or wife,To wait for his step on the floor?Did beauty wax dim while watching for himWho passed through the threshold no more?Doth it trouble his head? He is one with the dead;He lies by the alien streams;And sweeter than sleep is death that is deepAnd unvexed by the lordship of dreams.
A strong sea-wind flies up and singsAcross the blown-wet border,Whose stormy echo runs and ringsLike bells in wild disorder.Fierce breath hath vexed the foreland's face,It glistens, glooms, and glistens;But deep within this quiet placeSweet Illa lies and listens.Sweet Illa of the shining sands,She sleeps in shady hollows,Where August flits with flowerful hands,And silver Summer follows.Far up the naked hills is heardA noise of many waters,But green-haired Illa lies unstirredAmongst her star-like daughters.The tempest, pent in moaning ways,Awakes the shepherd yonder,But Illa dreams unknown to daysWhose wings are wind and thunder.Here fairy hands and floral feetAre brought by bright October;Here, stained with grapes and smit with heat,Comes Autumn, sweet and sober.Here lovers rest, what time the redAnd yellow colours mingle,And daylight droops with dying headBeyond the western dingle.And here, from month to month, the timeIs kissed by peace and pleasure,While Nature sings her woodland rhymeAnd hoards her woodland treasure.Ah, Illa Creek! ere evening spreadsHer wings o'er towns unshaded,How oft we seek thy mossy bedsTo lave our foreheads faded!For, let me whisper, then we findThe strength that lives, nor falters,In wood and water, waste and wind,And hidden mountain altars.
Dim dreams it hath of singing ways,Of far-off woodland water-heads,And shining ends of April daysAmongst the yellow runnel-beds.Stoop closer to the ruined wall,Whereon the wilful wilding sleeps,As if its home were waterfallBy dripping clefts and shadowy steeps.A little waif, whose beauty takesA touching tone because it dwellsSo far away from mountain lakes,And lily leaves, and lightening fells.Deep hidden in delicious flossIt nestles, sister, from the heat—A gracious growth of tender mossWhose nights are soft, whose days are sweet.Swift gleams across its petals runWith winds that hum a pleasant tune,Serene surprises of the sun,And whispers from the lips of noon.The evening-coloured apple-treesAre faint with July's frosty breath.But lo! this stranger getteth ease,And shines amidst the strays of Death.And at the turning of the year,When August wanders in the cold,The raiment of the nursling hereIs rich with green and glad with gold.Oh, friend of mine, to one whose eyesAre vexed because of alien things,For ever in the wall moss liesThe peace of hills and hidden springs.From faithless lips and fickle lightsThe tired pilgrim sets his face,And thinketh here of sounds and sightsIn many a lovely forest-place.And when by sudden fits and startsThe sunset on the moss doth burn,He often dreams, and, lo! the martsAnd streets are changed to dells of fern.For, let me say, the wilding placedBy hands unseen amongst these stones,Restores a Past by Time effaced,Lost loves and long-forgotten tones!As sometimes songs and scenes of oldCome faintly unto you and me,When winds are wailing in the cold,And rains are sobbing on the sea.