[Written for Music.]
IBrothers from far-away lands,Sons of the fathers of fame,Here are our hearts and our hands—This is our song of acclaim.Lords from magnificent zones,Shores of superlative sway,Awful with lustre of thrones,This is our greeting to-day.Europe and Asia are here—Shining they enter our ports!She that is half of the sphereBeams like a sun in our courts.Children of elders whose dayShone to the planet's white ends,Meet, in the noble old way,Sons of your forefather's friends.
IIDressed is the beautiful city—the spires of itBurn in the firmament stately and still;Forest has vanished—the wood and the lyres of it,Lutes of the sea-wind and harps of the hill.This is the region, and here is the bay by it,Collins, the deathless, beheld in a dream:Flinders and Fawkner, our forefathers grey, by itPaused in the hush of a season supreme.Here, on the waters of majesty near to us,Lingered the leaders by towers of flame:Elders who turn from the lordly old year to usCrowned with the lights of ineffable fame.
IIINine and seventy years ago,Up the blaze of yonder bay,On a great exalted day,Came from seas august with snow—Waters where the whirlwinds blow—First of England's sons who stoodBy the deep green, bygone woodWhere the wild song used to flowNine and seventy years ago.Five and forty years ago,On a grand auspicious mornWhen the South Wind blew his horn,Where the splendid mountains glow—Peaks that God and Sunrise know—Came the fearless, famous band,Founders of our radiant land,From the lawns where roses grow,Five and forty years ago.
IVBy gracious slopes of fair green hills,In shadows cool and deep,Where floats the psalm of many rills,The noble elders sleep.But while their children's children last,While seed from seedling springs,The print and perfume of their pastWill be as deathless things.Their voices are with vanished years,With other days and hours;Their homes are sanctified by tears—They sleep amongst the flowers.They do not walk by street or stream,Or tread by grove or shore,But, in the nation's highest dream,They shine for evermore.
VBy lawny slope and lucent strandAre singing flags of every land;On streams of splendour—bays impearled—The keels are here of all the world.With lutes of light and cymbals clearWe waft goodwill to every sphere.The links of love to-day are thrownFrom sea to sea—from zone to zone;And, lo! we greet, in glory drest,The lords that come from east and west,And march like noble children forthTo meet our fathers from the North!
VITo Thee be the glory, All-Bountiful Giver!The song that we sing is an anthem to Thee,Whose blessing is shed on Thy people for ever,Whose love is like beautiful light on the sea.Behold, with high sense of Thy mercy unsleeping,We come to Thee, kneel to Thee, praise Thee, and pray,O Lord, in whose hand is the strength that is keepingThe storm from the wave and the night from the day!
(In Memory of Samuel Bennett.)
In a far-away glen of the hills,Where the bird of the night is at rest,Shut in from the thunder that fillsThe fog-hidden caves of the west—In a sound of the leaf, and the luteOf the wind on the quiet lagoon,I stand, like a worshipper, muteIn the flow of a marvellous tune!And the song that is sweet to my senseIs, "Nearer, my God, unto Thee";But it carries me sorrowing hence,To a grave by the cliffs of the sea.So many have gone that I loved—So few of the fathers remain,That where in old seasons I movedI could never be happy again.In the breaks of this beautiful psalm,With its deep, its devotional tone,And hints of ineffable calm,I feel like a stranger, alone.No wonder my eyes are so dim—Yourtrouble is heavy on me,O widow and daughter of himWho sleeps in the grave by the sea!The years have been hard that have pressedOn a head full of premature grey,Since Stenhouse went down to his rest,And Harpur was taken away.In the soft yellow evening-ends,The wind of the water is faintBy the home of the last of my friends—The shrine of the father and saint.The tenderness touching—the graceOf Ridley no more is for me;And flowers have hidden the faceOf the brother who sleeps by the sea.The vehement voice of the SouthIs loud where the journalist lies;But calm hath encompassed his mouth,And sweet is the peace in his eyes.Called hence by the Power who knowsWhen the work of a hero is done,He turned at the message, and roseWith the harness of diligence on.In the midst of magnificent toil,He bowed at the holy decree;And green is the grass on the soilOf the grave by the cliffs of the sea.I knew him, indeed; and I knew,Having suffered so much in his day,What a beautiful nature and trueIn Bennett was hidden away.In the folds of a shame without end,When the lips of the scorner were curled,I found in this brother a friend—The last that was left in the world.Ah! under the surface austereCompassion was native to thee;I send from my solitude hereThis rose for the grave by the sea.To the high, the heroic intentOf a life that was never at rest,He held, with a courage unspent,Through the worst of his days and the best.Far back in the years that are deadHe knew of the bitterness coldThat saddens with silver the headAnd makes a man suddenly old.The dignity gracing his griefWas ever a lesson to me;He lies under blossom and leafIn a grave by the cliffs of the sea.Above him the wandering faceOf the moon is a loveliness now,And anthems encompass the placeFrom lutes of the luminous bough.The forelands are fiery with foamWhere often and often he roved;He sleeps in the sight of the homeThat he built by the waters he loved.The wave is his fellow at night,And the sun, shining over the lea,Sheds out an unspeakable lightOn this grave by the cliffs of the sea.
A silver slope, a fall of firs, a league of gleaming grasses,And fiery cones, and sultry spurs, and swarthy pits and passes!. . . . .The long-haired Cyclops bated breath, and bit his lip and hearkened,And dug and dragged the stone of death, by ways that dipped and darkened.Across a tract of furnaced flints there came a wind of water,From yellow banks with tender hints of Tethys' white-armed daughter.She sat amongst wild singing weeds, by beds of myrrh and moly;And Acis made a flute of reeds, and drew its accents slowly;And taught its spirit subtle sounds that leapt beyond suppression,And paused and panted on the bounds of fierce and fitful passion.Then he who shaped the cunning tune, by keen desire made bolder,Fell fainting, like a fervent noon, upon the sea-nymph's shoulder.Sicilian suns had laid a dower of light and life about her:Her beauty was a gracious flower—the heart fell dead without her."Ah, Galate," said Polypheme, "I would that I could find theeSome finest tone of hill or stream, wherewith to lull and bind thee!"What lyre is left of marvellous range, whose subtle strings, containingSome note supreme, might catch and change, or set thy passion waning?—"Thy passion for the fair-haired youth whose fleet, light feet perplex meBy ledges rude, on paths uncouth, and broken ways that vex me?"Ah, turn to me! else violent sleep shall track the cunning lover;And thou wilt wait and thou wilt weep when I his haunts discover."But golden Galatea laughed, and Thosa's son, like thunder,Broke through a rifty runnel shaft, and dashed its rocks asunder,And poised the bulk, and hurled the stone, and crushed the hidden Acis,And struck with sorrow drear and lone the sweetest of all faces.To Zeus, the mighty Father, she, with plaint and prayer, departed:Then from fierce Aetna to the sea a fountained water started—A lucent stream of lutes and lights—cool haunt of flower and feather,Whose silver days and yellow nights made years of hallowed weather.Here Galatea used to come, and rest beside the river;Because, in faint, soft, blowing foam, her shepherd lived for ever.
Kate, they say, is seventeen—Do not count her sweet, you know.Arms of her are rather lean—Ditto, calves and feet, you know.Features of Hellenic typeAre not patent here, you see.Katie loves a black clay pipe—Doesn't hate her beer, you see.Spartan Helen used to wearTresses in a plait, perhaps:Kate has ochre in her hair—Nose is rather flat, perhaps.Rose Lorraine's surpassing dressGlitters at the ball, you see:Daughter of the wildernessHas no dress at all, you see.Laura's lovers every dayIn sweet verse embody her:Katie's have a different way,Being frank, they "waddy" her.Amy by her suitor kissed,Every nightfall looks for him:Kitty's sweetheart isn't missed—Kitty "humps" and cooks for him.Smith, and Brown, and Jenkins, bringRoses to the fair, you know.Darkies at their Katie flingHunks of native bear, you know.English girls examine wellAll the food they take, you twig:Kate is hardly keen of smell—Kate will eat a snake, you twig.Yonder lady's sitting room—Clean and cool and dark it is:Kitty's chamber needs no broom—Just a sheet of bark it is.You may find a pipe or twoIf you poke and grope about:Not a bit of starch or blue—Not a sign of soap about.Girl I know readsLalla Rookh—Poem of the "heady" sort:Kate is better as a cookOf the rough and ready sort.Byron's verse on Waterloo,Makes my darling glad, you see:Kate prefers a kangaroo—Which is very sad, you see.Other ladies wear a hatFit to write a sonnet on:Kitty has—the naughty cat—Neither hat nor bonnet on!Fifty silks has Madame Tate—She who loves to spank it on:All her clothes are worn by KateWhen she has her blanket on.Let her rip! the Phrygian boyBolted with a brighter one;And the girl who ruined TroyWas a rather whiter one.Katie's mouth is hardly Greek—Hardly like a rose it is:Katie's nose is not antique—Not the classic nose it is.Dryad in the grand old day,Though she walked the woods about,Didn't smoke a penny clay—Didn't "hump" her goods about.Daphne by the fairy lake,Far away from din and all,Never ate a yard of snake,Head and tail and skin and all.
—* To the servants of God that are to be found in every denomination,these verses, of course, do not apply.—H.K.—
You may have heard of Proclus, sir,If you have been a reader;And you may know a bit of herWho helped the Lycian leader.I have my doubts—the head you "sport"(Now mark me, don't get crusty)Is hardly of the classic sort—Your lore, I think, is fusty.Most likely you have stuck to tractsFlushed through with flaming curses—I judge you, neighbour, by your acts—So don't you d——n my verses.But to my theme. The Asian sage,Whose name above I mention,Lived in the pitchy Pagan age,A life without pretension.He may have worshipped gods like Zeus,And termed old Dis a master;But then he had a strong excuse—He never heard a pastor.However, it occurs to meThat, had he cut DemeterAnd followed you, or followed me,He wouldn't have been sweeter.No doubt with "shepherds" of this timeHe's not the "clean potato",Because—excuse me for my rhyme—He pinned his faith to Plato.But these are facts you can't deny,My pastor, smudged and sooty,His mind was like a summer sky—He lived a life of beauty—To lift his brothers' thoughts aboveThis earth he used to labour:His heart was luminous with love—He didn't wound his neighbour.To him all men were just the same—He never foamed at altars,Although he lived ere Moody came—Ere Sankey dealt in psalters.The Lycian sage, my "reverend" sir,Had not your chances ample;But, after all, I must preferHis perfect, pure example.You, having read the Holy Writ—The Book the angels foster—Say have you helped us on a bit,You overfed impostor?What have you done to edify,You clammy chapel tinker?What act like his of days gone by—The grand old Asian thinker?Is there no deed of yours at allWith beauty shining through it?Ah, no! your heart reveals its gallOn every side I view it.A blatant bigot with a bigFat heavy fetid carcass,You well become your greasy "rig"—You're not a second Arcas.What sort of "gospel" do you preach?What "Bible" is your Bible?There's worse than wormwood in your speech,You livid, living libel!How many lives are growing grayThrough your depraved behaviour!I tell you plainly—every dayYou crucify the Saviour!Some evil spirit curses you—Your actions never vary:You cannot point your finger toOne fact to the contrary.You seem to have a wicked joyIn your malicious labour,Endeavouring daily to destroyThe neighbour's love for neighbour.The brutal curses you ejectMake strong men dread to hear you.The world outside your petty sectFeels sick when it is near you.No man who shuns that little holeYou call your tabernacleCan have, you shriek, a ransomed soul—He wears the devil's shackle.And, hence the "Papist" by your clanIs dogged with words inhuman,Because he loves that friend of manThe highest type of woman—Because he has that faith which seesBefore the high CreatorA Virgin pleading on her knees—A shining Mediator!God help the souls who grope in night—Who in your ways have trusted!I've said enough! the more I write,The more I feel disgusted.The warm, soft air is tainted throughWith your pernicious leaven.I would not liveone hourwith youIn your peculiar heaven!Now mount your musty pulpit—thump,And muddle flat clodhoppers;And let some long-eared booby "hump"The plate about for coppers.At priest and parson spit and bark,And shake your "church" with curses,You bitter blackguard of the dark—With this I close my verses.
(Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.)
Across bleak widths of broken seaA fierce north-easter breaks,And makes a thunder on the lea—A whiteness of the lakes.Here, while beyond the rainy streamThe wild winds sobbing blow,I see the river of my dreamFour wasted years ago.Narrara of the waterfalls,The darling of the hills,Whose home is under mountain wallsBy many-luted rills!Her bright green nooks and channels coolI never more may see;But, ah! the Past was beautiful—The sights that used to be.There was a rock-pool in a glenBeyond Narrara's sands;The mountains shut it in from menIn flowerful fairy lands;But once we found its dwelling-place—The lovely and the lone—And, in a dream, I stooped to traceOur names upon a stone.Above us, where the star-like mossShone on the wet, green wallThat spanned the straitened stream across,We saw the waterfall—A silver singer far away,By folded hills and hoar;Its voice is in the woods to-day—A voice I hear no more.I wonder if the leaves that screenThe rock-pool of the pastAre yet as soft and cool and greenAs when we saw them last!I wonder if that tender thing,The moss, has overgrownThe letters by the limpid spring—Our names upon the stone!Across the face of scenes we knowThere may have come a change—The places seen four years agoPerhaps would now look strange.To you, indeed, they cannot beWhat haply once they were:A friend beloved by you and meNo more will greet us there.Because I know the filial griefThat shrinks beneath the touch—The noble love whose words are brief—I will not say too much;But often when the night-winds strikeAcross the sighing rills,I think of him whose life was likeThe rock-pool's in the hills.A beauty like the light of songIs in my dreams, that showThe grand old man who lived so longAs spotless as the snow.A fitting garland for the deadI cannot compass yet;But many things he did and saidI never will forget.In dells where once we used to roveThe slow, sad water grieves;And ever comes from glimmering groveThe liturgy of leaves.But time and toil have marked my face,My heart has older grownSince, in the woods, I stooped to traceOur names upon the stone.
Lordly harp, by lordly master wakened from majestic sleep,Yet shall speak and yet shall sing the words which make the fathers weep!Voice surpassing human voices—high, unearthly harmony—Yet shall tell the tale of hero, in exalted years to be!In the ranges, by the rivers, on the uplands, down the dells,Where the sound of wind and wave is, where the mountain anthem swells,Yet shall float the song of lustre, sweet with tears and fair with flame,Shining with a theme of beauty, holy with our Leichhardt's name!Name of him who faced for science thirsty tracts of bitter glow,Lurid lands that no one knows of—two-and-thirty years ago.Born by hills of hard grey weather, far beyond the northern seas,German mountains were his sponsors, and his mates were German trees;Grandeur of the old-world forests passed into his radiant soul,With the song of stormy crescents where the mighty waters roll.Thus he came to be a brother of the river and the wood—Thus the leaf, the bird, the blossom, grew a gracious sisterhood;Nature led him to her children, in a space of light divine:Kneeling down, he said—"My mother, let me be as one of thine!"So she took him—thence she loved him—lodged him in her home of dreams,Taught him what the trees were saying, schooled him in the speech of streams.For her sake he crossed the waters—loving her, he left the placeHallowed by his father's ashes, and his human mother's face—Passed the seas and entered temples domed by skies of deathless beam,Walled about by hills majestic, stately spires and peaks supreme!Here he found a larger beauty—here the lovely lights were newOn the slopes of many flowers, down the gold-green dells of dew.In the great august cathedral of his holy lady, heDaily worshipped at her altars, nightly bent the reverent knee—Heard the hymns of night and morning, learned the psalm of solitudes;Knew that God was very near him—felt His presence in the woods!But the starry angel, Science, from the home of glittering wings,Came one day and talked to Nature by melodious mountain springs:"Let thy son be mine," she pleaded; "lend him for a space," she said,"So that he may earn the laurels I have woven for his head!"And the lady, Nature, listened; and she took her loyal sonFrom the banks of moss and myrtle—led him to the Shining One!Filled his lordly soul with gladness—told him of a spacious zoneEye of man had never looked at, human foot had never known.Then the angel, Science, beckoned, and he knelt and whispered low—"I will follow where you lead me"—two-and-thirty years ago.On the tracts of thirst and furnace—on the dumb, blind, burning plain,Where the red earth gapes for moisture, and the wan leaves hiss for rain,In a land of dry, fierce thunder, did he ever pause and dreamOf the cool green German valley and the singing German stream?When the sun was as a menace, glaring from a sky of brass,Did he ever rest, in visions, on a lap of German grass?Past the waste of thorny terrors, did he reach a sphere of rills,In a region yet untravelled, ringed by fair untrodden hills?Was the spot where last he rested pleasant as an old-world lea?Did the sweet winds come and lull him with the music of the sea?Let us dream so—let us hope so! Haply in a cool green glade,Far beyond the zone of furnace, Leichhardt's sacred shell was laid!Haply in some leafy valley, underneath blue, gracious skies,In the sound of mountain water, the heroic traveller lies!Down a dell of dewy myrtle, where the light is soft and green,And a month like English April sits, an immemorial queen,Let us think that he is resting—think that by a radiant graveEver come the songs of forest, and the voices of the wave!Thuswe want our sons to find him—find him under floral bowers,Sleeping by the trees he loved so, covered with his darling flowers!
The song that once I dreamed about,The tender, touching thing,As radiant as the rose without—The love of wind and wing—The perfect verses, to the tuneOf woodland music set,As beautiful as afternoon,Remain unwritten yet.It is too late to write them now—The ancient fire is cold;No ardent lights illume the brow,As in the days of old.I cannot dream the dream again;But when the happy birdsAre singing in the sunny rain,I think I hear its words.I think I hear the echo stillOf long-forgotten tones,When evening winds are on the hillAnd sunset fires the cones;But only in the hours supreme,With songs of land and sea,The lyrics of the leaf and stream,This echo comes to me.No longer doth the earth revealHer gracious green and gold;I sit where youth was once, and feelThat I am growing old.The lustre from the face of thingsIs wearing all away;Like one who halts with tired wings,I rest and muse to-day.There is a river in the rangeI love to think about;Perhaps the searching feet of changeHave never found it out.Ah! oftentimes I used to lookUpon its banks, and longTo steal the beauty of that brookAnd put it in a song.I wonder if the slopes of moss,In dreams so dear to me—The falls of flower, and flower-like floss—Are as they used to be!I wonder if the waterfalls,The singers far and fair,That gleamed between the wet, green walls,Are still the marvels there!Ah! let me hope that in that placeThe old familiar thingsTo which I turn a wistful faceHave never taken wings.Let me retain the fancy stillThat, past the lordly range,There always shines, in folds of hill,One spot secure from change!I trust that yet the tender screenThat shades a certain nook,Remains, with all its gold and green,The glory of the brook.It hides a secret to the birdsAnd waters only known:The letters of two lovely words—A poem on a stone.Perhaps the lady of the pastUpon these lines may light,The purest verses, and the lastThat I may ever write.She need not fear a word of blame—Her tale the flowers keep—The wind that heard me breathe her nameHas been for years asleep.But in the night, and when the rainThe troubled torrent fills,I often think I see againThe river in the hills;And when the day is very near,And birds are on the wing,My spirit fancies it can hearThe song I cannot sing.
[End of Songs from the Mountains.]
(With a few exceptions, these are now printedfor the first time in book form).
The sun o'er the waters was throwingIn the freshness of morning its beams;And the breast of the ocean seemed glowingWith glittering silvery streams:A bark in the distance was boundingAway for the land on her lee;And the boatswain's shrill whistle resoundingCame over and over the sea.The breezes blew fair and were guidingHer swiftly along on her track,And the billows successively passing,Were lost in the distance aback.The sailors seemed busy preparingFor anchor to drop ere the night;The red rusted cables in fathomsWere haul'd from their prisons to light.Each rope and each brace was attendedBy stout-hearted sons of the main,Whose voices, in unison blended,Sang many a merry-toned strain.Forgotten their care and their sorrow,If of such they had ever known aught,Each soul was wrapped up in the morrow—The morrow which greeted them not;A sunshiny hope was inspiringAnd filling their hearts with a glowLike that on the billows around them,Like the silvery ocean below.As they looked on the haven before them,Already high looming and near,What else but a joy could invade them,Or what could they feel but a cheer?. . . . .The eve on the waters was clouded,And gloomy and dark grew the sky;The ocean in blackness was shrouded,And wails of a tempest flew by;The bark o'er the billows high surging'Mid showers of the foam-crested spray,Now sinking, now slowly emerging,Held onward her dangerous way.The gale in the distance was veeringTo a point that would drift her on land,And fearfully he that was steeringLook'd round on the cliff-girdled strand.He thought of the home now before himAnd muttered sincerely a prayerThat morning might safely restore himTo friends and to kind faces there.He knew that if once at the mercyOf the winds and those mountain-like wavesThe sun would rise over the waters—The day would return on their graves.. . . . .Still blacker the heavens were scowling,Still nearer the rock-skirted shore;Yet fiercer the tempest was howlingAnd louder the wild waters roar.The cold rain in torrents came pouringOn deck thro' the rigging and shrouds,And the deep, pitchy dark was illuminedEach moment with gleams from the cloudsOf forky-shap'd lightning as, darting,It made a wide pathway on high,And the sound of the thunder incessantRe-echoed the breadth of the sky.The light-hearted tars of the morningNow gloomily watching the stormWere silent, the glare from the flashesRevealing each weather-beat form,Their airy-built castles all vanishedWhen they heard the wild conflict ahead;Their hopes of the morning were banished,And terror seemed ruling instead.They gazed on the heavens above themAnd then on the waters beneath,And shrunk as foreboding those billowsMight shroud them ere morrow in death.. . . . .Hark! A voice o'er the tempest came ringing,A wild cry of bitter despairRe-echoed by all in the vessel,And filling the wind-ridden air.The breakers and rocks were before themDiscovered too plain to their eyes,And the heart-bursting shrieks of the hopelessAscending were lost in the skies.Then a crash, then a moan from the dyingWent on, on the wings of the gale,Soon hush'd in the roar of the watersAnd the tempest's continuing wail.The "Storm Power" loudly was soundingTheir funeral dirge as they passed,And the white-crested waters around themRe-echoed the voice of the blast.The surges will show to the morrowA fearful and heartrending sight,And bereaved ones will weep in their sorrowWhen they think of that terrible night.. . . . .The day on the ocean returningSaw still'd to a slumber the deep—Not a zephyr disturbing its bosom,The winds and the breezes asleep.Again the warm sunshine was gleamingRefulgently fringing the sea,Its rays to the horizon beamingAnd clothing the land on the lee.The billows were silently glidingO'er the graves of the sailors beneath,The waves round the vessel yet pointingThe scene of their anguish and death.They seemed to the fancy bewailingThe sudden and terrible doomOf those who were yesterday singingAnd laughing in sight of their tomb.. . . . .'Tis thus on the sea of existence—The morning begins without care,Hope cheerfully points to the distance,The Future beams sunny and fair;And we—as the bark o'er the billows,Admiring the beauty of day,With Fortune all smiling around us—Glide onward our silvery way.We know not nor fear for a sorrowEver crossing our pathway in life;We judge from to-day the to-morrowAnd dream not of meeting with strife.This world seems to us as an EdenAnd we wonder when hearing aroundThe cries of stern pain and afflictionHow such an existence is found.But we find to our cost when misfortuneComes mantling our sun in its night,That the Earth was not made to be Heaven,Not always our life can be bright.In turn we see each of our day-dreamsDissolve into air and decay,And learn that the hopes that are brightestFade soonest—far soonest away.
These lines were written in 1857, and were suggested by the wreckof theDunbar, but the writer did not confine himself in particularto a description of that disaster, as may be seen from perusal.—H.K.
Oh, tell me, ye breezes that spring from the west,Oh, tell me, ere passing away,If Leichhardt's bold spirit has fled to its rest?Where moulders the traveller's clay?Perchance as ye flitted on heedlessly byThe long lost was yielding his breath;Perchance ye have borne on your wings the last sighThat 'scap'd from the lone one in death.Tell me, ye breezes, ye've traversed the wild,And passed o'er the desolate spot,Where reposeth in silence sweet Nature's own child,Where slumbers one nearly forgot?Ye answer me not but are passing away—Ye breezes that spring from the west,Unhallow'd still moulders the traveller's clay,For unknown is the place of his rest.
Australia, advancing with rapid winged stride,Shall plant among nations her banners in pride,The yoke of dependence aside she will cast,And build on the ruins and wrecks of the Past.Her flag on the tempest will wave to proclaim'Mong kingdoms and empires her national name;The Future shall see it, asleep or unfurl'd,The shelter of Freedom and boast of the world.Australia, advancing like day on the sky,Has glimmer'd thro' darkness, will blazon on high,A Gem in its glitter has yet to be seen,When Progress has placed her where England has been;When bursting those limits above she will soar,Outstretching all rivals who've mounted before,And, resting, will blaze with her glories unfurl'd,The empire of empires and boast of the world.Australia, advancing with Power, will entwineWith Honour and Justice a Mercy divine;No Despot shall trample—no slave shall be bound—Oppression must totter and fall to the ground.The stain of all ages, tyrannical sway,Will pass like a flash or a shadow away,And shrink to nothing 'neath thunderbolts hurl'dFrom the hand of the terror—the boast of the world.Australia, advancing with rapid wing'd stride,Shall plant among nations her banners in pride;The yoke of dependence aside she will cast,And build on the ruins and wrecks of the Past.Her flag in the tempest will wave to proclaim,'Mong kingdoms and empires her national name,And Ages shall see it, asleep or unfurl'dThe shelter of Freedom and boast of the world.
I hope the above will not be considered disloyal. It is but reasonableto imagine that Australia will in the far future becomean independent nation—that imagination springing as it doesfrom a native-born Australian brain.—H.K.
What bitter sorrow courses downYon mourner's faded cheek?Those scalding drops betray a griefWithin, too full to speak.Outspoken words cannot expressThe pangs, the pains of years;They're ne'er so deep or eloquentAs are those silent tears.Here is a wound that in the breastMust canker, hid'n from sight;Though all without seems sunny day,Within 'tis ever night.Yet sometimes from this secret sourceThe gloomy truth appears;The wind's dark dungeon must have ventIf but in silent tears.The world may deem from outward looksThat heart is hard and cold;But oh! could they the mantle liftWhat sorrows would be told!Then, only then, the truth would showWhich most the bosom sears:The pain portrayed by burning wordsOr that by—silent tears.
—* Suggested by one of John Bright's speeches on Electoral Reform.—
A morning crowns the Western hill,A day begins to reign,A sun awakes o'er distant seas—Shall never sleep again.The world is growing old,And men are waxing wise;A mist has cleared—a something fallsLike scales from off their eyes.Too long the "Dark of Ignorance"Has brooded on their way;Too long Oppression 's stood before,Excluding light of day.But now they've found the trackAnd now they've seen the dawn,A "beacon lamp" is pointing on,Where stronger glows the morn.Since Adam lived, the mighty onesHave ever ruled the weak;Since Noah's flood, the fettered slaveHas seldom dared to speak.'Tis time a voice was heard,'Tis time a voice was spokenSo in the chain of tyrannyA link or two be broken.A tiny rill will swell a stream,A spark will cause a flame,And one man's burning eloquenceHas help'd to do the same.And he will persevere,And soon that blaze must spread,Till to the corners of the earthReflecting beams are shed.The "few" will try to beat it down,But can they stop the flood—Bind up the pinions of the light,Or check the will of God?And is it not His willThat deeply injured RightShould overthrow the iron ruleAnd reign instead of Might?
It passed like the breath of the night-wind away,It fled like a mist at the dawn of the day;It lasted its moment, then backward was hurled,Another increase to the age of the world.It passed with its shadows, its smiles and its tears,It passed as a stream to the ocean of years;Years that were coming—were here—and are o'er,The ages departed to visit no more.It passed, but the bark on its billowy trackLeaves an impression on waters aback:The glow of the gloaming remains on the sky,Unwilling to leave us—unwilling to die.It fled; but away and away in its wakeThere lingers a something that time cannot break.The past and the future are joined by a chain,And memories live that must ever remain.
(The Kanaka's Death-Song over his Chieftain.)
Shades of my father, the hour is approaching.Prepare ye the 'cava' for 'Yona' on high;Make ready the welcome, ye souls of Arrochin.The Death God of Tanna speaks—Yona must die.No more will he traverse the flame sheeted mountain,To lead forth his brothers to hunting and war;No more will he drink from the time honoured fountain,Nor rise in the councils of Uking-a-shaa.His voice in the battle, loud thunder resembling,Has died like a zephyr o'errunning the plain;His whoop like the tempest thro' forest trees trembling,Shall never strike foemen with terror again.The 'muska' hung up on the cocoa is sleeping,And Attanam's spirits have gathered a-nighTo see their destroyer; and, wailing and weeping,Roll past on the night-breathing winds of the sky.The lines are suspended, the 'muttow' is broken,The canoe's far away from the water-wash'd shore,Mourn, mourn, ye 'whyeenas', the word has been spoken,The chieftain can bring ye the 'weepan' no more.Ye cloud-seated visions, ye shades of my fathers,Awake from your slumbers, the trumpet blast blow;The moments are flying, the mountain mist gathers,And Yona is leaving his camp fire below.. . . . .The struggles are over, the cords are asunder,Ye Phantoms hold forward your heavenly light,Speak on the wings of the sky-shaking thunder,And fill him with joy on the path of his flight.Come downwards a space thro' the fogs till ye meet him,Throw open the doors of Arrochin awide,And stand on the thresholds, ye Shadows to greet him—The glory of Tanna, the Uking'shaa's pride.Thanks, spirits departed!—heard I not your voicesFaint rolling along on the breath of the gale?Thanks, spirits departed! Le-en-na rejoices:Ye've answered the mourner—ye've silenced the wail.The midnight is clearing; the Death-song is ended.The Chieftain has gone, but ye've called him away;For he smiled as he listened, obedient ascended,The voice in his ear, and the torch on his way.