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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1199.txt b/1199.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9212187 --- /dev/null +++ b/1199.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9672 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of An Anthology of Australian Verse + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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To assure a high quality text, +the original was (manually) entered twice and electronically compared. + + + + + +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. +Italicized stanzas are enclosed by tildes (~). +Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation +is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.] + + + + + +An Anthology of Australian Verse +Edited by Bertram Stevens + + + + +Dedicated to +DAVID SCOTT MITCHELL, Esq. +Sydney + + + + +Preface + + + +The Editor has endeavoured to make this selection representative +of the best short poems written by Australians or inspired by +Australian scenery and conditions of life, -- "Australian" in this connection +being used to include New Zealand. The arrangement is +as nearly as possible chronological; and the appendix contains +brief biographical particulars of the authors, together with notes +which may be useful to readers outside Australia. + +The Editor thanks Messrs. H. H. Champion, Henry Gyles Turner, +E. B. Loughran, A. Brazier and Walter Murdoch (Melbourne), +Mr. Sydney Jephcott (Upper Murray, Vic.), Mr. Fred. Johns (Adelaide), +Mr. Thomas Cottle (Auckland), Mr. J. C. Andersen (Christchurch), +Messrs. David Scott Mitchell, Alfred Lee, A. W. Jose, +and J. Le Gay Brereton (Sydney), for their generous help. +Mr. Douglas Sladen's anthologies, Messrs. Turner and Sutherland's +"Development of Australian Literature", and `The Bulletin' have also furnished +much useful information. + + + + + +Contents + + + +Introduction + +William Charles Wentworth. + Australasia + "Australasia: a Poem" + +Charles Harpur. + Love + Words + A Coast View + "Poems" + +William Forster. + `The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping' + "Midas" + +James Lionel Michael. + `Through Pleasant Paths' + "John Cumberland" + Personality + Periodical (Sydney, 1858) + +Daniel Henry Deniehy. + Love in a Cottage + A Song for the Night + Periodical (Sydney, 1847) + +Richard Rowe. + Superstites Rosae + Soul Ferry + "Peter 'Possum's Portfolio" + +Sir Henry Parkes. + The Buried Chief + "Fragmentary Thoughts" + +Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood'). + Perdita + "Old Melbourne Memories" + +Adam Lindsay Gordon. + A Dedication + "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes" + Thora's Song + "Ashtaroth: A Dramatic Lyric" + The Sick Stock-rider + "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes" + +Henry Kendall. + Prefatory Sonnets + September in Australia + Rose Lorraine + "Leaves from Australian Forests" + To a Mountain + Araluen + After Many Years + Hy-Brasil + "Songs from the Mountains" + Outre Mer + "Poems" + +Marcus Clarke. + The Song of Tigilau + "Austral Edition of the collected Works of Marcus Clarke" + +Patrick Moloney. + Melbourne + "An Easter Omelette" (Melbourne, 1879) + +Alfred Domett. + An Invitation + A Maori Girl's Song + "Ranolf and Amohia" + +James Brunton Stephens. + The Dominion of Australia + The Dark Companion + "Miscellaneous Poems" + Day + Night + "Convict Once" + +Thomas Bracken. + Not Understood + Spirit of Song + "Musings in Maoriland" + +Ada Cambridge. + What of the Night? + Good-bye + The Virgin Martyr + Honour + Despair + Faith + Manuscript + +Alexander Bathgate. + The Clematis + "Far South Fancies" + +Philip Joseph Holdsworth. + Quis Separabit? + Manuscript + My Queen of Dreams + "Station Hunting on the Warrego" + +Mary Hannay Foott. + Where the Pelican Builds + New Country + No Message + Happy Days + "Morna Lee and other Poems" + +Henry Lea Twisleton. + To a Cabbage Rose + "Poems" + +Mrs. James Glenny Wilson. + Fairyland + A Winter Daybreak + The Lark's Song + "A Book of Verses" + +Edward Booth Loughran. + Dead Leaves + Isolation + Ishmonie + "'Neath Austral Skies" + +John Liddell Kelly. + Immortality + Heredity + "Heather and Fern" + +Robert Richardson. + A Ballade of Wattle Blossom + A Song + "Willow and Wattle" + +James Lister Cuthbertson. + Australia Federata + At Cape Schanck + "Barwon Ballads" + Wattle and Myrtle + Periodical (Melbourne) + The Australian Sunrise + Periodical (Geelong) + +John Farrell. + Australia to England + Periodical (Sydney, 1897) + +Arthur Patchett Martin. + Bushland + "The Withered Jester, and other Verses" + +Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen. + Under the Wattle + Periodical (1888) + +Victor James Daley. + Players + Periodical (Sydney, 1900) + Anna + Periodical (Sydney, 1902) + The Night Ride + Manuscript + +Alice Werner. + Bannerman of the Dandenong + "A Time and Times" + +Ethel Castilla. + An Australian Girl + A Song of Sydney + "The Australian Girl, and other Verses" + +Francis William Lauderdale Adams. + Something + Gordon's Grave + To A. L. Gordon + "Poetical Works" + Love and Death + Manuscript + +Thomas William Heney. + Absence + "In Middle Harbour, and other Verse" + A Riverina Road + Periodical (Sydney, 1891) + +Patrick Edward Quinn. + A Girl's Grave + Periodical (Sydney, 1889) + +John Sandes. + `With Death's Prophetic Ear' + "Ballads of Battle" + +Inez K. Hyland. + To a Wave + Bread and Wine + "In Sunshine and in Shadow" + +George Essex Evans. + An Australian Symphony + A Nocturne + A Pastoral + "Loraine, and other Verses" + The Women of the West + Periodical (Melbourne) + +Mary Colborne-Veel. + `What Look hath She?' + Saturday Night + `Resurgam' + "The Fairest of the Angels, and other Verse" + Distant Authors + Periodical (London) + +John Bernard O'Hara. + Happy Creek + A Country Village + Flinders + "Lyrics of Nature" + +M. A. Sinclair. + The Chatelaine + Periodical (Dunedin, N.Z.) + +Sydney Jephcott. + Chaucer + White Paper + Splitting + "The Secrets of the South" + Home-woe + A Ballad of the last King of Thule + A Fragment + Manuscript + +Andrew Barton Paterson (`Banjo'). + The Daylight is Dying + Clancy of the Overflow + Black Swans + The Travelling Post Office + "The Man from Snowy River" + The Old Australian Ways + By the Grey Gulf-Water + "Rio Grande's Last Race, and other Verses" + +Jessie Mackay. + The Grey Company + A Folk Song + Dunedin in the Gloaming + The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie + Periodical (Dunedin, N.Z.) + +Henry Lawson. + Andy's gone with Cattle + Out Back + The Star of Australasia + Middleton's Rouseabout + The Vagabond + The Sliprails and the Spur + "In the Days when the World was Wide, and other Verses" + +Arthur Albert Dawson Bayldon. + Sunset + The Sea + To Poesy + "The Western Track, and other Verses" + +Jennings Carmichael. + An Old Bush Road + A Woman's Mood + "Poems" + +Agnes L. Storrie. + Twenty Gallons of Sleep + A Confession + "Poems" + +Martha M. Simpson. + To an Old Grammar + Periodical (Sydney) + +William Gay. + Primroses + "Christ on Olympus, and other Poems" + To M. + Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum + "Sonnets" + +Edward Dyson. + The Old Whim Horse + "Rhymes from the Mines, and other Lines" + +Dowell O'Reilly. + The Sea-Maiden + Periodical (Sydney, 1895) + +David MacDonald Ross. + Love's Treasure House + The Sea to the Shell + The Silent Tide + The Watch on Deck + Autumn + "The After Glow" + +Mary Gilmore. + A Little Ghost + Periodical (Orange, N.S.W.) + Good-Night + Periodical (Brisbane) + +Bernard O'Dowd. + Love's Substitute + Our Duty + Manuscript + +Edwin James Brady. + The Wardens of the Seas + Manuscript + +Will. H. Ogilvie. + Queensland Opal + Periodical (London) + Wind o' the Autumn + Periodical (London) + Daffodils + Periodical (Edinburgh) + A Queen of Yore + Periodical (Sydney) + Drought + Periodical (London) + The Shadow on the Blind + Periodical (London) + +Roderic Quinn. + The House of the Commonwealth + Periodical (Sydney) + The Lotus-Flower + Manuscript + +David McKee Wright. + An Old Colonist's Reverie + "Station Ballads, and other Verses" + +Christopher John Brennan. + Romance + "XXI Poems: Towards the Source" + Poppies + Manuscript + +John Le Gay Brereton. + The Sea Maid + "Oithona" + Home + "Sea and Sky" + Wilfred + Periodical (Sydney) + +Arthur H. Adams. + Bayswater, W. + Manuscript + Bond Street + Periodical (London) + +Ethel Turner. + A Trembling Star + `Oh, if that Rainbow up there!' + "Gum Leaves" + +Johannes Carl Andersen. + Soft, Low and Sweet + "Songs Unsung" + Maui Victor + Periodical (Dunedin, N.Z.) + +Dora Wilcox. + In London + "Verses from Maoriland" + +Ernest Currie. + Laudabunt Alii + Periodical (Timaru, N.Z.) + +George Charles Whitney. + Sunset + Manuscript + +James Lister Cuthbertson. [reprise] + Ode to Apollo + Periodical (Melbourne) + +Notes on the Poems + +Biographical Notes + + + + + + ---------------------------------- + An Anthology of Australian Verse + ---------------------------------- + + + + + +Introduction + + + +As the literature of a country is, in certain respects, +a reflex of its character, it may be advisable to introduce this Anthology +with some account of the main circumstances which have affected +the production of Australian poetry. + +Australia was first settled by the British a little more than a century ago, +so that we are still a young community. The present population, +including that of New Zealand, is a little under five millions, +or about the same as that of London; it is chiefly scattered +along the coast and the few permanent waterways, and a vast central region +is but sparsely inhabited as yet. All climates, from tropical to frigid, +are included within the continent, but the want of satisfactory watersheds +renders it peculiarly liable to long droughts and sudden floods. +The absence of those broad, outward signs of the changing seasons +which mark the pageant of the year in the old world is probably +a greater disadvantage than we are apt to suspect. Here, too, +have existed hardly any of the conditions which obtained in older communities +where great literature arose. There is no glamour of old Romance +about our early history, no shading off from the actual +into a dim region of myth and fable; our beginnings are clearly defined +and of an eminently prosaic character. The early settlers were engaged +in a hand-to-hand struggle with nature, and in the establishment +of the primitive industries. Their strenuous pioneering days +were followed by the feverish excitement of the gold period and a consequent +rapid expansion of all industries. Business and politics have afforded +ready roads to success, and have absorbed the energies of the best intellects. +There has been no leisured class of cultured people to provide the atmosphere +in which literature is best developed as an art; and, until recently, +we have been content to look to the mother country for our artistic standards +and supplies. The principal literary productions of our first century +came from writers who had been born elsewhere, and naturally brought with them +the traditions and sentiments of their home country. + +We have not yet had time to settle down and form any decided +racial characteristics; nor has any great crisis occurred +to fuse our common sympathies and create a national sentiment. +Australia has produced no great poet, nor has any remarkable innovation +in verse forms been successfully attempted. But the old forms +have been so coloured by the strange conditions of a new country, +and so charged with the thoughts and feelings of a vigorous, +restless democracy now just out of its adolescence, that they have +an interest and a value beyond that of perhaps technically better minor poetry +produced under English skies. + +The first verses actually written and published in Australia seem to have been +the Royal Birthday Odes of Michael Robinson, which were printed as broadsides +from 1810 to 1821. Their publication in book form was announced +in `The Hobart Town Gazette' of 23rd March, 1822, but no copy of such a volume +is at present known to exist. The famous "Prologue", said to have been +recited at the first dramatic performance in Australia, on January 16th, 1796 +(when Dr. Young's tragedy "The Revenge" and "The Hotel" were played +in a temporary theatre at Sydney), was for a long time attributed +to the notorious George Barrington, and ranked as the first verse +produced in Australia. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim. +The lines first appeared in a volume called "Original Poems and Translations" +chiefly by Susannah Watts, published in London in 1802, +a few months before the appearance of the "History of New South Wales" (1803) +-- known as George Barrington's -- which also, in all probability, +was not written by Barrington. In Susannah Watts' book +the Prologue is stated to be written by "A Gentleman", +but there is no clue to the name of the author. Mr. Barron Field, +Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, printed in Sydney in 1819 +his "First Fruits of Australian Poetry", for private circulation. +Field was a friend of Charles Lamb, who addressed to him the letter +printed in "The Essays of Elia" under the title of "Distant Correspondents". +Lamb reviewed the "First Fruits" in `The Examiner', and one wishes +for his sake that the verses were more worthy. + +The first poem of any importance by an Australian is +William Charles Wentworth's "Australasia", written in 1823 +at Cambridge University in competition for the Chancellor's medal. +There were twenty-seven competitors, and the prize was awarded +to W. Mackworth Praed, Wentworth being second on the list. Wentworth's poem +was printed in London in the same year, and shortly afterwards +in `The Sydney Gazette', the first Australian newspaper. +In 1826 there was printed at the Albion Press, Sydney, +"Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel" by Charles Tompson, Junior, +the first verse of an Australian-born writer published in this country. +There was also published in Sydney in 1826 a book of verses +by Dr. John Dunmore Lang, called "Aurora Australis". +Both Lang and Wentworth afterwards conducted newspapers +and wrote histories of New South Wales, but their names are more famous +in the political than in the literary annals of the country. +At Hobart Town in 1827 appeared "The Van Diemen's Land Warriors, +or the Heroes of Cornwall" by "Pindar Juvenal", the first book of verse +published in Tasmania. During the next ten years various poetical effusions +were printed in the colonies, which are of bibliographical interest +but of hardly any intrinsic value. Newspapers had been established +at an early date, but until the end of this period they were little better +than news-sheets or official gazettes, giving no opportunities +for literature. The proportion of well-educated persons was small, +the majority of the free settlers being members of the working classes, +as very few representatives of British culture came willingly to this country +until after the discovery of gold. + +It was not until 1845 that the first genuine, though crude, +Australian poetry appeared, in the form of a small volume of sonnets +by Charles Harpur, who was born at Windsor, N.S.W., in 1817. +He passed his best years in the lonely bush, and wrote largely +under the influence of Wordsworth and Shelley. He had some +imagination and poetic faculty of the contemplative order, +but the disadvantages of his life were many. Harpur's best work +is in his longer poems, from which extracts cannot conveniently be given here. +The year 1842 had seen the publication of Henry Parkes' "Stolen Moments", +the first of a number of volumes of verse which that statesman bravely issued, +the last being published just before his eightieth year. The career of Parkes +is coincident with a long and important period of our history, +in which he is the most striking figure. Not the least interesting +aspect of his character, which contained much of rugged greatness, +was his love of poetry and his unfailing kindness to the struggling writers +of the colony. Others who deserve remembrance for their services at this time +are Nicol D. Stenhouse and Dr. Woolley. Among the writers of the period +D. H. Deniehy, Henry Halloran, J. Sheridan Moore and Richard Rowe +contributed fairly good verse to the newspapers, the principal of which were +`The Atlas' (1845-9), `The Empire' (1850-8), and two papers still in existence +-- `The Freeman's Journal' (1850) and `The Sydney Morning Herald', +which began as `The Sydney Herald' in 1831. None of their writings, however, +reflected to any appreciable extent the scenery or life of the new country. + +With the discovery of gold a new era began for Australia. +That event induced the flow of a large stream of immigration, +and gave an enormous impetus to the development of the colonies. +Among the ardent spirits attracted here were J. Lionel Michael, Robert Sealy, +R. H. Horne, the Howitts, Henry Kingsley and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Michael was +a friend of Millais, and an early champion of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. +Soon after his arrival in Sydney he abandoned the idea of digging for gold, +and began to practise again as a solicitor. Later on he removed to Grafton +on the Clarence River; there in 1857 Henry Kendall, a boy of 16, +found work in his office, and Michael, discerning his promise, +encouraged him to write. Most of the boy's earliest verses +were sent from Michael's office to Parkes, who printed them +in his paper `The Empire'. When Kendall left Grafton, +Michael gave him a letter of introduction to Stenhouse, +which brought him in touch with the small literary group in Sydney; +and his first volume, "Poems and Songs", was published in Sydney in 1862. +It was not long before he recognised the extreme weakness +of most of its contents, and did what he could to suppress the book. +He sent specimens of his best work to the London `Athenaeum', +and wrote a pathetic letter to the Editor, which was printed +in the issue of 27th September, 1862, together with some of the poems +and a most kindly comment. Kendall soon wrote again, sending more poems, +and received encouraging notices in `The Athenaeum' on 19th September, 1863, +27th February, 1864, and 17th February, 1866. These form +the first favourable pronouncement upon Australian poetry +by an English critical journal of importance. Their stimulating effect +upon Kendall was very great. From the indifference of the many +and the carping criticisms of some of the magnates here, +he had appealed to one of the highest literary authorities in England, +and received praise beyond his wildest expectations. + +Meanwhile the colony of Victoria, which began its independent career in 1851, +had been advancing even more rapidly than New South Wales. +`The Argus' newspaper had been in existence since 1846, and other periodicals +sprang up in Melbourne which gave further scope to letters. +`The Australasian' was established in 1854, and soon became +the most important literary journal in Australia. Adam Lindsay Gordon, +who had landed in Adelaide in the same year as Henry Kingsley -- 1853 -- +published a little book of verse in 1864 at Mt. Gambier, S.A., +and began to contribute verses to a Melbourne sporting paper in 1866. +These were printed anonymously, and attracted some attention; +but a collection of his ballads -- "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" -- +brought very little praise and no profit. Marcus Clarke came to Melbourne +in 1864, and soon afterwards began to write for `The Argus' and other papers. +About the same time the presence of R. H. Horne, the distinguished author +of "Orion", in Melbourne lent a lustre to that city, +which was for the time the literary centre of Australia. +Horne corresponded with Kendall, and contributed to a paper +edited by Deniehy in Sydney -- `The Southern Cross' (1859-60). +He was the presiding genius of the literary gatherings +at Dwight's book-shop in Melbourne, and no doubt exercised +a beneficial influence upon the writers around him. + +In 1870, after a series of crushing disappointments, Gordon committed suicide. +His dramatic end awakened sympathy and gave an additional interest +to his writings. It was soon found that in the city and the bush +many of his spirited racing ballads were well known. The virile, +athletic tone of his verse, which taught + + "How a man should uphold the sports of his land + And strike his best with a strong right hand + And take his strokes in return" -- + +and the practical philosophy, summed up in the well-known quatrain -- + + "Life is mostly froth and bubble, + Two things stand like stone; + Kindness in another's trouble, + Courage in your own" -- + +appeal strongly to Australians. Gordon's work cannot be considered +as peculiarly Australian in character; but much of it is concerned +with the horse, and all of it is a-throb with the manly, reckless personality +of the writer. Horses and horse-racing are especially interesting +to Australians, the Swinburnian rush of Gordon's ballads charms their ear, +and in many respects he embodies their ideal of a man. +There are few Australians who do not know some of his poems, +even if they know no others, and his influence upon subsequent writers +has been very great. + +Brunton Stephens, who came to Queensland in 1866, wrote there a long poem +called "Convict Once" which, when published in London in 1871, +gained high praise from competent critics, and gave the author +an academic reputation. A little book of humorous verses +issued in Melbourne in 1873 almost immediately became popular, +and a later volume of "Miscellaneous Poems" (1880), containing some +fine patriotic utterances as well as many in lighter vein, +established him as one of our chief singers. + +The first important poem from New Zealand -- Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" -- +was published in London in 1872. Domett spent thirty years in New Zealand. +He wrote a good deal of verse before leaving England and after his return, +but "Ranolf and Amohia" is the only poem showing traces +of Australian influence. It is a miscellany in verse rather than an epic, +and contains some fine descriptions of New Zealand scenery. + +The death of Kendall in Sydney in 1882 closed what may be regarded +as the second literary period. He had published his finest work +in "Songs from the Mountains" (1880), and had the satisfaction of knowing +that it was a success, financially and otherwise. Kendall's audience +is not so large as Gordon's, but it is a steadily growing one; +and many readers who have been affected by his musical verse +hold the ill-fated singer in more tender regard than any other. +He lived at a time when Australians had not learned to think it possible +that any good thing in art could come out of Australia, +and were too fully occupied with things of the market-place +to concern themselves much about literature. + +Several attempts have been made to maintain magazines and reviews +in Sydney and Melbourne, but none of them could compete successfully +with the imported English periodicals. `The Colonial Monthly', +`The Melbourne Review', `The Sydney Quarterly', and `The Centennial Magazine' +were the most important of these. They cost more to produce +than their English models, and the fact that their contents were Australian +was not sufficient in itself to obtain for them adequate support. +Newspapers have played a far more important part in our literary world. +`The Australasian', `Sydney Mail' and `Queenslander' have done a good deal +to encourage local writers, but the most powerful influence +has been that of `The Bulletin', started in Sydney in 1880. +Its racy, irreverent tone and its humour are characteristically Australian, +and through its columns the first realistic Australian verse of any importance +-- the writings of Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson -- became widely known. +When published in book form, their verses met with phenomenal success; +Paterson's "The Man from Snowy River" (1895) having already attained +a circulation of over thirty thousand copies. It is the first +of a long series of volumes, issued during the last ten years, whose character +is far more distinctively Australian than that of their predecessors. +Their number and success are evidences of the lively interest taken +by the present generation here in its native literature. + +Australia has now come of age, and is becoming conscious +of its strength and its possibilities. Its writers to-day are, as a rule, +self-reliant and hopeful. They have faith in their own country; +they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, +in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry +in the grand manner, and that some of it is lacking in technical finish; +but it is a vivid and faithful portrayal of Australia, and its ruggedness +is in character. It is hoped that this selection from the verse that has been +written up to the present time will be found a not unworthy contribution +to the great literature of the English-speaking peoples. + + + + + +William Charles Wentworth. + + + + Australasia + + +Celestial poesy! whose genial sway +Earth's furthest habitable shores obey; +Whose inspirations shed their sacred light, +Far as the regions of the Arctic night, +And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam +Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam, -- +Descend thou also on my native land, +And on some mountain-summit take thy stand; +Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen +Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene; +And there a richer, nobler fane arise, +Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes. +And tho', bright goddess, on the far blue hills, +That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills +Where Warragamba's rage has rent in twain +Opposing mountains, thundering to the plain, +No child of song has yet invoked thy aid +'Neath their primeval solitary shade, -- +Still, gracious Pow'r, some kindling soul inspire, +To wake to life my country's unknown lyre, +That from creation's date has slumbering lain, +Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain; +And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song +Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along, -- +An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page +To nature true may charm in ev'ry age; -- +And that an Austral Pindar daring soar, +Where not the Theban eagle reach'd before. +And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride +Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide; -- +Should thy tamed Lion -- spent his former might, -- +No longer roar the terror of the fight; -- +Should e'er arrive that dark disastrous hour, +When bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r; -- +When thou, no longer freest of the free, +To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee; -- +May all thy glories in another sphere +Relume, and shine more brightly still than here; +May this, thy last-born infant, then arise, +To glad thy heart and greet thy parent eyes; +And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, +A new Britannia in another world. + + + + +Charles Harpur. + + + + Love + + +She loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips + The live confession came, like rich perfume + From crimson petals bursting into bloom! +And still my heart at the remembrance skips +Like a young lion, and my tongue, too, trips + As drunk with joy! while every object seen + In life's diurnal round wears in its mien +A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse. +And if the common things of nature now + Are like old faces flushed with new delight, +Much more the consciousness of that rich vow + Deepens the beauteous, and refines the bright, + While throned I seem on love's divinest height +'Mid all the glories glowing round its brow. + + + + Words + + +Words are deeds. The words we hear +May revolutionize or rear +A mighty state. The words we read +May be a spiritual deed +Excelling any fleshly one, +As much as the celestial sun +Transcends a bonfire, made to throw +A light upon some raree-show. +A simple proverb tagged with rhyme +May colour half the course of time; +The pregnant saying of a sage +May influence every coming age; +A song in its effects may be +More glorious than Thermopylae, +And many a lay that schoolboys scan +A nobler feat than Inkerman. + + + + A Coast View + + +High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet +Riseth in Babylonian mass above, +In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair +Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone, +And gaze with a keen wondering happiness +Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend +That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain +It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream -- +Into great spaces mapped by light and shade +In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds +The billows darken, or they shimmer bright +In sunny scopes of measureless expanse. +'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour, +Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God! +What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled +In slumber, under that wide-shining face! +While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge +Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails +Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen, +Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still +Comes rising with them from the void beyond, +Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep +And carried upward by ethereal hands. + + + + +William Forster. + + + + `The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping' + + + The love in her eyes lay sleeping, + As stars that unconscious shine, + Till, under the pink lids peeping, + I wakened it up with mine; +And we pledged our troth to a brimming oath + In a bumper of blood-red wine. + Alas! too well I know + That it happened long ago; + Those memories yet remain, + And sting, like throbs of pain, + And I'm alone below, +But still the red wine warms, and the rosy goblets glow; + If love be the heart's enslaver, + 'Tis wine that subdues the head. + But which has the fairest flavour, + And whose is the soonest shed? + Wine waxes in power in that desolate hour + When the glory of love is dead. + Love lives on beauty's ray, + But night comes after day, + And when the exhausted sun + His high career has run, + The stars behind him stay, +And then the light that lasts consoles our darkening way. + When beauty and love are over, + And passion has spent its rage, + And the spectres of memory hover, + And glare on life's lonely stage, + 'Tis wine that remains to kindle the veins + And strengthen the steps of age. + Love takes the taint of years, + And beauty disappears, + But wine in worth matures + The longer it endures, + And more divinely cheers, +And ripens with the suns and mellows with the spheres. + + + + +James Lionel Michael. + + + + `Through Pleasant Paths' + + +Through pleasant paths, through dainty ways, + Love leads my feet; +Where beauty shines with living rays, + Soft, gentle, sweet; +The placid heart at random strays, +And sings, and smiles, and laughs and plays, +And gathers from the summer days + Their light and heat, +That in its chambers burn and blaze + And beam and beat. + +I throw myself among the ferns + Under the shade, +And watch the summer sun that burns + On dell and glade; +To thee, my dear, my fancy turns, +In thee its Paradise discerns, +For thee it sighs, for thee it yearns, + My chosen maid; +And that still depth of passion learns + Which cannot fade. + +The wind that whispers in the night, + Subtle and free, +The gorgeous noonday's blinding light, + On hill and tree, +All lovely things that meet my sight, +All shifting lovelinesses bright, +Speak to my heart with calm delight, + Seeming to be +Cloth'd with enchantment, robed in white, + To sing of thee. + +The ways of life are hard and cold + To one alone; +Bitter the strife for place and gold -- + We weep and groan: +But when love warms the heart grows bold; +And when our arms the prize enfold, +Dearest! the heart can hardly hold + The bliss unknown, +Unspoken, never to be told -- + My own, my own! + + + + Personality + + "Death is to us change, not consummation." + Heart of Midlothian. + + +A change! no, surely, not a change, + The change must be before we die; +Death may confer a wider range, + From pole to pole, from sea to sky, +It cannot make me new or strange + To mine own Personality! + +For what am I? -- this mortal flesh, + These shrinking nerves, this feeble frame, +For ever racked with ailments fresh + And scarce from day to day the same -- +A fly within the spider's mesh, + A moth that plays around the flame! + +THIS is not I -- within such coil + The immortal spirit rests awhile: +When this shall lie beneath the soil, + Which its mere mortal parts defile, +THAT shall for ever live and foil + Mortality, and pain, and guile. + +Whatever Time may make of me + Eternity must see me still +Clear from the dross of earth, and free + From every stain of every ill; +Yet still, where-e'er -- what-e'er I be, + Time's work Eternity must fill. + +When all the worlds have ceased to roll, + When the long light has ceased to quiver +When we have reached our final goal + And stand beside the Living River, +This vital spark -- this loving soul, + Must last for ever and for ever. + +To choose what I must be is mine, + Mine in these few and fleeting days, +I may be if I will, divine, + Standing before God's throne in praise, -- +Through all Eternity to shine + In yonder Heaven's sapphire blaze. + +Father, the soul that counts it gain + To love Thee and Thy law on earth, +Unchanged but free from mortal stain, + Increased in knowledge and in worth, +And purified from this world's pain, + Shall find through Thee a second birth. + +A change! no surely not a change! + The change must be before we die; +Death may confer a wider range + From world to world, from sky to sky, +It cannot make me new or strange + To mine own Personality! + + + + +Daniel Henry Deniehy. + + + + Love in a Cottage + + +A cottage small be mine, with porch + Enwreathed with ivy green, +And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells, + 'Mid brown old wattles seen. + +And one to wait at shut of eve, + With eyes as fountain clear, +And braided hair, and simple dress, + My homeward step to hear. + +On summer eves to sing old songs, + And talk o'er early vows, +While stars look down like angels' eyes + Amid the leafy boughs. + +When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells, + And bright-winged parrots call, +In forest paths be ours to rove + Till purple evenings fall. + +The curtains closed, by taper clear + To read some page divine, +On winter nights, the hearth beside, + Her soft, warm hand in mine. + +And so to glide through busy life, + Like some small brook alone, +That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls, + Its music all its own. + + + + A Song for the Night + + +O the Night, the Night, the solemn Night, + When Earth is bound with her silent zone, +And the spangled sky seems a temple wide, + Where the star-tribes kneel at the Godhead's throne; +O the Night, the Night, the wizard Night, + When the garish reign of day is o'er, +And the myriad barques of the dream-elves come + In a brightsome fleet from Slumber's shore! + O the Night for me, + When blithe and free, +Go the zephyr-hounds on their airy chase; + When the moon is high + In the dewy sky, +And the air is sweet as a bride's embrace! + +O the Night, the Night, the charming Night! + From the fountain side in the myrtle shade, +All softly creep on the slumbrous air + The waking notes of the serenade; +While bright eyes shine 'mid the lattice-vines, + And white arms droop o'er the sculptured sills, +And accents fall to the knights below, + Like the babblings soft of mountain rills. + Love in their eyes, + Love in their sighs, +Love in the heave of each lily-bright bosom; + In words so clear, + Lest the listening ear +And the waiting heart may lose them. + +O the silent Night, when the student dreams + Of kneeling crowds round a sage's tomb; +And the mother's eyes o'er the cradle rain + Tears for her baby's fading bloom; +O the peaceful Night, when stilled and o'er + Is the charger's tramp on the battle plain, +And the bugle's sound and the sabre's flash, + While the moon looks sad over heaps of slain; + And tears bespeak + On the iron cheek +Of the sentinel lonely pacing, + Thoughts which roll + Through his fearless soul, +Day's sterner mood replacing. + +O the sacred Night, when memory comes + With an aspect mild and sweet to me, +But her tones are sad as a ballad air + In childhood heard on a nurse's knee; +And round her throng fair forms long fled, + With brows of snow and hair of gold, +And eyes with the light of summer skies, + And lips that speak of the days of old. + Wide is your flight, + O spirits of Night, +By strath, and stream, and grove, + But most in the gloom + Of the Poet's room +Ye choose, fair ones, to rove. + + + + +Richard Rowe. + + + + Superstites Rosae + + +The grass is green upon her grave, + The west wind whispers low; +"The corn is changed, come forth, come forth, + Ere all the blossoms go!" + +In vain. Her laughing eyes are sealed, + And cold her sunny brow; +Last year she smiled upon the flowers -- + They smile above her now! + + + + Soul Ferry + + +High and dry upon the shingle lies the fisher's boat to-night; +From his roof-beam dankly drooping, raying phosphorescent light, +Spectral in its pale-blue splendour, hangs his heap of scaly nets, +And the fisher, lapt in slumber, surge and seine alike forgets. + +Hark! there comes a sudden knocking, and the fisher starts from sleep, +As a hollow voice and ghostly bids him once more seek the deep; +Wearily across his shoulder flingeth he the ashen oar, +And upon the beach descending finds a skiff beside the shore. + +'Tis not his, but he must enter -- rocking on the waters dim, +Awful in their hidden presence, who are they that wait for him? +Who are they that sit so silent, as he pulleth from the land -- +Nothing heard save rumbling rowlock, wave soft-breaking on the sand? + +Chill adown the tossing channel blows the wailing, wand'ring breeze, +Lonely in the murky midnight, mutt'ring mournful memories, -- +Summer lands where once it brooded, wrecks that widows' hearts have wrung -- +Swift the dreary boat flies onwards, spray, like rain, around it flung. + +On a pebbled strand it grateth, ghastly cliffs around it loom, +Thin and melancholy voices faintly murmur through the gloom; +Voices only, lipless voices, and the fisherman turns pale, +As the mother greets her children, sisters landing brothers hail. + +Lightened of its unseen burden, cork-like rides the rocking bark, +Fast the fisherman flies homewards o'er the billows deep and dark; +THAT boat needs no mortal's mooring -- sad at heart he seeks his bed, +For his life henceforth is clouded -- he hath piloted the Dead! + + + + +Sir Henry Parkes. + + + + The Buried Chief + + (November 6th, 1886) + + +With speechless lips and solemn tread + They brought the Lawyer-Statesman home: +They laid him with the gather'd dead, + Where rich and poor like brothers come. + +How bravely did the stripling climb, + From step to step the rugged hill: +His gaze thro' that benighted time + Fix'd on the far-off beacon still. + +He faced the storm that o'er him burst, + With pride to match the proudest born: +He bore unblench'd Detraction's worst, -- + Paid blow for blow, and scorn for scorn. + +He scaled the summit while the sun + Yet shone upon his conquer'd track: +Nor falter'd till the goal was won, + Nor struggling upward, once look'd back. + +But what avails the "pride of place", + Or winged chariot rolling past? +He heeds not now who wins the race, + Alike to him the first or last. + + + + +Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood'). + + + + Perdita + + +She is beautiful yet, with her wondrous hair + And eyes that are stormy with fitful light, +The delicate hues of brow and cheek + Are unmarred all, rose-clear and bright; +That matchless frame yet holds at bay +The crouching bloodhounds, Remorse, Decay. + +There is no fear in her great dark eyes -- + No hope, no love, no care, +Stately and proud she looks around + With a fierce, defiant stare; +Wild words deform her reckless speech, +Her laugh has a sadness tears never reach. + +Whom should she fear on earth? Can Fate + One direr torment lend +To her few little years of glitter and gloom + With the sad old story to end +When the spectres of Loneliness, Want and Pain +Shall arise one night with Death in their train? + + . . . . . + +I see in a vision a woman like her + Trip down an orchard slope, +With rosy prattlers that shout a name + In tones of rapture and hope; +While the yeoman, gazing at children and wife, +Thanks God for the pride and joy of his life. + + . . . . . + +Whose conscience is heavy with this dark guilt? + Who pays at the final day +For a wasted body, a murdered soul, + And how shall he answer, I say, +For her outlawed years, her early doom, +And despair -- despair -- beyond the tomb? + + + + +Adam Lindsay Gordon. + + + + A Dedication + + +They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less + Of sound than of words, +In lands where bright blossoms are scentless, + And songless bright birds; +Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses, +Insatiable summer oppresses +Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses, + And faint flocks and herds. + +Where in dreariest days, when all dews end, + And all winds are warm, +Wild Winter's large flood-gates are loosen'd, + And floods, freed from storm, +From broken-up fountain heads, dash on +Dry deserts with long pent up passion -- +Here rhyme was first framed without fashion -- + Song shaped without form. + +Whence gather'd? -- The locust's glad chirrup + May furnish a stave; +The ring of a rowel and stirrup, + The wash of a wave; +The chaunt of the marsh frog in rushes, +That chimes through the pauses and hushes +Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes, + The tempests that rave; + +In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples + The dusk of the sky, +With streaks like the redd'ning of apples, + The ripening of rye. +To eastward, when cluster by cluster, +Dim stars and dull planets, that muster, +Wax wan in a world of white lustre + That spreads far and high; + +In the gathering of night gloom o'erhead, in + The still silent change, +All fire-flush'd when forest trees redden + On slopes of the range. +When the gnarl'd, knotted trunks Eucalyptian +Seem carved, like weird columns Egyptian, +With curious device, quaint inscription, + And hieroglyph strange; + +In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles + 'Twixt shadow and shine, +When each dew-laden air draught resembles + A long draught of wine; +When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance +Makes deeper the dreamiest distance, +Some song in all hearts hath existence, -- + Such songs have been mine. + + + + Thora's Song + + +We severed in Autumn early, + Ere the earth was torn by the plough; +The wheat and the oats and the barley + Are ripe for the harvest now. +We sunder'd one misty morning + Ere the hills were dimm'd by the rain; +Through the flowers those hills adorning -- + Thou comest not back again. + +My heart is heavy and weary + With the weight of a weary soul; +The mid-day glare grows dreary, + And dreary the midnight scroll. +The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle, + 'Neath the load of their golden grain; +I sigh for a mate more fickle -- + Thou comest not back again. + +The warm sun riseth and setteth, + The night bringeth moistening dew, +But the soul that longeth forgetteth + The warmth and the moisture too. +In the hot sun rising and setting + There is naught save feverish pain; +There are tears in the night-dews wetting -- + Thou comest not back again. + +Thy voice in my ear still mingles + With the voices of whisp'ring trees, +Thy kiss on my cheek still tingles + At each kiss of the summer breeze. +While dreams of the past are thronging + For substance of shades in vain, +I am waiting, watching and longing -- + Thou comest not back again. + +Waiting and watching ever, + Longing and lingering yet; +Leaves rustle and corn-stalks quiver, + Winds murmur and waters fret. +No answer they bring, no greeting, + No speech, save that sad refrain, +Nor voice, save an echo repeating -- + He cometh not back again. + + + + The Sick Stock-rider + + +Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade. + Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide +Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed, + All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride. +The dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense, + The sun-rise was a sullen, sluggish lamp; +I was dozing in the gateway at Arbuthnot's bound'ry fence, + I was dreaming on the Limestone cattle camp. +We crossed the creek at Carricksford, and sharply through the haze, + And suddenly the sun shot flaming forth; +To southward lay "Katawa", with the sand peaks all ablaze, + And the flushed fields of Glen Lomond lay to north. +Now westward winds the bridle-path that leads to Lindisfarm, + And yonder looms the double-headed Bluff; +From the far side of the first hill, when the skies are clear and calm, + You can see Sylvester's woolshed fair enough. +Five miles we used to call it from our homestead to the place + Where the big tree spans the roadway like an arch; +'Twas here we ran the dingo down that gave us such a chase + Eight years ago -- or was it nine? -- last March. +'Twas merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass, + To wander as we've wandered many a mile, +And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass, + Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while. +'Twas merry 'mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs, + To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard, +With a running fire of stock whips and a fiery run of hoofs; + Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard! +Aye! we had a glorious gallop after "Starlight" and his gang, + When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat; +How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang, + To the strokes of "Mountaineer" and "Acrobat". +Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath, + Close beside them through the tea-tree scrub we dash'd; +And the golden-tinted fern leaves, how they rustled underneath; + And the honeysuckle osiers, how they crash'd! +We led the hunt throughout, Ned, on the chestnut and the grey, + And the troopers were three hundred yards behind, +While we emptied our six-shooters on the bushrangers at bay, + In the creek with stunted box-trees for a blind! +There you grappled with the leader, man to man, and horse to horse, + And you roll'd together when the chestnut rear'd; +He blazed away and missed you in that shallow water-course -- + A narrow shave -- his powder singed your beard! + +In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young + Come back to us; how clearly I recall +Even the yarns Jack Hall invented, and the songs Jem Roper sung; + And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall? +Ay! nearly all our comrades of the old colonial school, + Our ancient boon companions, Ned, are gone; +Hard livers for the most part, somewhat reckless as a rule, + It seems that you and I are left alone. +There was Hughes, who got in trouble through that business with the cards, + It matters little what became of him; +But a steer ripp'd up Macpherson in the Cooraminta yards, + And Sullivan was drown'd at Sink-or-swim; +And Mostyn -- poor Frank Mostyn -- died at last, a fearful wreck, + In the "horrors" at the Upper Wandinong, +And Carisbrooke, the rider, at the Horsefall broke his neck; + Faith! the wonder was he saved his neck so long! + +Ah! those days and nights we squandered at the Logans' in the glen -- + The Logans, man and wife, have long been dead. +Elsie's tallest girl seems taller than your little Elsie then; + And Ethel is a woman grown and wed. + +I've had my share of pastime, and I've done my share of toil, + And life is short -- the longest life a span; +I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil, + Or for wine that maketh glad the heart of man. +For good undone, and gifts misspent, and resolutions vain, + 'Tis somewhat late to trouble. This I know -- +I should live the same life over, if I had to live again; + And the chances are I go where most men go. + +The deep blue skies wax dusky, and the tall green trees grow dim, + The sward beneath me seems to heave and fall; +And sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim, + And on the very sun's face weave their pall. +Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave, + With never stone or rail to fence my bed; +Should the sturdy station children pull the bush-flowers on my grave, + I may chance to hear them romping overhead. + +I don't suppose I shall though, for I feel like sleeping sound, + That sleep, they say, is doubtful. True; but yet +At least it makes no difference to the dead man underground + What the living men remember or forget. +Enigmas that perplex us in the world's unequal strife, + The future may ignore or may reveal; +Yet some, as weak as water, Ned, to make the best of life, + Have been to face the worst as true as steel. + + + + +Henry Kendall. + + + + Prefatory Sonnets + + + I. + +I purposed once to take my pen and write, + Not songs, like some, tormented and awry + With passion, but a cunning harmony +Of words and music caught from glen and height, +And lucid colours born of woodland light + And 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 you + Who read this book; but certain syllables + Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells +And secret hollows dear to noontide dew; +And these at least, though far between and few, + May catch the sense like subtle forest spells. + + II. + +So take these kindly, even though there be + Some notes that unto other lyres belong, + Stray echoes from the elder sons of song; +And think how from its neighbouring native sea +The pensive shell doth borrow melody. + I would not do the lordly masters wrong + By filching fair words from the shining throng +Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree! + Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms +Shot through with sunset treads the cedar dells, +And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells + Far down by where the white-haired cataract booms, +He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells, + Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes. + + + + September in Australia + + +Grey Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest, + And, behold, for repayment, +September comes in with the wind of the West + And the Spring in her raiment! +The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers, + While the forest discovers +Wild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours, + And the music of lovers. + +September, the maid with the swift, silver feet! + She glides, and she graces +The 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 lingers +In spots where the harp of the evening glows, + Attuned by her fingers. + +The stream from its home in the hollow hill slips + In 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 sea + I stand, and remember +Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee, + Resplendent September. + +The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon + And beats on the beaches, +Is filled with a tender and tremulous tune + That 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 rhyme + In the waves of the ocean. + +We, having a secret to others unknown, + In the cool mountain-mosses, +May whisper together, September, alone + Of our loves and our losses. +One word for her beauty, and one for the grace + She gave to the hours; +And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face + To sleep with the flowers. + + . . . . . + +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. + + + + Rose Lorraine + + +Sweet water-moons, blown into lights + Of flying gold on pool and creek, +And many sounds and many sights + Of younger days are back this week. +I cannot say I sought to face + Or greatly cared to cross again +The subtle spirit of the place + Whose life is mixed with Rose Lorraine. + +What though her voice rings clearly through + A nightly dream I gladly keep, +No wish have I to start anew + Heart fountains that have ceased to leap. +Here, face to face with different days, + And later things that plead for love, +It would be worse than wrong to raise + A phantom far too vain to move. + +But, Rose Lorraine -- ah! Rose Lorraine, + I'll whisper now, where no one hears -- +If you should chance to meet again + The man you kissed in soft, dead years, +Just say for once "He suffered much," + And add to this "His fate was worst +Because of me, my voice, my touch" -- + There is no passion like the first! + +If I that breathe your slow sweet name, + As one breathes low notes on a flute, +Have vext your peace with word of blame, + The phrase is dead -- the lips are mute. +Yet when I turn towards the wall, + In stormy nights, in times of rain, +I often wish you could recall + Your tender speeches, Rose Lorraine. + +Because, you see, I thought them true, + And did not count you self-deceived, +And gave myself in all to you, + And looked on Love as Life achieved. +Then came the bitter, sudden change, + The fastened lips, the dumb despair: +The first few weeks were very strange, + And long, and sad, and hard to bear. + +No woman lives with power to burst + My passion's bonds, and set me free; +For Rose is last where Rose was first, + And only Rose is fair to me. +The faintest memory of her face, + The wilful face that hurt me so, +Is followed by a fiery trace + That Rose Lorraine must never know. + +I keep a faded ribbon string + You used to wear about your throat; +And of this pale, this perished thing, + I think I know the threads by rote. +God help such love! To touch your hand, + To loiter where your feet might fall, +You marvellous girl, my soul would stand + The worst of hell -- its fires and all! + + + + To a Mountain + + +To thee, O father of the stately peaks, +Above me in the loftier light -- to thee, +Imperial brother of those awful hills +Whose feet are set in splendid spheres of flame, +Whose heads are where the gods are, and whose sides +Of strength are belted round with all the zones +Of all the world, I dedicate these songs. +And if, within the compass of this book, +There lives and glows ONE verse in which there beats +The pulse of wind and torrent -- if ONE line +Is here that like a running water sounds, +And seems an echo from the lands of leaf, +Be sure that line is thine. Here, in this home, +Away from men and books and all the schools, +I take thee for my Teacher. In thy voice +Of deathless majesty, I, kneeling, hear +God's grand authentic Gospel! Year by year, +The great sublime cantata of thy storm +Strikes through my spirit -- fills it with a life +Of startling beauty! Thou my Bible art +With holy leaves of rock, and flower, and tree, +And moss, and shining runnel. From each page +That helps to make thy awful volume, I +Have learned a noble lesson. In the psalm +Of thy grave winds, and in the liturgy +Of singing waters, lo! my soul has heard +The higher worship; and from thee, indeed, +The broad foundations of a finer hope +Were gathered in; and thou hast lifted up +The blind horizon for a larger faith! +Moreover, walking in exalted woods +Of naked glory, in the green and gold +Of forest sunshine, I have paused like one +With all the life transfigured: and a flood +Of light ineffable has made me feel +As felt the grand old prophets caught away +By flames of inspiration; but the words +Sufficient for the story of my Dream +Are far too splendid for poor human lips! +But thou, to whom I turn with reverent eyes -- +O stately Father, whose majestic face +Shines far above the zone of wind and cloud, +Where high dominion of the morning is -- +Thou hast the Song complete of which my songs +Are pallid adumbrations! Certain sounds +Of strong authentic sorrow in this book +May have the sob of upland torrents -- these, +And only these, may touch the great World's heart; +For, lo! they are the issues of that grief +Which makes a man more human, and his life +More like that frank exalted life of thine. +But in these pages there are other tones +In which thy large, superior voice is not -- +Through which no beauty that resembles thine +Has ever shone. THESE are the broken words +Of blind occasions, when the World has come +Between me and my Dream. No song is here +Of mighty compass; for my singing robes +I've worn in stolen moments. All my days +Have been the days of a laborious life, +And ever on my struggling soul has burned +The fierce heat of this hurried sphere. But thou, +To whose fair majesty I dedicate +My book of rhymes -- thou hast the perfect rest +Which makes the heaven of the highest gods! +To thee the noises of this violent time +Are far, faint whispers; and, from age to age, +Within the world and yet apart from it, +Thou standest! Round thy lordly capes the sea +Rolls on with a superb indifference +For ever; in thy deep, green, gracious glens +The silver fountains sing for ever. Far +Above dim ghosts of waters in the caves, +The royal robe of morning on thy head +Abides for ever! Evermore the wind +Is thy august companion; and thy peers +Are cloud, and thunder, and the face sublime +Of blue mid-heaven! On thy awful brow +Is Deity; and in that voice of thine +There is the great imperial utterance +Of God for ever; and thy feet are set +Where evermore, through all the days and years, +There rolls the grand hymn of the deathless wave. + + + + Araluen + + +Take this rose, and very gently place it on the tender, deep +Mosses where our little darling, Araluen, lies asleep. +Put the blossom close to baby -- kneel with me, my love, and pray; +We must leave the bird we've buried -- say good-bye to her to-day; +In the shadow of our trouble we must go to other lands, +And the flowers we have fostered will be left to other hands. +Other eyes will watch them growing -- other feet will softly tread +Where two hearts are nearly breaking, where so many tears are shed. +Bitter is the world we live in: life and love are mixed with pain; +We will never see these daisies -- never water them again. + . . . . . +Here the blue-eyed Spring will linger, here the shining month will stay, +Like a friend, by Araluen, when we two are far away; +But, beyond the wild, wide waters, we will tread another shore -- +We will never watch this blossom, never see it any more. + +Girl, whose hand at God's high altar in the dear, dead year I pressed, +Lean your stricken head upon me -- this is still your lover's breast! +She who sleeps was first and sweetest -- none we have to take her place! +Empty is the little cradle -- absent is the little face. +Other children may be given; but this rose beyond recall, +But this garland of your girlhood, will be dearest of them all. +None will ever, Araluen, nestle where you used to be, +In my heart of hearts, you darling, when the world was new to me; +We were young when you were with us, life and love were happy things +To your father and your mother ere the angels gave you wings. + +You that sit and sob beside me -- you, upon whose golden head +Many rains of many sorrows have from day to day been shed; +Who, because your love was noble, faced with me the lot austere +Ever pressing with its hardship on the man of letters here -- +Let me feel that you are near me, lay your hand within mine own; +You are all I have to live for, now that we are left alone. +Three there were, but one has vanished. Sins of mine have made you weep; +But forgive your baby's father now that baby is asleep. +Let us go, for night is falling, leave the darling with her flowers; +Other hands will come and tend them -- other friends in other hours. + + + + After Many Years + + +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 tune + Of 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 birds +Are singing in the sunny rain, + I think I hear its words. + +I think I hear the echo still + Of long-forgotten tones, +When evening winds are on the hill + And 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 reveal + Her gracious green and gold; +I sit where youth was once, and feel + That I am growing old. +The lustre from the face of things + Is wearing all away; +Like one who halts with tired wings, + I rest and muse to-day. + +There is a river in the range + I love to think about; +Perhaps the searching feet of change + Have never found it out. +Ah! oftentimes I used to look + Upon its banks, and long +To steal the beauty of that brook + And 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 place + Those old familiar things +To which I turn a wistful face + Have never taken wings. +Let me retain the fancy still + That, past the lordly range, +There always shines, in folds of hill, + One spot secure from change! + +I trust that yet the tender screen + That shades a certain nook +Remains, with all its gold and green, + The glory of the brook. +It hides a secret to the birds + And waters only known: +The letters of two lovely words -- + A poem on a stone. + +Perhaps the lady of the past + Upon these lines may light, +The purest verses, and the last, + That I may ever write: +She need not fear a word of blame: + Her tale the flowers keep -- +The wind that heard me breathe her name + Has been for years asleep. + +But in the night, and when the rain + The troubled torrent fills, +I often think I see again + The river in the hills; +And when the day is very near, + And birds are on the wing, +My spirit fancies it can hear + The song I cannot sing. + + + + Hy-Brasil + + +"Daughter," said the ancient father, pausing by the evening sea, +"Turn thy face towards the sunset -- turn thy face and kneel with me! +Prayer and praise and holy fasting, lips of love and life of light, +These and these have made thee perfect -- shining saint with seraph's sight! +Look towards that flaming crescent -- look beyond that glowing space -- +Tell me, sister of the angels, what is beaming in thy face?" +And the daughter, who had fasted, who had spent her days in prayer, +Till the glory of the Saviour touched her head and rested there, +Turned her eyes towards the sea-line -- saw beyond the fiery crest, +Floating over waves of jasper, far Hy-Brasil in the West. + +All the calmness and the colour -- all the splendour and repose, +Flowing where the sunset flowered, like a silver-hearted rose! +There indeed was singing Eden, where the great gold river runs +Past the porch and gates of crystal, ringed by strong and shining ones! +There indeed was God's own garden, sailing down the sapphire sea -- +Lawny dells and slopes of summer, dazzling stream and radiant tree! +Out against the hushed horizon -- out beneath the reverent day, +Flamed the Wonder on the waters -- flamed, and flashed, and passed away. +And the maiden who had seen it felt a hand within her own, +And an angel that we know not led her to the lands unknown. + +Never since hath eye beheld it -- never since hath mortal, dazed +By its strange, unearthly splendour, on the floating Eden gazed! +Only once since Eve went weeping through a throng of glittering wings, +Hath the holy seen Hy-Brasil where the great gold river sings! +Only once by quiet waters, under still, resplendent skies, +Did the sister of the seraphs kneel in sight of Paradise! +She, the pure, the perfect woman, sanctified by patient prayer, +Had the eyes of saints of Heaven, all their glory in her hair: +Therefore God the Father whispered to a radiant spirit near -- +"Show Our daughter fair Hy-Brasil -- show her this, and lead her here." + +But beyond the halls of sunset, but within the wondrous West, +On the rose-red seas of evening, sails the Garden of the Blest. +Still the gates of glassy beauty, still the walls of glowing light, +Shine on waves that no man knows of, out of sound and out of sight. +Yet the slopes and lawns of lustre, yet the dells of sparkling streams, +Dip to tranquil shores of jasper, where the watching angel beams. +But, behold! our eyes are human, and our way is paved with pain, +We can never find Hy-Brasil, never see its hills again! +Never look on bays of crystal, never bend the reverent knee +In the sight of Eden floating -- floating on the sapphire sea! + + + + Outre Mer + + +I see, as one in dreaming, + A broad, bright, quiet sea; +Beyond it lies a haven -- + The only home for me. +Some men grow strong with trouble, + But all my strength is past, +And tired and full of sorrow, + I long to sleep at last. +By force of chance and changes + Man's life is hard at best; +And, seeing rest is voiceless, + The dearest thing is rest. + +Beyond the sea -- behold it, + The home I wish to seek, +The refuge of the weary, + The solace of the weak! +Sweet angel fingers beckon, + Sweet angel voices ask +My soul to cross the waters; + And yet I dread the task. +God help the man whose trials + Are tares that he must reap! +He cannot face the future -- + His only hope is sleep. + +Across the main a vision + Of sunset coasts, and skies, +And widths of waters gleaming, + Enchant my human eyes. +I, who have sinned and suffered, + Have sought -- with tears have sought -- +To rule my life with goodness, + And shape it to my thought. +And yet there is no refuge + To shield me from distress, +Except the realm of slumber + And great forgetfulness. + + + + +Marcus Clarke. + + + + The Song of Tigilau + + + The song of Tigilau the brave, + Sina's wild lover, + Who across the heaving wave + From Samoa came over: +Came over, Sina, at the setting moon! + + The moon shines round and bright; + She, with her dark-eyed maidens at her side, + Watches the rising tide. + While balmy breathes the starry southern night, + While languid heaves the lazy southern tide; +The rising tide, O Sina, and the setting moon! + + The night is past, is past and gone, + The moon sinks to the West, + The sea-heart beats opprest, + And Sina's passionate breast +Heaves like the sea, when the pale moon has gone, +Heaves like the passionate sea, Sina, left by the moon alone! + + Silver on silver sands, the rippling waters meet -- + Will he come soon? + The rippling waters kiss her delicate feet, + The rippling waters, lisping low and sweet, + Ripple with the tide, + The rising tide, + The rising tide, O Sina, and the setting moon! + + He comes! -- her lover! + Tigilau, the son of Tui Viti. + Her maidens round her hover, + The rising waves her white feet cover. + O Tigilau, son of Tui Viti, + Through the mellow dusk thy proas glide, + So soon! + So soon by the rising tide, +The rising tide, my Sina, and the setting moon! + + The mooring-poles are left, + The whitening waves are cleft, + By the prows of Tui Viti! + By the sharp keels of Tui Viti! + Broad is the sea, and deep, + The yellow Samoans sleep, + But they will wake and weep -- + Weep in their luxurious odorous vales, + While the land breeze swells the sails + Of Tui Viti! + Tui Viti -- far upon the rising tide, + The rising tide -- +The rising tide, my Sina, beneath the setting moon! + + She leaps to meet him! + Her mouth to greet him + Burns at his own. + Away! To the canoes, + To the yoked war canoes! + The sea in murmurous tone + Whispers the story of their loves, + Re-echoes the story of their loves -- + The story of Tui Viti, + Of Sina and Tui Viti, + By the rising tide, +The rising tide, Sina, beneath the setting moon! + + She has gone! + She has fled! + Sina! +Sina, for whom the warriors decked their shining hair, +Wreathing with pearls their bosoms brown and bare, +Flinging beneath her dainty feet +Mats crimson with the feathers of the parrakeet. + Ho, Samoans! rouse your warriors full soon, + For Sina is across the rippling wave, + With Tigilau, the bold and brave. + Far, far upon the rising tide! + Far upon the rising tide! +Far upon the rising tide, Sina, beneath the setting moon. + + + + +Patrick Moloney. + + + + Melbourne + + +O sweet Queen-city of the golden South, + Piercing the evening with thy star-lit spires, +Thou wert a witness when I kissed the mouth + Of her whose eyes outblazed the skyey fires. +I saw the parallels of thy long streets, + With lamps like angels shining all a-row, +While overhead the empyrean seats + Of gods were steeped in paradisic glow. +The Pleiades with rarer fires were tipt, + Hesper sat throned upon his jewelled chair, +The belted giant's triple stars were dipt + In all the splendour of Olympian air, +On high to bless, the Southern Cross did shine, +Like that which blazed o'er conquering Constantine. + + + + +Alfred Domett. + + + + An Invitation + + +Well! if Truth be all welcomed with hardy reliance, +All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science, + All that Logic can prove or disprove be avowed: +Is there room for no faith -- though such Evil intrude -- +In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good? +Is there room for no hope -- such a handbreadth we scan -- +In the permanence yet of the Spirit of Man? -- + May we bless the far seeker, nor blame the fine dreamer? + Leave Reason her radiance -- Doubt her due cloud; + Nor their Rainbows enshroud? -- + +From our Life of realities -- hard -- shallow-hearted, +Has Romance -- has all glory idyllic departed -- + From the workaday World all the wonderment flown? +Well, but what if there gleamed, in an Age cold as this, +The divinest of Poets' ideal of bliss? +Yea, an Eden could lurk in this Empire of ours, +With the loneliest love in the loveliest bowers? -- + In an era so rapid with railway and steamer, + And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphael gone -- + What if this could be shown? + +O my friends, never deaf to the charms of Denial, +Were its comfortless comforting worth a life-trial -- + Discontented content with a chilling despair? -- +Better ask as we float down a song-flood unchecked, +If our Sky with no Iris be glory-bedecked? +Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steal +If no darkling aureolar rays may reveal + That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless: + While the Present has joy and adventure as rare + As the Past when most fair? + +And if weary of mists you will roam undisdaining +To a land where the fanciful fountains are raining + Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray +In the violet splendour of skies that illume +Such a wealth of green ferns and rare crimson tree-bloom; +Where a people primeval is vanishing fast, +With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past: + O with reason and fancy unfettered and fearless, + Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day -- + Come away -- and away! -- + + + + A Maori Girl's Song + + +"Alas, and well-a-day! they are talking of me still: +By the tingling of my nostril, I fear they are talking ill; +Poor hapless I -- poor little I -- so many mouths to fill -- + And all for this strange feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain! + +"O! senseless heart -- O simple! to yearn so, and to pine +For one so far above me, confest o'er all to shine, +For one a hundred dote upon, who never can be mine! + O, 'tis a foolish feeling -- all this fond, sweet pain! + +"When I was quite a child -- not so many moons ago -- +A happy little maiden -- O, then it was not so; +Like a sunny-dancing wavelet then I sparkled to and fro; + And I never had this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain! + +"I think it must be owing to the idle life I lead +In the dreamy house for ever that this new bosom-weed +Has sprouted up and spread its shoots till it troubles me indeed + With a restless, weary feeling -- such a sad, sweet pain! + +"So in this pleasant islet, O, no longer will I stay -- +And the shadowy summer dwelling I will leave this very day; +On Arapa I'll launch my skiff, and soon be borne away + From all that feeds this feeling -- O, this fond, sweet pain! + +"I'll go and see dear Rima -- she'll welcome me, I know, +And a flaxen cloak -- her gayest -- o'er my weary shoulders throw, +With purfle red and points so free -- O, quite a lovely show -- + To charm away this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain! + +"Two feathers I will borrow, and so gracefully I'll wear +Two feathers soft and snowy, for my long, black, lustrous hair. +Of the albatross's down they'll be -- O, how charming they'll look there -- + All to chase away this feeling -- O, this fond, sweet pain! + +"Then the lads will flock around me with flattering talk all day -- +And, with anxious little pinches, sly hints of love convey; +And I shall blush with happy pride to hear them, I daresay, + And quite forget this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain!" + + + + +James Brunton Stephens. + + + + The Dominion of Australia + + (A Forecast, 1877) + + + She is not yet; but he whose ear + Thrills to that finer atmosphere + Where footfalls of appointed things, + Reverberant of days to be, + Are heard in forecast echoings, + Like wave-beats from a viewless sea -- +Hears in the voiceful tremors of the sky +Auroral heralds whispering, "She is nigh." + + She is not yet; but he whose sight + Foreknows the advent of the light, + Whose soul to morning radiance turns + Ere night her curtain hath withdrawn, + And in its quivering folds discerns + The mute monitions of the dawn, +With urgent sense strained onward to descry +Her distant tokens, starts to find Her nigh. + + Not yet her day. How long "not yet"? . . . + There comes the flush of violet! + And heavenward faces, all aflame + With sanguine imminence of morn, + Wait but the sun-kiss to proclaim + The Day of The Dominion born. +Prelusive baptism! -- ere the natal hour +Named with the name and prophecy of power. + + Already here to hearts intense, + A spirit-force, transcending sense, + In heights unscaled, in deeps unstirred, + Beneath the calm, above the storm, + She waits the incorporating word + To bid her tremble into form. +Already, like divining-rods, men's souls +Bend down to where the unseen river rolls; -- + + For even as, from sight concealed, + By never flush of dawn revealed, + Nor e'er illumed by golden noon, + Nor sunset-streaked with crimson bar, + Nor silver-spanned by wake of moon, + Nor visited of any star, +Beneath these lands a river waits to bless +(So men divine) our utmost wilderness, -- + + Rolls dark, but yet shall know our skies, + Soon as the wisdom of the wise + Conspires with nature to disclose + The blessing prisoned and unseen, + Till round our lessening wastes there glows + A perfect zone of broadening green, -- +Till all our land, Australia Felix called, +Become one Continent-Isle of Emerald; + + So flows beneath our good and ill + A viewless stream of Common Will, + A gathering force, a present might, + That from its silent depths of gloom + At Wisdom's voice shall leap to light, + And hide our barren feuds in bloom, +Till, all our sundering lines with love o'ergrown, +Our bounds shall be the girdling seas alone. + + + + The Dark Companion + + +There is an orb that mocked the lore of sages + Long time with mystery of strange unrest; +The steadfast law that rounds the starry ages + Gave doubtful token of supreme behest. + +But they who knew the ways of God unchanging, + Concluded some far influence unseen -- +Some kindred sphere through viewless ethers ranging, + Whose strong persuasions spanned the void between. + +And knowing it alone through perturbation + And vague disquiet of another star, +They named it, till the day of revelation, + "The Dark Companion" -- darkly guessed afar. + +But when, through new perfection of appliance, + Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, +The mystic mover was revealed to science, + No Dark Companion, but -- a speck of light. + +No Dark Companion, but a sun of glory; + No fell disturber, but a bright compeer; +The shining complement that crowned the story; + The golden link that made the meaning clear. + +Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us, + Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways -- +Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us, + Disquieting all the tenor of our days -- + +Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces + O'ertake remotest change of clime and skies -- +Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces + Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise -- + +Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing, + The clearer day shall change our faith to sight, +Shalt show thyself, in that supreme revealing, + No Dark Companion, but a thing of light. + +No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order; + No alien heart of discord and caprice; +A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border; + A kindred element of law and peace. + +So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling, + The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth, +Are but thy magnet-communings compelling + Our spirits farther from the scope of earth. + +So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving, + 'Tis that thou lead'st us by a path unknown, +Our seeming deviations all subserving + The perfect orbit round the central throne. + + . . . . . + +The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round me. + The loved who live -- ah, God! how few they are! +I looked above; and heaven in mercy found me + This parable of comfort in a star. + + + + Day + + +Linger, oh Sun, for a little, nor close yet this day of a million! + Is there not glory enough in the rose-curtained halls of the West? +Hast thou no joy in the passion-hued folds of thy kingly pavilion? + Why shouldst thou only pass through it? Oh rest thee a little while, rest! + +Why should the Night come and take it, the wan Night that cannot enjoy it, + Bringing pale argent for golden, and changing vermilion to grey? +Why should the Night come and shadow it, entering but to destroy it? + Rest 'mid thy ruby-trailed splendours! Oh stay thee a little while, stay! + +Rest thee at least a brief hour in it! 'Tis a right royal pavilion. + Lo, there are thrones for high dalliance all gloriously canopied o'er! +Lo, there are hangings of purple, and hangings of blue and vermilion, + And there are fleeces of gold for thy feet on the diapered floor! + +Linger, a little while linger. To-morrow my heart may not sing to thee: + This shall be Yesterday, numbered with memories, folded away. +Now should my flesh-fettered soul be set free! I would soar to thee, + cling to thee, + And be thy rere-ward Aurora, pursuing the skirts of To-day! + + + + Night + + + Hark how the tremulous night-wind is passing in joy-laden sighs; +Soft through my window it comes, like the fanning of pinions angelic, + Whispering to cease from myself, and look out on the infinite skies. + +Out on the orb-studded night, and the crescent effulgence of Dian; + Out on the far-gleaming star-dust that marks where the angels have trod; +Out on the gem-pointed Cross, and the glittering pomp of Orion, + Flaming in measureless azure, the coronal jewels of God; + +Luminous streams of delight in the silent immensity flowing, + Journeying surgelessly on through impalpable ethers of peace. +How can I think of myself when infinitude o'er me is glowing, + Glowing with tokens of love from the land where my sorrows shall cease? + +Oh, summer-night of the South! Oh, sweet languor of zephyrs love-sighing! + Oh, mighty circuit of shadowy solitude, holy and still! +Music scarce audible, echo-less harmony joyously dying, + Dying in faint suspirations o'er meadow, and forest, and hill! + +I must go forth and be part of it, part of the night and its gladness. + But a few steps, and I pause on the marge of the shining lagoon. +Here then, at length, I have rest; and I lay down my burden of sadness, + Kneeling alone 'neath the stars and the silvery arc of the moon. + + + + +Thomas Bracken. + + + + Not Understood + + +Not understood, we move along asunder; + Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep +Along the years; we marvel and we wonder + Why life is life, and then we fall asleep + Not understood. + +Not understood, we gather false impressions + And hug them closer as the years go by; +Till virtues often seem to us transgressions; + And thus men rise and fall, and live and die + Not understood. + +Not understood! Poor souls with stunted vision + Oft measure giants with their narrow gauge; +The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision + Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age, + Not understood. + +Not understood! The secret springs of action + Which lie beneath the surface and the show, +Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction + We judge our neighbours, and they often go + Not understood. + +Not understood! How trifles often change us! + The thoughtless sentence and the fancied slight +Destroy long years of friendship, and estrange us, + And on our souls there falls a freezing blight; + Not understood. + +Not understood! How many breasts are aching + For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day +How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking! + How many noble spirits pass away, + Not understood. + +O God! that men would see a little clearer, + Or judge less harshly where they cannot see! +O God! that men would draw a little nearer + To one another, -- they'd be nearer Thee, + And understood. + + + + Spirit of Song + + +Where is thy dwelling-place? Echo of sweetness, + Seraph of tenderness, where is thy home? +Angel of happiness, herald of fleetness, + Thou hast the key of the star-blazon'd dome. + Where lays that never end + Up to God's throne ascend, +And our fond heart-wishes lovingly throng, + Soaring with thee above, + Bearer of truth and love, +Teacher of heaven's tongue -- Spirit of Song! + +Euphony, born in the realms of the tearless, + Mingling thy notes with the voices of Earth; +Wanting thee, all would be dreary and cheerless, + Weaver of harmony, giver of mirth. + Comfort of child and sage, + With us in youth and age, +Soothing the weak and inspiring the strong, + Illuming the blackest night, + Making the day more bright, +Oh! thou art dear to us, Spirit of Song! + +Oft in the springtime, sweet words of affection + Are whispered by thee in thy tenderest tone, +And in the winter dark clouds of dejection + By thee are dispelled till all sorrow has flown. + Thou'rt with the zephyrs low, + And with the brooklet's flow, +And with the feathered choir all the year long; + Happy each child of thine, + Blest with thy gifts divine, +Charming our senses, sweet Spirit of Song! + + + + +Ada Cambridge. + + + + What of the Night? + + +To you, who look below, + Where little candles glow -- +Who listen in a narrow street, +Confused with noise of passing feet -- + +To you 'tis wild and dark; + No light, no guide, no ark, +For travellers lost on moor and lea, +And ship-wrecked mariners at sea. + +But they who stand apart, + With hushed but wakeful heart -- +They hear the lulling of the gale, +And see the dawn-rise faint and pale. + +A dawn whereto they grope + In trembling faith and hope, +If haply, brightening, it may cast +A gleam on path and goal at last. + + + + Good-bye + + +Good-bye! -- 'tis like a churchyard bell -- good-bye! + Poor weeping eyes! Poor head, bowed down with woe! + Kiss me again, dear love, before you go. +Ah, me, how fast the precious moments fly! + Good-bye! Good-bye! + +We are like mourners when they stand and cry + At open grave in wintry wind and rain. + Yes, it is death. But you shall rise again -- +Your sun return to this benighted sky. + Good-bye! Good-bye! + +The great physician, Time, shall pacify + This parting anguish with another friend. + Your heart is broken now, but it will mend. +Though it is death, yet still you will not die. + Good-bye! Good-bye! + +Dear heart! dear eyes! dear tongue, that cannot lie! + Your love is true, your grief is deep and sore; + But love will pass -- then you will grieve no more. +New love will come. Your tears will soon be dry. + Good-bye! Good-bye! + + + + The Virgin Martyr + + +Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather, +But a captive woman, made for love -- no mate, no nest has she. +In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together, +And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see: +Nature's sacramental feast for these -- an empty board for me. + +I, a young maid once, an old maid now, deposed, despised, forgotten -- +I, like them have thrilled with passion and have dreamed of nuptial rest, +Of the trembling life within me of my children unbegotten, +Of a breathing new-born body to my yearning bosom prest, +Of the rapture of a little soft mouth drinking at my breast. + +Time, that heals so many sorrows, keeps mine ever freshly aching; +Though my face is growing furrowed and my brown hair turning white, +Still I mourn my irremediable loss, asleep or waking -- +Still I hear my son's voice calling "mother" in the dead of night, +And am haunted by my girl's eyes that will never see the light. + +O my children that I might have had! my children, lost for ever! +O the goodly years that might have been -- now desolate and bare! +O malignant God or Fate, what have I done that I should never +Take my birthright like the others, take the crown that women wear, +And possess the common heritage to which all flesh is heir? + + + + Honour + + +Me let the world disparage and despise -- + As one unfettered with its gilded chains, + As one untempted by its sordid gains, +Its pleasant vice, its profitable lies; +Let Justice, blind and halt and maimed, chastise + The rebel spirit surging in my veins, + Let the Law deal me penalties and pains +And make me hideous in my neighbours' eyes. + +But let me fall not in mine own esteem, + By poor deceit or selfish greed debased. + Let me be clean from secret stain and shame, +Know myself true, though false as hell I seem -- + Know myself worthy, howsoe'er disgraced -- + Know myself right, though every tongue should blame. + + + + Despair + + +Alone! Alone! No beacon, far or near! + No chart, no compass, and no anchor stay! + Like melting fog the mirage melts away +In all-surrounding darkness, void and clear. +Drifting, I spread vain hands, and vainly peer + And vainly call for pilot, -- weep and pray; + Beyond these limits not the faintest ray +Shows distant coast whereto the lost may steer. + +O what is life, if we must hold it thus + As wind-blown sparks hold momentary fire? + What are these gifts without the larger boon? +O what is art, or wealth, or fame to us + Who scarce have time to know what we desire? + O what is love, if we must part so soon? + + + + Faith + + +And is the great cause lost beyond recall? + Have all the hopes of ages come to naught? + Is life no more with noble meaning fraught? +Is life but death, and love its funeral pall? +Maybe. And still on bended knees I fall, + Filled with a faith no preacher ever taught. + O God -- MY God -- by no false prophet wrought -- +I believe still, in despite of it all! + +Let go the myths and creeds of groping men. + This clay knows naught -- the Potter understands. +I own that Power divine beyond my ken, + And still can leave me in His shaping hands. +But, O my God, that madest me to feel, +Forgive the anguish of the turning wheel! + + + + +Alexander Bathgate. + + + + The Clematis + + +Fair crown of stars of purest ray, + Hung aloft on Mapau tree, +What floral beauties ye display, + Stars of snowy purity; +Around the dark-leaved mapau's head +Unsullied garlands ye have spread. + +Concealed were all thy beauties rare + 'Neath the dark umbrageous shade, +But still to gain the loftiest spray, + Thy weak stem its efforts made; +Now, every obstacle o'ercome, +Thou smilest from thy leafy home. + +That home secure, 'mid sombre leaves + Yielded by thy stalwart spouse, +Helps thee to show thy fairy crown, + Decorates his dusky boughs: +His strength, thy beauty, both unite +And form a picture to delight. + +Fair flower, methinks thou dost afford + Emblem of a perfect wife, +Whose work is hidden from the world, + Till, perchance, her husband's life +Is by her influence beautified, +And this by others is descried. + + + + +Philip Joseph Holdsworth. + + + + Quis Separabit? + + +All my life's short years had been stern and sterile -- + I stood like one whom the blasts blow back -- +As with shipmen whirled through the straits of Peril, + So fierce foes menaced my every track. + +But I steeled my soul to a strong endeavour, + I bared my brow as the sharp strokes fell, +And I said to my heart -- "Hope on! Hope ever: + Have Courage -- Courage, and all is well." + +Then, bright as the blood in my heart's rich chalice, + O Blossom, Blossom! -- you came from far; +And life rang joy, till the World's loud malice + Shrilled to the edge of our utmost star. + +And I said: "On me let the rough storms hurtle, + The great clouds gather and shroud my sun -- +But you shall be Queen where the rose and myrtle + Laugh with the year till the year is done." + +So my Dream fell dead; and the fluctuant passion -- + The stress and strain of the past re-grew, +The world laughed on in its heedless fashion, + But Earth whirled worthless, because of you! + +In that Lake of Tears which my grief discovered, + I laid dead Love with a passionate kiss, +And over those soundless depths has hovered + The sweet, sad wraith of my vanished bliss. + +Heart clings to Heart -- let the strange years sever + The fates of two who had met -- to part; +Love's strength survives, and the harsh world never + Shall crush the passion of heart for heart; + +For I know my life, though it droop and dwindle, + Shall leave me Love till I fade and die, +And when hereafter our Souls re-kindle, + Who shall be fonder -- You or I? + + + + My Queen of Dreams + + +In the warm flushed heart of the rose-red west, + When the great sun quivered and died to-day, +You pulsed, O star, by yon pine-clad crest -- + And throbbed till the bright eve ashened grey -- + Then I saw you swim + By the shadowy rim +Where the grey gum dips to the western plain, + And you rayed delight + As you winged your flight +To the mystic spheres where your kinsmen reign. + +O star, did you see her? My queen of dreams! + Was it you that glimmered the night we strayed +A month ago by these scented streams? + Half-checked by the litter the musk-buds made? + Did you sleep or wake? + Ah, for Love's sweet sake +(Though the world should fail and the soft stars wane!) + I shall dream delight + Till our souls take flight +To the mystic spheres where your kinsmen reign! + + + + +Mary Hannay Foott. + + + + Where the Pelican Builds + + +The horses were ready, the rails were down, + But the riders lingered still -- + One had a parting word to say, + And one had his pipe to fill. +Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer, + And one with a grief unguessed. + "We are going," they said, as they rode away -- + "Where the pelican builds her nest!" + +They had told us of pastures wide and green, + To be sought past the sunset's glow; + Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit; + And gold 'neath the river's flow. +And thirst and hunger were banished words + When they spoke of that unknown West; + No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared, + Where the pelican builds her nest! + +The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep + When we watched them crossing there; + The rains have replenished it thrice since then, + And thrice has the rock lain bare. +But the waters of Hope have flowed and fled, + And never from blue hill's breast + Come back -- by the sun and the sands devoured -- + Where the pelican builds her nest. + + + + New Country + + +Conde had come with us all the way -- + Eight hundred miles -- but the fortnight's rest +Made him fresh as a youngster, the sturdy bay! + And Lurline was looking her very best. + +Weary and footsore, the cattle strayed + 'Mid the silvery saltbush well content; +Where the creeks lay cool 'neath the gidya's shade + The stock-horses clustered, travel-spent. + +In the bright spring morning we left them all -- + Camp, and cattle, and white, and black -- +And rode for the Range's westward fall, + Where the dingo's trail was the only track. + +Slow through the clay-pans, wet to the knee, + With the cane-grass rustling overhead; +Swift o'er the plains with never a tree; + Up the cliffs by a torrent's bed. + +Bridle on arm for a mile or more + We toiled, ere we reached Bindanna's verge +And saw -- as one sees a far-off shore -- + The blue hills bounding the forest surge. + +An ocean of trees, by the west wind stirred, + Rolled, ever rolled, to the great cliff's base; +And its sound like the noise of waves was heard + 'Mid the rocks and the caves of that lonely place. + + . . . . . + +We recked not of wealth in stream or soil + As we heard on the heights the breezes sing; +We felt no longer our travel-toil; + We feared no more what the years might bring. + + + + No Message + + +She heard the story of the end, + Each message, too, she heard; +And there was one for every friend; + For her alone -- no word. + +And shall she bear a heavier heart, + And deem his love was fled; +Because his soul from earth could part + Leaving her name unsaid? + +No -- No! -- Though neither sign nor sound + A parting thought expressed -- +Not heedless passed the Homeward-Bound + Of her he loved the best. + +Of voyage-perils, bravely borne, + He would not tell the tale; +Of shattered planks and canvas torn, + And war with wind and gale. + +He waited till the light-house star + Should rise against the sky; +And from the mainland, looming far, + The forest scents blow by. + +He hoped to tell -- assurance sweet! -- + That pain and grief were o'er -- +What blessings haste the soul to meet, + Ere yet within the door. + +Then one farewell he thought to speak + When all the rest were past -- +As in the parting-hour we seek + The dearest hand the last. + +And while for this delaying but + To see Heaven's opening Gate -- +Lo, it received him -- and was shut -- + Ere he could say "I wait." + + + + Happy Days + + +A fringe of rushes -- one green line + Upon a faded plain; +A silver streak of water-shine -- + Above, tree-watchers twain. +It was our resting-place awhile, + And still, with backward gaze, +We say: "'Tis many a weary mile -- + But there were happy days." + +And shall no ripple break the sand + Upon our farther way? +Or reedy ranks all knee-deep stand? + Or leafy tree-tops sway? +The gold of dawn is surely met + In sunset's lavish blaze; +And -- in horizons hidden yet -- + There shall be happy days. + + + + +Henry Lea Twisleton. + + + + To a Cabbage Rose + + +Thy clustering leaves are steeped in splendour; + No evening red, no morning dun, +Can show a hue as rich and tender + As thine -- bright lover of the sun! + +What wondrous hints of hidden glory, + Of strains no human lips can sing; +What symbols rare of life's strange story, + Dost thou from earth's dark bosom bring! + +What elements have made thy sweetness, + Thy glowing hue, thy emerald stem? +What hand has fashioned to completeness + From tiny germ, thy diadem? + +Thou art the fair earth's fond expression + Of tenderness for heaven above -- +The virgin blush that yields confession -- + Thou bright "ambassador of love"! + +Fair are thy leaves when summer glowing + Lies in the lap of swooning spring; +But where art thou when autumn, blowing, + Bids youth and tenderness take wing? + +Sweet messenger! thou waftest beauty + Wherever human lives are sown, +Around the peasant's humble duty + Or weary grandeurs of a throne. + +Transfused through hearts in future ages, + Thy glowing power anew may shine +Effulgent in the poets' pages + Or music's harmony divine. + +But not to thee from future glory + Can shine one added charm or day; +Sweet is thy life's unwritten story + Of radiant bloom and swift decay. + +Give, then, to vagrant winds thy sweetness, + Shine, tearful, in the summer shower; +And, heedless of thy season's fleetness, + Enrich with joy the passing hour. + + + + +Mrs. James Glenny Wilson. + + + + Fairyland + + +Do you remember that careless band, +Riding o'er meadow and wet sea-sand, + One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine, +Joyously seeking for fairyland? + +The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard, +The streamlet repeated its one silver word, + And far away, o'er the depths of wood-land, +Floated the bell of the parson-bird. + +Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips, +Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips, + From mossy branches a faint perfume +Breathed o'er honeyed Clematis lips. + +At last we climbed to the ridge on high +Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh! + Far, far below us, the wide Pacific +Slumbered in azure from sky to sky. + +And cloud and shadow, across the deep +Wavered, or paused in enchanted sleep, + And eastward, the purple-misted islets +Fretted the wave with terrace and steep. + +We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay, +On headlands sheeted in dazzling spray, + And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlorn +That for twenty years had wasted away. + +All was so calm, and pure and fair, +It seemed the hour of worship there, + Silent, as where the great North-Minster +Rises for ever, a visible prayer. + +Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land, +And rode over shingle and silver sand, + For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn, +That we sought no farther for Fairyland. + + + + A Winter Daybreak + + +From the dark gorge, where burns the morning star, + I hear the glacier river rattling on +And sweeping o'er his ice-ploughed shingle-bar, + While wood owls shout in sombre unison, +And fluttering southern dancers glide and go; +And black swan's airy trumpets wildly, sweetly blow. + +The cock crows in the windy winter morn, + Then must I rise and fling the curtain by. + All dark! But for a strip of fiery sky +Behind the ragged mountains, peaked and torn. + One planet glitters in the icy cold, +Poised like a hawk above the frozen peaks, +And now again the wild nor'-wester speaks, + And bends the cypress, shuddering, to his fold, +While every timber, every casement creaks. + But still the skylarks sing aloud and bold; +The wooded hills arise; the white cascade +Shakes with wild laughter all the silent shadowy glade. + +Now from the shuttered east a silvery bar +Shines through the mist, and shows the mild daystar. + The storm-wrapped peaks start out and fade again, + And rosy vapours skirt the pastoral plain; +The garden paths with hoary rime are wet; +And sweetly breathes the winter violet; +The jonquil half unfolds her ivory cup, +With clouds of gold-eyed daisies waking up. + +Pleasant it is to turn and see the fire +Dance on the hearth, as he would never tire; + The home-baked loaf, the Indian bean's perfume, + Fill with their homely cheer the panelled room. +Come, crazy storm! And thou, wild glittering hail, +Rave o'er the roof and wave your icy veil; +Shout in our ears and take your madcap way! +I laugh at storms! for Roderick comes to-day. + + + + The Lark's Song + + +The morning is wild and dark, + The night mist runs on the vale, +Bright Lucifer dies to a spark, + And the wind whistles up for a gale. +And stormy the day may be + That breaks through its prison bars, +But it brings no regret to me, + For I sing at the door of the stars! + +Along the dim ocean-verge + I see the ships labouring on; +They rise on the lifting surge + One moment, and they are gone. +I see on the twilight plain + The flash of the flying cars; +Men travail in joy or pain -- + But I sing at the door of the stars! + +I see the green, sleeping world, + The pastures all glazed with rime; +The smoke from the chimney curled; + I hear the faint church bells chime. +I see the grey mountain crest, + The slopes, and the forest spars, +With the dying moon on their breast -- + While I sing at the door of the stars! + + + + +Edward Booth Loughran. + + + + Dead Leaves + + +When these dead leaves were green, love, + November's skies were blue, +And summer came with lips aflame, + The gentle spring to woo; +And to us, wandering hand in hand, + Life was a fairy scene, +That golden morning in the woods + When these dead leaves were green! + +How dream-like now that dewy morn, + Sweet with the wattle's flowers, +When love, love, love was all our theme, + And youth and hope were ours! +Two happier hearts in all the land + There were not then, I ween, +Than those young lovers' -- yours and mine -- + When these dead leaves were green. + +How gaily did you pluck these leaves + From the acacia's bough, +To mark the lyric we had read -- + I can repeat it now! +While came the words, like music sweet, + Your smiling lips between -- +"So fold my love within your heart," + When these dead leaves were green! + +How many springs have passed since then? + Ah, wherefore should we count, +The years that sped, like waters fled + From Time's unstaying fount? +We've had our share of happiness, + Our share of care have seen; +But love alone has never flown + Since these dead leaves were green. + +Your heart is kind and loving still, + Your face to me as fair, +As when, that morn, the sunshine played + Amid your golden hair. +So, dearest, sweethearts still we'll be, + As we have ever been, +And keep our love as fresh and true + As when these leaves were green. + + + + Isolation + + +Man lives alone; star-like, each soul + In its own orbit circles ever; +Myriads may by or round it roll -- + The ways may meet, but mingle never. + +Self-pois'd, each soul its course pursues + In light or dark, companionless: +Drop into drop may blend the dews -- + The spirit's law is loneliness. + +If seemingly two souls unite, + 'Tis but as joins yon silent mere +The stream that through it, flashing bright, + Carries its waters swift and clear. + +The fringes of the rushing tide + May on the lake's calm bosom sleep -- +Its hidden spirit doth abide + Apart, still bearing toward the deep. + +O Love, to me more dear than life! + O Friend, more faithful than a brother! +How many a bitter inward strife + Our souls have never told each other! + +We journey side by side for years, + We dream our lives, our hopes are one -- +And with some chance-said word appears + The spanless gulf, so long unknown! + +For candour's want yet neither blame; + Even to ourselves but half-confessed, +Glows in each heart some silent flame, + Blooms some hope-violet of the breast. + +And temptings dark, and struggles deep + There are, each soul alone must bear, +Through midnight hours unblest with sleep, + Through burning noontides of despair. + +And kindly is the ordinance sent + By which each spirit dwells apart -- +Could Love or Friendship live, if rent + The "Bluebeard chambers of the heart"? + + + + Ishmonie + + +The traveller tells how, in that ancient clime +Whose mystic monuments and ruins hoar +Still struggle with the antiquary's lore, +To guard the secrets of a by-gone time, +He saw, uprising from the desert bare, +Like a white ghost, a city of the dead, +With palaces and temples wondrous fair, +Where moon-horn'd Isis once was worshipped. +But silence, like a pall, did all enfold, +And the inhabitants were turn'd to stone -- +Yea, stone the very heart of every one! +Once to a rich man I this tale re-told. +"Stone hearts! A traveller's myth!" -- he turn'd aside, +As Hunger begg'd, pale-featured and wild-eyed. + + + + +John Liddell Kelly. + + + + Immortality + + +At twenty-five I cast my horoscope, + And saw a future with all good things rife -- + A firm assurance of eternal life +In worlds beyond, and in this world the hope +Of deathless fame. But now my sun doth slope + To setting, and the toil of sordid strife, + The care of food and raiment, child and wife, +Have dimmed and narrowed all my spirit's scope. + +Eternal life -- a river gulphed in sands! + Undying fame -- a rainbow lost in clouds! + What hope of immortality remains +But this: "Some soul that loves and understands + Shall save thee from the darkness that enshrouds"; + And this: "Thy blood shall course in others' veins"? + + + + Heredity + + +More than a fleshly immortality + Is mine. Though I myself return again + To dust, my qualities of heart and brain, +Of soul and spirit, shall not cease to be. +I view them growing, day by day, in thee, + My first-begotten son; I trace them plain + In you, my daughters; and I count it gain +Myself renewed and multiplied to see. + +But sadness mingles with my selfish joy, + At thought of what you may be called to bear. +Oh, passionate maid! Oh, glad, impulsive boy! + Your father's sad experience you must share -- +Self-torture, the unfeeling world's annoy, + Gross pleasure, fierce exultance, grim despair! + + + + +Robert Richardson. + + + + A Ballade of Wattle Blossom + + +There's a land that is happy and fair, + Set gem-like in halcyon seas; +The white winters visit not there, + To sadden its blossoming leas, + More bland than the Hesperides, +Or any warm isle of the West, + Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, +And the bell-bird builds her nest. + +When the oak and the elm are bare, + And wild winds vex the shuddering trees; +There the clematis whitens the air, + And the husbandman laughs as he sees + The grass rippling green to his knees, +And his vineyards in emerald drest -- + Where the wattle-bloom bends in the breeze, +And the bell-bird builds her nest. + +What land is with this to compare? + Not the green hills of Hybla, with bees +Honey-sweet, are more radiant and rare + In colour and fragrance than these + Boon shores, where the storm-clouds cease, +And the wind and the wave are at rest -- + Where the wattle-bloom waves in the breeze, +And the bell-bird builds her nest. + + Envoy. + +Sweetheart, let them praise as they please + Other lands, but we know which is best -- +Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, + And the bell-bird builds her nest. + + + + A Song + + +Above us only + The Southern stars, +And the moon o'er brimming + Her golden bars. +And a song sweet and clear + As the bell-bird's plaint, +Hums low in my ear + Like a dream-echo faint. + The kind old song -- + How did it go? + With its ripple and flow, + That you used to sing, dear, + Long ago. + +Hand fast in hand, + I, love, and thou; +Hand locked in hand, + And on my brow +Your perfumed lips + Breathing love and life -- +The love of the maiden, + The trust of the wife. + And I'm listening still + To the ripple and flow -- + How did it go? -- + Of the little French song + Of that long ago. + +Can you recall it + Across the years? +You used to sing it + With laughter and tears. +If you sang it now, dear, + That kind old refrain, +It would bring back the fragrance + Of the dead years again. + Le printemps pour l'amour -- + How did it go? + Only we know; + Sing it, sweetheart, to-night, + As you did long ago. + + + + +James Lister Cuthbertson. + + + + Australia Federata + + +Australia! land of lonely lake + And serpent-haunted fen; +Land of the torrent and the fire + And forest-sundered men: +Thou art not now as thou shalt be + When the stern invaders come, +In the hush before the hurricane, + The dread before the drum. + +A louder thunder shall be heard + Than echoes on thy shore, +When o'er the blackened basalt cliffs + The foreign cannon roar -- +When the stand is made in the sheoaks' shade + When heroes fall for thee, +And the creeks in gloomy gullies run + Dark crimson to the sea: + +When under honeysuckles gray, + And wattles' swaying gold, +The stalwart arm may strike no more, + The valiant heart is cold -- +When thou shalt know the agony, + The fever, and the strife +Of those who wrestle against odds + For liberty and life: + +Then is the great Dominion born, + The seven sisters bound, +From Sydney's greenly wooded port + To lone King George's Sound -- +Then shall the islands of the south, + The lands of bloom and snow, +Forth from their isolation come + To meet the common foe. + +Then, only then -- when after war + Is peace with honour born, +When from the bosom of the night + Comes golden-sandalled morn, +When laurelled victory is thine, + And the day of battle done, +Shall the heart of a mighty people stir, + And Australia be as one. + + + + At Cape Schanck + + +Down to the lighthouse pillar + The rolling woodland comes, +Gay with the gold of she-oaks + And the green of the stunted gums, +With the silver-grey of honeysuckle, + With the wasted bracken red, +With a tuft of softest emerald + And a cloud-flecked sky o'erhead. + +We climbed by ridge and boulder, + Umber and yellow scarred, +Out to the utmost precipice, + To the point that was ocean-barred, +Till we looked below on the fastness + Of the breeding eagle's nest, +And Cape Wollomai opened eastward + And the Otway on the west. + +Over the mirror of azure + The purple shadows crept, +League upon league of rollers + Landward evermore swept, +And burst upon gleaming basalt, + And foamed in cranny and crack, +And mounted in sheets of silver, + And hurried reluctant back. + +And the sea, so calm out yonder, + Wherever we turned our eyes, +Like the blast of an angel's trumpet + Rang out to the earth and skies, +Till the reefs and the rocky ramparts + Throbbed to the giant fray, +And the gullies and jutting headlands + Were bathed in a misty spray. + +Oh, sweet in the distant ranges, + To the ear of inland men, +Is the ripple of falling water + In sassafras-haunted glen, +The stir in the ripening cornfield + That gently rustles and swells, +The wind in the wattle sighing, + The tinkle of cattle bells. + +But best is the voice of ocean, + That strikes to the heart and brain, +That lulls with its passionate music + Trouble and grief and pain, +That murmurs the requiem sweetest + For those who have loved and lost, +And thunders a jubilant anthem + To brave hearts tempest-tossed. + +That takes to its boundless bosom + The burden of all our care, +That whispers of sorrow vanquished, + Of hours that may yet be fair, +That tells of a Harbour of Refuge + Beyond life's stormy straits, +Of an infinite peace that gladdens, + Of an infinite love that waits. + + + + Wattle and Myrtle + + +Gold of the tangled wilderness of wattle, + Break in the lone green hollows of the hills, +Flame on the iron headlands of the ocean, + Gleam on the margin of the hurrying rills. + +Come with thy saffron diadem and scatter + Odours of Araby that haunt the air, +Queen of our woodland, rival of the roses, + Spring in the yellow tresses of thy hair. + +Surely the old gods, dwellers on Olympus, + Under thy shining loveliness have strayed, +Crowned with thy clusters, magical Apollo, + Pan with his reedy music may have played. + +Surely within thy fastness, Aphrodite, + She of the sea-ways, fallen from above, +Wandered beneath thy canopy of blossom, + Nothing disdainful of a mortal's love. + +Aye, and Her sweet breath lingers on the wattle, + Aye, and Her myrtle dominates the glade, +And with a deep and perilous enchantment + Melts in the heart of lover and of maid. + + + + The Australian Sunrise + + +The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea, +And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free, +The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night, +Waned in the gray awakening that heralded the light; +Still in the dying darkness, still in the forest dim +The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb, +Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist, +And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed; +Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard, +And the wind in the she-oak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred, +The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast, +The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest, +And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow gray +And burnt with cloudy crimson at dawning of the day. + + + + +John Farrell. + + + + Australia to England + + June 22nd, 1897 + + +What of the years of Englishmen? + What have they brought of growth and grace +Since mud-built London by its fen + Became the Briton's breeding-place? +What of the Village, where our blood + Was brewed by sires, half man, half brute, +In vessels of wild womanhood, + From blood of Saxon, Celt and Jute? + +What are its gifts, this Harvest Home + Of English tilth and English cost, +Where fell the hamlet won by Rome + And rose the city that she lost? +O! terrible and grand and strange + Beyond all phantasy that gleams +When Hope, asleep, sees radiant Change + Come to her through the halls of dreams! + +A heaving sea of life, that beats + Like England's heart of pride to-day, +And up from roaring miles of streets + Flings on the roofs its human spray; +And fluttering miles of flags aflow, + And cannon's voice, and boom of bell, +And seas of fire to-night, as though + A hundred cities flamed and fell; + +While, under many a fair festoon + And flowering crescent, set ablaze +With all the dyes that English June + Can lend to deck a day of days, +And past where mart and palace rise, + And shrine and temple lift their spears, +Below five million misted eyes + Goes a grey Queen of Sixty Years -- + +Go lords, and servants of the lords + Of earth, with homage on their lips, +And kinsmen carrying English swords, + And offering England battle-ships; +And tribute-payers, on whose hands + Their English fetters scarce appear; +And gathered round from utmost lands + Ambassadors of Love and Fear! + +Dim signs of greeting waved afar, + Far trumpets blown and flags unfurled, +And England's name an Avatar + Of light and sound throughout the world -- +Hailed Empress among nations, Queen + Enthroned in solemn majesty, +On splendid proofs of what has been, + And presages of what will be! + +For this your sons, foreseeing not + Or heeding not, the aftermath, +Because their strenuous hearts were hot + Went first on many a cruel path, +And, trusting first and last to blows, + Fed death with such as would gainsay +Their instant passing, or oppose + With talk of Right strength's right of way! + +For this their names are on the stone + Of mountain spires, and carven trees +That stand in flickering wastes unknown + Wait with their dying messages; +When fire blasts dance with desert drifts + The English bones show white below, +And, not so white, when summer lifts + The counterpane of Yukon's snow. + +Condemned by blood to reach for grapes + That hang in sight, however high, +Beyond the smoke of Asian capes, + The nameless, dauntless, dead ones lie; +And where Sierran morning shines + On summits rolling out like waves, +By many a brow of royal pines + The noisiest find quiet graves. + +By lust of flesh and lust of gold, + And depth of loins and hairy breadth +Of breast, and hands to take and hold, + And boastful scorn of pain and death, +And something more of manliness + Than tamer men, and growing shame +Of shameful things, and something less + Of final faith in sword and flame -- + +By many a battle fought for wrong, + And many a battle fought for right, +So have you grown august and strong, + Magnificent in all men's sight -- +A voice for which the kings have ears, + A face the craftiest statesmen scan; +A mind to mould the after years, + And mint the destinies of man! + +Red sins were yours: the avid greed + Of pirate fathers, smocked as Grace, +Sent Judas missioners to read + Christ's Word to many a feebler race -- +False priests of Truth who made their tryst + At Mammon's shrine, and reft or slew -- +Some hands you taught to pray to Christ + Have prayed His curse to rest on you! + +Your way has been to pluck the blade + Too readily, and train the guns. +We here, apart and unafraid + Of envious foes, are but your sons: +We stretched a heedless hand to smutch + Our spotless flag with Murder's blight -- +For one less sacrilegious touch + God's vengeance blasted Uzza white! + +You vaunted most of forts and fleets, + And courage proved in battle-feasts, +The courage of the beast that eats + His torn and quivering fellow-beasts; +Your pride of deadliest armament -- + What is it but the self-same dint +Of joy with which the Caveman bent + To shape a bloodier axe of flint? + +But praise to you, and more than praise + And thankfulness, for some things done; +And blessedness, and length of days + As long as earth shall last, or sun! +You first among the peoples spoke + Sharp words and angry questionings +Which burst the bonds and shed the yoke + That made your men the slaves of Kings! + +You set and showed the whole world's school + The lesson it will surely read, +That each one ruled has right to rule -- + The alphabet of Freedom's creed +Which slowly wins it proselytes + And makes uneasier many a throne; +You taught them all to prate of Rights + In language growing like your own! + +And now your holiest and best + And wisest dream of such a tie +As, holding hearts from East to West, + Shall strengthen while the years go by: +And of a time when every man + For every fellow-man will do +His kindliest, working by the plan + God set him. May the dream come true! + +And greater dreams! O Englishmen, + Be sure the safest time of all +For even the mightiest State is when + Not even the least desires its fall! +Make England stand supreme for aye, + Because supreme for peace and good, +Warned well by wrecks of yesterday + That strongest feet may slip in blood! + + + + +Arthur Patchett Martin. + + + + Bushland + + +Not sweeter to the storm-tossed mariner + Is glimpse of home, where wife and children wait + To welcome him with kisses at the gate, +Than to the town-worn man the breezy stir + Of mountain winds on rugged pathless heights: + His long-pent soul drinks in the deep delights +That Nature hath in store. The sun-kissed bay + Gleams thro' the grand old gnarled gum-tree boughs +Like burnished brass; the strong-winged bird of prey +Sweeps by, upon his lonely vengeful way -- + While over all, like breath of holy vows, + The sweet airs blow, and the high-vaulted sky +Looks down in pity this fair Summer day + On all poor earth-born creatures doomed to die. + + + + +Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen. + + + + Under the Wattle + + +"Why should not wattle do + For mistletoe?" +Asked one -- they were but two -- + Where wattles grow. + +He was her lover, too, + Who urged her so -- +"Why should not wattle do + For mistletoe?" + +A rose-cheek rosier grew; + Rose-lips breathed low; +"Since it is here, and YOU, + I hardly know +Why wattle should not do." + + + + +Victor James Daley. + + + + Players + + +And after all -- and after all, + Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears, +Is life a reckless carnival? + And are they lost, our golden years? + +Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago, + Ere time could sear, or care could fret, +There was a youth called Romeo, + There was a maid named Juliet. + +The players of the past are gone; + The races rise; the races pass; +And softly over all is drawn + The quiet Curtain of the Grass. + +But when the world went wild with Spring, + What days we had! Do you forget? +When I of all the world was King, + And you were my Queen Juliet? + +The things that are; the things that seem -- + Who shall distinguish shape from show? +The great processional, splendid dream + Of life is all I wish to know. + +The gods their faces turn away + From nations and their little wars; +But we our golden drama play + Before the footlights of the stars. + +There lives -- though Time should cease to flow, + And stars their courses should forget -- +There lives a grey-haired Romeo, + Who loves a golden Juliet. + + + + Anna + + +The pale discrowned stacks of maize, + Like spectres in the sun, +Stand shivering nigh Avonaise, + Where all is dead and gone. + +The sere leaves make a music vain, + With melancholy chords; +Like cries from some old battle-plain, + Like clash of phantom swords. + +But when the maize was lush and green + With musical green waves, +She went, its plumed ranks between, + Unto the hill of graves. + +There you may see sweet flowers set + O'er damsels and o'er dames -- +Rose, Ellen, Mary, Margaret -- + The sweet old quiet names. + +The gravestones show in long array, + Though white or green with moss, +How linked in Life and Death are they -- + The Shamrock and the Cross. + +The gravestones face the Golden East, + And in the morn they take +The blessing of the Great High Priest, + Before the living wake. + +Who was she? Never ask her name, + Her beauty and her grace +Have passed, with her poor little shame, + Into the Silent Place. + +In Avonaise, in Avonaise, + Where all is dead and done, +The folk who rest there all their days + Care not for moon or sun. + +They care not, when the living pass, + Whether they sigh or smile; +They hear above their graves the grass + That sighs -- "A little while!" + +A white stone marks her small green bed + With "Anna" and "Adieu". +Madonna Mary, rest her head + On your dear lap of blue! + + + + The Night Ride + + +The red sun on the lonely lands + Gazed, under clouds of rose, +As one who under knitted hands + Takes one last look and goes. + +Then Pain, with her white sister Fear, + Crept nearer to my bed: +"The sands are running; dost thou hear + Thy sobbing heart?" she said. + +There came a rider to the gate, + And stern and clear spake he: +"For meat or drink thou must not wait, + But rise and ride with me." + +I waited not for meat or drink, + Or kiss, or farewell kind -- +But oh! my heart was sore to think + Of friends I left behind. + +We rode o'er hills that seemed to sweep + Skyward like swelling waves; +The living stirred not in their sleep, + The dead slept in their graves. + +And ever as we rode I heard + A moan of anguish sore -- +No voice of man or beast or bird, + But all of these and more. + +"Is it the moaning of the Earth? + Dark Rider, answer me!" +"It is the cry of life at birth" + He answered quietly: + +"But thou canst turn a face of cheer + To good days still in store; +Thou needst not care for Pain or Fear -- + They cannot harm thee more." + +Yet I rode on with sullen heart, + And said with breaking breath, +"If thou art he I think thou art, + Then slay me now, O Death!" + +The veil was from my eyesight drawn -- + "Thou knowest now," said he: +"I am the Angel of the Dawn! + Ride back, and wait for me." + +So I rode back at morning light, + And there, beside my bed, +Fear had become a lily white + And Pain a rose of red. + + + + +Alice Werner. + + + + Bannerman of the Dandenong + + +I rode through the Bush in the burning noon, + Over the hills to my bride, -- +The track was rough and the way was long, +And Bannerman of the Dandenong, + He rode along by my side. + +A day's march off my Beautiful dwelt, + By the Murray streams in the West; -- +Lightly lilting a gay love-song +Rode Bannerman of the Dandenong, + With a blood-red rose on his breast. + +"Red, red rose of the Western streams" + Was the song he sang that day -- +Truest comrade in hour of need, -- +Bay Mathinna his peerless steed -- + I had my own good grey. + +There fell a spark on the upland grass -- + The dry Bush leapt into flame; -- +And I felt my heart go cold as death, +And Bannerman smiled and caught his breath, -- + But I heard him name Her name. + +Down the hill-side the fire-floods rushed, + On the roaring eastern wind; -- +Neck and neck was the reckless race, -- +Ever the bay mare kept her pace, + But the grey horse dropped behind. + +He turned in the saddle -- "Let's change, I say!" + And his bridle rein he drew. +He sprang to the ground, -- "Look sharp!" he said +With a backward toss of his curly head -- + "I ride lighter than you!" + +Down and up -- it was quickly done -- + No words to waste that day! -- +Swift as a swallow she sped along, +The good bay mare from Dandenong, -- + And Bannerman rode the grey. + +The hot air scorched like a furnace blast + From the very mouth of Hell: -- +The blue gums caught and blazed on high +Like flaming pillars into the sky; . . . + The grey horse staggered and fell. + +"Ride, ride, lad, -- ride for her sake!" he cried; -- + Into the gulf of flame +Were swept, in less than a breathing space +The laughing eyes, and the comely face, + And the lips that named HER name. + +She bore me bravely, the good bay mare; -- + Stunned, and dizzy and blind, +I heard the sound of a mingling roar -- +'Twas the Lachlan River that rushed before, + And the flames that rolled behind. + +Safe -- safe, at Nammoora gate, + I fell, and lay like a stone. +O love! thine arms were about me then, +Thy warm tears called me to life again, -- + But -- O God! that I came alone! -- + +We dwell in peace, my beautiful one + And I, by the streams in the West, -- +But oft through the mist of my dreams along +Rides Bannerman of the Dandenong, + With the blood-red rose on his breast. + + + + +Ethel Castilla. + + + + An Australian Girl + + "She's pretty to walk with, + And witty to talk with, + And pleasant, too, to think on." + Sir John Suckling. + + +She has a beauty of her own, +A beauty of a paler tone + Than English belles; +Yet southern sun and southern air +Have kissed her cheeks, until they wear +The dainty tints that oft appear + On rosy shells. + +Her frank, clear eyes bespeak a mind +Old-world traditions fail to bind. + She is not shy +Or bold, but simply self-possessed; +Her independence adds a zest +Unto her speech, her piquant jest, + Her quaint reply. + +O'er classic volumes she will pore +With joy; and true scholastic lore + Will often gain. +In sports she bears away the bell, +Nor, under music's siren spell, +To dance divinely, flirt as well, + Does she disdain. + + + + A Song of Sydney + + (1894) + + +High headlands all jealously hide thee, + O fairest of sea-girdled towns! +Thine Ocean-spouse smileth beside thee, + While each headland threatens and frowns. +Like Venice, upheld on sea-pinion, + And fated to reign o'er the free, +Thou wearest, in sign of dominion, + The zone of the sea. + +No winter thy fertile slope hardens, + O new Florence, set in the South! +All lands give their flowers to thy gardens, + That glow to thy bright harbour's mouth; +The waratah and England's red roses + With stately magnolias entwine, +Gay sunflowers fill sea-scented closes, + All sweet with woodbine. + +Thy harbour's fair flower-crowned islands + See flags of all countries unfurled, +Thou smilest from green, sunlit highlands + To open thine arms to the world! +Dark East's and fair West's emulations + Resound from each hill-shadowed quay, +And over the songs of all nations, + The voice of the sea. + + + + +Francis William Lauderdale Adams. + + + + Something + + +It is something in this darker dream demented + to have wrestled with its pleasure and its pain: +it is something to have sinned, and have repented: + it is something to have failed, and tried again! + +It is something to have loved the brightest Beauty + with no hope of aught but silence for your vow: +it is something to have tried to do your duty: + it is something to be trying, trying now! + +And, in the silent solemn hours, + when your soul floats down the far faint flood of time -- +to think of Earth's lovers who are ours, + of her saviours saving, suffering, sublime: + +And that you with THESE may be her lover, + with THESE may save and suffer for her sake -- +IT IS JOY TO HAVE LIVED, SO TO DISCOVER + YOU'VE A LIFE YOU CAN GIVE AND SHE CAN TAKE! + + + + Gordon's Grave + + +All the heat and the glow and the hush + of the summer afternoon; +the scent of the sweet-briar bush + over bowing grass-blades and broom; + +the birds that flit and pass; + singing the song he knows, +the grass-hopper in the grass; + the voice of the she-oak boughs. + +Ah, and the shattered column + crowned with the poet's wreath. +Who, who keeps silent and solemn + his passing place beneath? + +~This was a poet that loved God's breath; + his life was a passionate quest; +he looked down deep in the wells of death, + and now he is taking his rest.~ + + + + To A. L. Gordon + + +In night-long days, in aeons + where all Time's nights are one; +where life and death sing paeans +as of Greeks and Galileans, + never begun or done; + +where fate, the slow swooping condor, + comes glooming all the sky -- +as you have pondered I ponder, +as you have wandered I wander, + as you have died, shall I die? + + + + Love and Death + + +Death? is it death you give? So be it! O Death, + thou hast been long my friend, and now thy pale +cool cheek shall have my kiss, while the faint breath +expires on thy still lips, O lovely Death! + +Come then, loose hands, fair Life, without a wail! + We've had good hours together, and you were sweet +what time love whispered with the nightingale, +tho' ever your music by the lark's would fail. + +Come then, loose hands! Our lover time is done. +Now is the marriage with the eternal sun. + The hours are few that rest, are few and fleet. +Good-bye! The game is lost: the game is won. + + + + +Thomas William Heney. + + + + Absence + + +Ah, happy air that, rough or soft, + May kiss that face and stay; +And happy beams that from above + May choose to her their way; +And happy flowers that now and then + Touch lips more sweet than they! + +But it were not so blest to be + Or light or air or rose; +Those dainty fingers tear and toss + The bloom that in them glows; +And come or go, both wind and ray + She heeds not, if she knows. + +But if I come thy choice should be + Either to love or not -- +For if I might I would not kiss + And then be all forgot; +And it were best thy love to lose + If love self-scorn begot. + + + + A Riverina Road + + +Now while so many turn with love and longing + To wan lands lying in the grey North Sea, +To thee we turn, hearts, mem'ries, all belonging, + Dear land of ours, to thee. + +West, ever west, with the strong sunshine marching + Beyond the mountains, far from this soft coast, +Until we almost see the great plains arching, + In endless mirage lost. + +A land of camps where seldom is sojourning, + Where men like the dim fathers of our race, +Halt for a time, and next day, unreturning, + Fare ever on apace. + +Last night how many a leaping blaze affrighted + The wailing birds of passage in their file; +And dawn sees ashes dead and embers whited + Where men had dwelt awhile. + +The sun may burn, the mirage shift and vanish + And fade and glare by turns along the sky; +The haze of heat may all the distance banish + To the uncaring eye. + +By speech, or tongue of bird or brute, unbroken + Silence may brood upon the lifeless plain, +Nor any sign, far off or near, betoken + Man in this vast domain. + +Though tender grace the landscape lacks, too spacious, + Impassive, silent, lonely, to be fair, +Their kindness swiftly comes more soft and gracious, + Who live or tarry there. + +All that he has, in camp or homestead, proffers + To stranger guest at once a stranger host, +Proudest to see accepted what he offers, + Given without a boast. + +Pass, if you can, the drover's cattle stringing + Along the miles of the wide travelled road, +Without a challenge through the hot dust ringing, + Kind though abrupt the mode. + +A cloud of dust where polish'd wheels are flashing + Passes along, and in it rolls the mail. +Comes from the box as on the coach goes dashing + The lonely driver's hail. + +Or in the track a station youngster mounted + Sits in his saddle smoking for a "spell", +Rides a while onward; then, his news recounted, + Parts with a brief farewell. + +To-day these plains may seem a face defiant, + Turn'd to a mortal foe, yet scorning fear; +As when, with heaven at war, an Earth-born giant + Saw the Olympian near. + +Come yet again! No child's fair face is sweeter + With young delight than this cool blooming land, +Silent no more, for songs than wings are fleeter, + No blaze, but sunshine bland. + +Thus in her likeness that strange nature moulding + Makes man as moody, sad and savage too; +Yet in his heart, like her, a passion holding, + Unselfish, kind and true. + +Therefore, while many turn with love and longing + To wan lands lying on the grey North Sea, +To-day possessed by other mem'ries thronging + We turn, wild West, to thee! + + + 23rd December, 1891. + + + + +Patrick Edward Quinn. + + + + A Girl's Grave + + "Aged 17, OF A BROKEN HEART, January 1st, 1841." + + +What story is here of broken love, + What idyllic sad romance, +What arrow fretted the silken dove + That met with such grim mischance? + +I picture you, sleeper of long ago, + When you trifled and danced and smiled, +All golden laughter and beauty's glow + In a girl life sweet and wild. + +Hair with the red gold's luring tinge, + Fine as the finest silk, +Violet eyes with a golden fringe + And cheeks of roses and milk. + +Something of this you must have been, + Something gentle and sweet, +To have broken your heart at seventeen + And died in such sad defeat. + +Hardly one of your kinsfolk live, + It was all so long ago, +The tale of the cruel love to give + That laid you here so low. + +Loving, trusting, and foully paid -- + The story is easily guessed, +A blotted sun and skies that fade + And this grass-grown grave the rest. + +Whatever the cynic may sourly say, + With a dash of truth, I ween, +Of the girls of the period, in your day + They had hearts at seventeen. + +Dead of a fashion out of date, + Such folly has passed away +Like the hoop and patch and modish gait + That went out with an older day. + +The stone is battered and all awry, + The words can be scarcely read, +The rank reeds clustering thick and high + Over your buried head. + +I pluck one straight as a Paynim's lance + To keep your memory green, +For the lordly sake of old Romance + And your own, sad seventeen. + + + + +John Sandes. + + + + `With Death's Prophetic Ear' + + +Lay my rifle here beside me, set my Bible on my breast, + For a moment let the warning bugles cease; +As the century is closing I am going to my rest, + Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant go in peace. +But loud through all the bugles rings a cadence in mine ear, + And on the winds my hopes of peace are strowed. +Those winds that waft the voices that already I can hear + Of the rooi-baatjes singing on the road. + +Yes, the red-coats are returning, I can hear the steady tramp, + After twenty years of waiting, lulled to sleep, +Since rank and file at Potchefstroom we hemmed them in their camp, + And cut them up at Bronkerspruit like sheep. +They shelled us at Ingogo, but we galloped into range, + And we shot the British gunners where they showed. +I guessed they would return to us, I knew the chance must change -- + Hark! the rooi-baatjes singing on the road! + +But now from snow-swept Canada, from India's torrid plains, + From lone Australian outposts, hither led, +Obeying their commando, as they heard the bugle's strains, + The men in brown have joined the men in red. +They come to find the colours at Majuba left and lost, + They come to pay us back the debt they owed; +And I hear new voices lifted, and I see strange colours tossed, + 'Mid the rooi-baatjes singing on the road. + +The old, old faiths must falter, and the old, old creeds must fail -- + I hear it in that distant murmur low -- +The old, old order changes, and 'tis vain for us to rail, + The great world does not want us -- we must go. +And veldt, and spruit, and kopje to the stranger will belong, + No more to trek before him we shall load; +Too well, too well, I know it, for I hear it in the song + Of the rooi-baatjes singing on the road. + + + + +Inez K. Hyland. + + + + To a Wave + + +Where were you yesterday? In Gulistan, + With roses and the frenzied nightingales? +Rather would I believe you shining ran + With peaceful floods, where the soft voice prevails +Of building doves in lordly trees set high, + Trees which enclose a home where love abides -- +His love and hers, a passioned ecstasy; + Your tone has caught its echo and derides +My joyless lot, as face down pressed I lie + Upon the shifting sand, and hear the reeds +Voicing a thin, dissonant threnody + Unto the cliff and wind-tormented weeds. +As with the faint half-lights of jade toward + The shore you come and show a violet hue, +I wonder if the face of my adored + Was ever held importraitured by you. +Ah, no! if you had seen his face, still prest + Within your hold the picture dear would be, +Like that bright portrait which so moved the breast + Of fairest Gurd with soft unrest that she, +Born in ice halls, she who but raised her eyes + And scornful questioned, "What is love, indeed? +None ever viewed it 'neath these northern skies," -- + Seeing the face soon learned love's gentle creed; +But you hold nothing to be counted dear -- + Only a gift of weed and broken shells; +Yet I will gather one, so I can hear + The soft remembrance which still in it dwells: +For in the shell, though broken, ever lies + The murmur of the sea whence it was torn -- +So in a woman's heart there never dies + The memory of love, though love be lorn. + + + + Bread and Wine + + +A cup of opal + Through which there glows +The cream of the pearl, + The heart of the rose; +And the blue of the sea + Where Australia lies, +And the amber flush + Of her sunset skies, +And the emerald tints + Of the dragon fly +Shall stain my cup + With their brilliant dye. +And into this cup + I would pour the wine +Of youth and health + And the gifts divine +Of music and song, + And the sweet content +Which must ever belong + To a life well spent. +And what bread would I break + With my wine, think you? +The bread of a love + That is pure and true. + + + + +George Essex Evans. + + + + An Australian Symphony + + +Not as the songs of other lands + Her song shall be +Where dim Her purple shore-line stands + Above the sea! +As erst she stood, she stands alone; +Her inspiration is her own. +From sunlit plains to mangrove strands +Not as the songs of other lands + Her song shall be. + +O Southern Singers! Rich and sweet, + Like chimes of bells, +The cadence swings with rhythmic beat + The music swells; +But undertones, weird, mournful, strong, +Sweep like swift currents thro' the song. +In deepest chords, with passion fraught, +In softest notes of sweetest thought, + This sadness dwells. + +Is this her song, so weirdly strange, + So mixed with pain, +That whereso'er her poets range + Is heard the strain? +Broods there no spell upon the air +But desolation and despair? +No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrude +Upon her mountain solitude + Or sun-kissed plain? + +The silence and the sunshine creep + With soft caress +O'er billowy plain and mountain steep + And wilderness -- +A velvet touch, a subtle breath, +As sweet as love, as calm as death, +On earth, on air, so soft, so fine, +Till all the soul a spell divine + O'ershadoweth. + +The gray gums by the lonely creek, + The star-crowned height, +The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak, + The cold white light, +The solitude spread near and far +Around the camp-fire's tiny star, +The horse-bell's melody remote, +The curlew's melancholy note + Across the night. + +These have their message; yet from these + Our songs have thrown +O'er all our Austral hills and leas + One sombre tone. +Whence doth the mournful keynote start? +From the pure depths of Nature's heart? +Or from the heart of him who sings +And deems his hand upon the strings + Is Nature's own? + +Could tints be deeper, skies less dim, + More soft and fair, +Dappled with milk-white clouds that swim + In faintest air? +The soft moss sleeps upon the stone, +Green scrub-vine traceries enthrone +The dead gray trunks, and boulders red, +Roofed by the pine and carpeted + With maidenhair. + +But far and near, o'er each, o'er all, + Above, below, +Hangs the great silence like a pall + Softer than snow. +Not sorrow is the spell it brings, +But thoughts of calmer, purer things, +Like the sweet touch of hands we love, +A woman's tenderness above + A fevered brow. + +These purple hills, these yellow leas, + These forests lone, +These mangrove shores, these shimmering seas, + This summer zone -- +Shall they inspire no nobler strain +Than songs of bitterness and pain? +Strike her wild harp with firmer hand, +And send her music thro' the land, + With loftier tone! + + . . . . . + +Her song is silence; unto her + Its mystery clings. +Silence is the interpreter + Of deeper things. +O for sonorous voice and strong +To change that silence into song, +To give that melody release +Which sleeps in the deep heart of peace + With folded wings! + + + + A Nocturne + + +Like weary sea-birds spent with flight + And faltering, +The slow hours beat across the night + On leaden wing. +The wild bird knows where rest shall be + Soe'er he roam. +Heart of my heart! apart from thee + I have no home. + +Afar from thee, yet not alone, + Heart of my heart! +Like some soft haunting whisper blown + From Heaven thou art. +I hear the magic music roll + Its waves divine; +The subtle fragrance of thy soul + Has passed to mine. + +Nor dawn nor Heaven my heart can know + Save that which lies +In lights and shades that come and go + In thy soft eyes. +Here in the night I dream the day, + By love upborne, +When thy sweet eyes shall shine and say + "It is the morn!" + + + + A Pastoral + + +Nature feels the touch of noon; + Not a rustle stirs the grass; +Not a shadow flecks the sky, +Save the brown hawk hovering nigh; + Not a ripple dims the glass + Of the wide lagoon. + +Darkly, like an armed host + Seen afar against the blue, +Rise the hills, and yellow-grey +Sleeps the plain in cove and bay, + Like a shining sea that dreams + Round a silent coast. + +From the heart of these blue hills, + Like the joy that flows from peace, +Creeps the river far below +Fringed with willow, sinuous, slow. + Surely here there seems surcease + From the care that kills. + +Surely here might radiant Love + Fill with happiness his cup, +Where the purple lucerne-bloom +Floods the air with sweet perfume, + Nature's incense floating up + To the Gods above. + +'Neath the gnarled-boughed apple trees + Motionless the cattle stand; +Chequered cornfield, homestead white, +Sleeping in the streaming light, + For deep trance is o'er the land, + And the wings of peace. + +Here, O Power that moves the heart, + Thou art in the quiet air; +Here, unvexed of code or creed, +Man may breathe his bitter need; + Nor with impious lips declare + What Thou wert and art. + +All the strong souls of the race + Thro' the aeons that have run, +They have cried aloud to Thee -- +"Thou art that which stirs in me!" + As the flame leaps towards the sun + They have sought Thy face. + +But the faiths have flowered and flown, + And the truth is but in part; +Many a creed and many a grade +For Thy purpose Thou hast made. + None can know Thee what Thou art, + Fathomless! Unknown! + + + + The Women of the West + + +They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill, +The houses in the busy streets where life is never still, +The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best: +For love they faced the wilderness -- the Women of the West. + +The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away, +And the old-time joys and faces -- they were gone for many a day; +In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains, +O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains. + +In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately taken run, +In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun, +In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's unrest, +On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West. + +The red sun robs their beauty, and, in weariness and pain, +The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again; +And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say -- +The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away. + +The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires, +When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires, +And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast -- +Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West. + +For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts -- +They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts. +But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above -- +The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love. + +Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by. +We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die. +And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest, +The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West. + + + + +Mary Colborne-Veel. + + + + `What Look hath She?' + + + What look hath she, + What majestie, +That must so high approve her? + What graces move + That I so love, +That I so greatly love her? + + No majestie + But Truth hath She; +Thoughts sweet and gracious move her; + That straight approve + My heart to love, +And all my life to love her! + + + + Saturday Night + + +Saturday night in the crowded town; +Pleasure and pain going up and down, +Murmuring low on the ear there beat +Echoes unceasing of voice and feet. +Withered age, with its load of care, +Come in this tumult of life to share, +Childhood glad in its radiance brief, +Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief, +Meet alike, as the stars look down +Week by week on the crowded town. + +~And in a kingdom of mystery, +Rapt from this weariful world to see +Magic sights in the yellow glare, +Breathing delight in the gas-lit air, +Careless of sorrow, of grief or pain, +Two by two, again and again, +Strephon and Chloe together move, +Walking in Arcady, land of love.~ + +What are the meanings that burden all +These murmuring voices that rise and fall? +Tragedies whispered of, secrets told, +Over the baskets of bought and sold; +Joyous speech of the lately wed; +Broken lamentings that name the dead: +Endless runes of the gossip's rede, +And gathered home with the weekly need, +Kindly greetings as neighbours meet +There in the stir of the busy street. + +Then is the glare of the gaslight ray +Gifted with potency strange to-day, +Records of time-written history +Flash into sight as each face goes by. +There, as the hundreds slow moving go, +Each with his burden of joy or woe, +Souls, in the meeting of stranger's eyes, +Startled this kinship to recognise, -- +Meet and part, as the stars look down, +Week by week on the crowded town. + +~And still, in the midst of the busy hum, +Rapt in their dream of delight they come. +Heedless of sorrow, of grief or care, +Wandering on in enchanted air, +Far from the haunting shadow of pain: +Two by two, again and again, +Strephon and Chloe together move, +Walking in Arcady, land of love.~ + + + + `Resurgam' + + (Autumn Song) + + + Chill breezes moaning are + Where leaves hang yellow: + O'er the grey hills afar + Flies the last swallow; +To come again, my love, to come again + Blithe with the summer. +But Ah! the long months ere we welcome then + That bright new comer. + + Cold lie the flowers and dead + Where leaves are falling. + Meekly they bowed and sped + At Autumn's calling. +To come again, my love, to come again + Blithe with the swallow. +Ah! might I dreaming lie at rest till then, + Or rise and follow! + + The summer blooms are gone, + And bright birds darting; + Cold lies the earth forlorn; + And we are parting. +To meet again, my love, to meet again + In deathless greeting, +But ah! what wintry bitterness of pain + Ere that far meeting! + + + + Distant Authors + + "Aqui esta encerrada el alma licenciado Pedro Garcias." + + +Dear books! and each the living soul, + Our hearts aver, of men unseen, +Whose power to strengthen, charm, control, + Surmounts all earth's green miles between. + +For us at least the artists show + Apart from fret of work-day jars: +We know them but as friends may know, + Or they are known beyond the stars. + +Their mirth, their grief, their soul's desire, + When twilight murmuring of streams, +Or skies far touched by sunset fire, + Exalt them to pure worlds of dreams; + +Their love of good; their rage at wrong; + Their hours when struggling thought makes way; +Their hours when fancy drifts to song + Lightly and glad as bird-trills may; + +All these are truths. And if as true + More graceless scrutiny that reads, +"These fruits amid strange husking grew;" + "These lilies blossomed amongst weeds;" + +Here no despoiling doubts shall blow, + No fret of feud, of work-day jars. +We know them but as friends may know, + Or they are known beyond the stars. + + + + +John Bernard O'Hara. + + + + Happy Creek + + +The little creek goes winding + Thro' gums of white and blue, + A silver arm + Around the farm + It flings, a lover true; +And softly, where the rushes lean, + It sings (O sweet and low) + A lover's song, + And winds along, + How happy -- lovers know! + +The little creek goes singing + By maidenhair and moss, + Along its banks + In rosy ranks + The wild flowers wave and toss; +And ever where the ferns dip down + It sings (O sweet and low) + A lover's song, + And winds along, + How happy -- lovers know! + +The little creek takes colour, + From summer skies above; + Now blue, now gold, + Its waters fold + The clouds in closest love; +But loudly when the thunders roll + It sings (nor sweet, nor low) + No lover's song, + But sweeps along, + How angry -- lovers know! + +The little creek for ever + Goes winding, winding down, + Away, away, + By night, by day, + Where dark the ranges frown; +But ever as it glides it sings, + It sings (O sweet and low) + A lover's song, + And winds along, + How happy -- lovers know! + + + + A Country Village + + +Among the folding hills + It lies, a quiet nook, +Where dreaming nature fills + Sweet pages of her book, +While through the meadow flowers +She sings in summer hours, +Or weds the woodland rills + Low-laughing to the brook. + +The graveyard whitely gleams + Across the soundless vale, +So sad, so sweet, yet seems + A watcher cold and pale +That waits through many springs +The tribute old Time brings, +And knows, though life be loud, + The reaper may not fail. + +Here come not feet of change + From year to fading year; +Ringed by the rolling range + No world-wide notes men hear. +The wheels of time may stand +Here in a lonely land, +Age after age may pass + Untouched of change or cheer; + +As still the farmer keeps + The same dull round of things; +He reaps and sows and reaps, + And clings, as ivy clings, +To old-time trust, nor cares +What science does or dares, +What lever moves the world, + What progress spreads its wings. + +Yet here, of woman born, + Are lives that know not rest, +With fierce desires that scorn + The quiet life as best; +That see in wider ways +Life's richer splendours blaze, +And feel ambition's fire + Burn in their ardent breast. + +Yea, some that fain would know + Life's purpose strange and vast, +How wide is human woe, + What wailing of the past +Still strikes the present dumb, +What phantoms go and come +Of wrongs that cry aloud, + "At last, O God! at last!" + +Here, too, are dreams that wing + Rich regions of Romance; +Love waking when the Spring + Begins its first wild dance, +Love redder than the rose, +Love paler than the snows, +Love frail as corn that tilts + With morning winds a lance. + +For never land so lone + That love could find not wings +In every wind that's blown + By lips of jewelled springs, +For love is life's sweet pain, +And when sweet life is slain +It finds a radiant rest + Beyond the change of things. + +Beyond the shocks that jar, + The chance of changing fate, +Where fraud and violence are, + And heedless lust and hate; +Yet still where faith is clear, +And honour held most dear, +And hope that seeks the dawn + Looks up with heart elate. + + + + Flinders + + +He left his island home +For leagues of sleepless foam, + For stress of alien seas, + Where wild winds ever blow; +For England's sake he sought +Fresh fields of fame, and fought + A stormy world for these + A hundred years ago. + +And where the Austral shore +Heard southward far the roar + Of rising tides that came + From lands of ice and snow, +Beneath a gracious sky +To fadeless memory + He left a deathless name + A hundred years ago. + +Yea, left a name sublime +From that wild dawn of Time, + Whose light he haply saw + In supreme sunrise flow, +And from the shadows vast, +That filled the dim dead past, + A brighter glory draw, + A hundred years ago. + +Perchance, he saw in dreams +Beside our sunlit streams + In some majestic hour + Old England's banners blow; +Mayhap, the radiant morn +Of this great nation born, + August with perfect power, + A hundred years ago. + +We know not, -- yet for thee +Far may the season be, + Whose harp in shameful sleep + Is soundless lying low! +Far be the noteless hour +That holds of fame no flower + For those who dared our deep + A hundred years ago. + + + + +M. A. Sinclair. + + + + The Chatelaine + + +I have built one, so have you; +Paved with marble, domed with blue, +Battlement and ladies' bower, +Donjon keep and watchman's tower. + +I have climbed, as you have done, +To the tower at set of sun -- +Crying from its parlous height, +"Watchman, tell us of the night." + +I have stolen at midnight bell, +Like you, to the secret cell, +Shuddering at its charnel breath -- +Left lockfast the spectre, Death. + +I have used your lure to call +Choice guests to my golden hall: +Rarely welcome, rarely free +To my hospitality. + +In a glow of rosy light +Hours, like minutes, take their flight -- +As from you they fled away, +When, like you, I bade them stay. + +Ah! the pretty flow of wit, +And the good hearts under it; +While the wheels of life go round +With a most melodious sound. + +Not a vestige anywhere +Of our grim familiar, Care -- +Roses! from the trees of yore +Blooming by the rivers four. + +Not a jar, and not a fret; +Ecstasy and longing met. +But why should I thus define -- +Is not your chateau like mine? + +Scarcely were it strange to meet +In that magic realm so sweet, +So! I'll take this dreamland train +Bound for my chateau in Spain. + + + + +Sydney Jephcott. + + + + Chaucer + + +O gracious morning eglantine, +Making the far old English ways divine! +Though from thy stock our mateless rose was bred, +Staining the world's skies with its red, +Our garden gives no scent so fresh as thine, +Sweet, thorny-seeming eglantine. + + + + White Paper + + +Smooth white paper 'neath the pen; + Richest field that iron ploughs, +Germinating thoughts of men, + Though no heaven its rain allows; + +Till they ripen, thousand fold, + And our spirits reap the corn, +In a day-long dream of gold; + Food for all the souls unborn. + +Like the murmur of the earth, + When we listen stooping low; +Like the sap that sings in mirth, + Hastening up the trees that grow; + +Evermore a tiny song + Sings the pen unto it, while +Thought's elixir flows along, + Diviner than the holy Nile. + +Greater than the sphering sea, + For it holds the sea and land; +Seed of all ideas to be + Down its current borne like sand. + +How our fathers in the dark + Pored on it the plans obscure, +By star-light or stake-fires stark + Tracing there the path secure. + +The poor paper drawn askance + With the spell of Truth half-known, +Holds back Hell of ignorance, + Roaring round us, thronged, alone. + +O white list of champions, + Spirit born, and schooled for fight, +Mailed in armour of the sun's + Who shall win our utmost right! + +Think of paper lightly sold, + Which few pence had made too dear +On its blank to have enscrolled + Beatrice, Lucifer, or Lear! + +Think of paper Milton took, + Written, in his hands to feel, +Musing of what things a look + Down its pages would reveal. + +O the glorious Heaven wrought + By Cadmean souls of yore, +From pure element of thought! + And thy leaves they are its door! + +Light they open, and we stand + Past the sovereignty of Fate, +Glad amongst them, calm and grand, + The Creators and Create! + + + + Splitting + + + Morning. + + Out from the hut at break of day, + And up the hills in the dawning grey; +With the young wind flowing +From the blue east, growing + Red with the white sun's ray! + + Lone and clear as a deep-bright dream + Under mid-night's and mid-slumber's stream, +Up rises the mount against the sunrise shower, +Vast as a kingdom, fair as a flower: + O'er it doth the foam of foliage ream + + In vivid softness serene, + Pearly-purple and marble green; +Clear in their mingling tinges, +Up away to the crest that fringes + Skies studded with cloud-crags sheen. + + Day. + + Like birds frayed from their lurking-shaw, + Like ripples fleet 'neath a furious flaw, +The echoes re-echo, flying +Down from the mauls hot-plying; + Clatter the axes, grides the saw. + + Ruddy and white the chips out-spring, + Like money sown by a pageant king; +The free wood yields to the driven wedges, +With its white sap-edges, + And heart in the sunshine glistening. + + Broadly the ice-clear azure floods down, + Where the great tree-tops are overthrown; +As on through the endless day we labour; +The sun for our nearest neighbour, + Up o'er the mountains lone. + + And so intensely it doth illume, + That it shuts by times to gloom; +In the open spaces thrilling; +From the dead leaves distilling + A hot and harsh perfume. + + Evening. + + Give over! All the valleys in sight + Fill, fill with the rising tide of night; +While the sunset with gold-dust bridges +The black-ravined ridges, + Whose mighty muscles curve in its light. + + In our weary climb, while night dyes deep, + Down the broken and stony steep, +How our jaded bodies are shaken +By each step in half-blindness taken -- + One's thoughts lie heaped like brutes asleep. + + Open the door of the dismal hut, + Silence and darkness lone were shut +In it, as a tidal pool, until returning +Night drowns the land, -- no ember's burning, -- + One is too weary the food to cut. + + Body and soul with every blow, + Wasted for ever, and who will know, +Where, past this mountained night of toiling, +Red life in its thousand veins is boiling, + Of chips scattered on the mountain's brow? + + + + Home-woe + + +The wreckage of some name-forgotten barque, + Half-buried by the dolorous shore; + Whereto the living waters never more + Their urgent billows pour; +But the salt spray can reach and cark -- + +So lies my spirit, lonely and forlorn, + On Being's strange and perilous strand. + And rusted sword and fleshless hand + Point from the smothering sand; +And anchor chainless and out-worn. + +But o'er what Deep, unconquered and uncharted, + And steering by what vanished star; + And where my dim-imagined consorts are, + Or hidden harbour far, +From whence my sails, unblessed, departed, + +Can memory, nor still intuition teach. + And so I watch with alien eyes + This World's remote and unremembered skies; + While around me weary rise +The babblings of a foreign speech. + + + + A Ballad of the last King of Thule + + +There was a King of Thule + Whom a Witch-wife stole at birth; +In a country known but newly, + All under the dumb, huge Earth. + +That King's in a Forest toiling; + And he never the green sward delves +But he sees all his green waves boiling + Over his sands and shelves; + +In these sunsets vast and fiery, + In these dawns divine he sees +Hy-Brasil, Mannan and Eire, + And the Isle of Appletrees; + +He watches, heart-still and breathless, + The clouds through the deep day trailing, +As the white-winged vessels gathered, + Into his harbours sailing; + +Ranked Ibis and lazy Eagles + In the great blue flame may rise, +But ne'er Sea-mew or Solan beating + Up through their grey low skies; + +When the storm-led fires are breaking, + Great waves of the molten night, +Deep in his eyes comes aching + The icy Boreal Light. + + . . . . . + +O, lost King, and O, people perished, + Your Thule has grown one grave! +Unvisited as uncherished, + Save by the wandering wave! + +The billows burst in his doorways, + The spray swoops over his walls! -- +O, his banners that throb dishonoured + O'er arms that hide in his halls -- + +Deserved is your desolation! -- + Why could you not stir and save +The last-born heir of your nation? -- + Sold into the South, a slave + +Till he dies, and is buried duly + In the hot Australian earth -- +The lorn, lost King of Thule, + Whom a Witch-wife stole at birth. + + + + A Fragment + + +But, under all, my heart believes the day +Was not diviner over Athens, nor +The West wind sweeter thro' the Cyclades +Than here and now; and from the altar of To-day +The eloquent, quick tongues of flame uprise +As fervid, if not unfaltering as of old, +And life atones with speed and plenitude +For coarser texture. Our poor present will, +Far in the brooding future, make a past +Full of the morning's music still, and starred +With great tears shining on the eyelids' eaves +Of our immortal faces yearning t'wards the sun. + + + + +Andrew Barton Paterson (`Banjo'). + + + + The Daylight is Dying + + +The daylight is dying + Away in the west, +The wild birds are flying + In silence to rest; +In leafage and frondage + Where shadows are deep, +They pass to their bondage -- + The kingdom of sleep. +And watched in their sleeping + By stars in the height, +They rest in your keeping, + Oh, wonderful night. + +When night doth her glories + Of starshine unfold, +'Tis then that the stories + Of bushland are told. +Unnumbered I hold them + In memories bright, +But who could unfold them, + Or read them aright? + +Beyond all denials + The stars in their glories +The breeze in the myalls + Are part of these stories. +The waving of grasses, + The song of the river +That sings as it passes + For ever and ever, +The hobble-chains' rattle, + The calling of birds, +The lowing of cattle + Must blend with the words. +Without these, indeed, you + Would find it ere long, +As though I should read you + The words of a song +That lamely would linger + When lacking the rune, +The voice of the singer, + The lilt of the tune. + +But, as one half-hearing + An old-time refrain, +With memory clearing, + Recalls it again, +These tales, roughly wrought of + The bush and its ways, +May call back a thought of + The wandering days. +And, blending with each + In the mem'ries that throng, +There haply shall reach + You some echo of song. + + + + Clancy of the Overflow + + +I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better + Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago, +He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, + Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow". + +And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, + (And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar) +'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: + "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are." + + . . . . . + +In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy + Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go; +As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing, + For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know. + +And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him + In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars, +And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, + And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars. + + . . . . . + +I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy + Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall, +And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city, + Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all. + +And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle + Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street, +And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting, + Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet. + +And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me + As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste, +With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy, + For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste. + +And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy, + Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go, +While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal -- + But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow". + + + + Black Swans + + +As I lie at rest on a patch of clover +In the Western Park when the day is done, +I watch as the wild black swans fly over +With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; +And I hear the clang of their leader crying +To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, +And they fade away in the darkness dying, +Where the stars are mustering one by one. + +Oh! ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder +For a while to join in your westward flight, +With the stars above and the dim earth under, +Through the cooling air of the glorious night. +As we swept along on our pinions winging, +We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing, +Or the distant note of a torrent singing, +Or the far-off flash of a station light. + +From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes, +Where the hills are clothed with a purple haze, +Where the bell-birds chime and the songs of thrushes +Make music sweet in the jungle maze, +They will hold their course to the westward ever, +Till they reach the banks of the old grey river, +Where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiver +In the burning heat of the summer days. + +Oh! ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greeting +To the folk that live in that western land? +Then for every sweep of your pinions beating, +Ye shall bear a wish to the sunburnt band, +To the stalwart men who are stoutly fighting +With the heat and drought and the dust-storm smiting, +Yet whose life somehow has a strange inviting, +When once to the work they have put their hand. + +Facing it yet! Oh, my friend stout-hearted, +What does it matter for rain or shine, +For the hopes deferred and the gain departed? +Nothing could conquer that heart of thine. +And thy health and strength are beyond confessing +As the only joys that are worth possessing. +May the days to come be as rich in blessing +As the days we spent in the auld lang syne. + +I would fain go back to the old grey river, +To the old bush days when our hearts were light, +But, alas! those days they have fled for ever, +They are like the swans that have swept from sight. +And I know full well that the strangers' faces +Would meet us now in our dearest places; +For our day is dead and has left no traces +But the thoughts that live in my mind to-night. + +There are folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken -- +We would grieve for them with a bitter pain, +If the past could live and the dead could quicken, +We then might turn to that life again. +But on lonely nights we would hear them calling, +We should hear their steps on the pathways falling, +We should loathe the life with a hate appalling +In our lonely rides by the ridge and plain. + + . . . . . + +In the silent park is a scent of clover, +And the distant roar of the town is dead, +And I hear once more as the swans fly over +Their far-off clamour from overhead. +They are flying west, by their instinct guided, +And for man likewise is his fate decided, +And griefs apportioned and joys divided +By a mighty power with a purpose dread. + + + + The Travelling Post Office + + +The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway, +The sleepy river murmurs low, and loiters on its way, +It is the land of lots o' time along the Castlereagh. + + . . . . . + +The old man's son had left the farm, he found it dull and slow, +He drifted to the great North-west where all the rovers go. +"He's gone so long," the old man said, "he's dropped right out of mind, +But if you'd write a line to him I'd take it very kind; +He's shearing here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray, +He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh. +The sheep are travelling for the grass, and travelling very slow; +They may be at Mundooran now, or past the Overflow, +Or tramping down the black soil flats across by Waddiwong, +But all those little country towns would send the letter wrong, +The mailman, if he's extra tired, would pass them in his sleep, +It's safest to address the note to `Care of Conroy's sheep', +For five and twenty thousand head can scarcely go astray, +You write to `Care of Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh'." + + . . . . . + +By rock and ridge and riverside the western mail has gone, +Across the great Blue Mountain Range to take that letter on. +A moment on the topmost grade while open fire doors glare, +She pauses like a living thing to breathe the mountain air, +Then launches down the other side across the plains away +To bear that note to "Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh". + +And now by coach and mailman's bag it goes from town to town, +And Conroy's Gap and Conroy's Creek have marked it "further down". +Beneath a sky of deepest blue where never cloud abides, +A speck upon the waste of plain the lonely mailman rides. +Where fierce hot winds have set the pine and myall boughs asweep +He hails the shearers passing by for news of Conroy's sheep. +By big lagoons where wildfowl play and crested pigeons flock, +By camp fires where the drovers ride around their restless stock, +And past the teamster toiling down to fetch the wool away +My letter chases Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh. + + + + The Old Australian Ways + + +The London lights are far abeam + Behind a bank of cloud, +Along the shore the gaslights gleam, + The gale is piping loud; +And down the Channel, groping blind, + We drive her through the haze +Towards the land we left behind -- +The good old land of "never mind", + And old Australian ways. + +The narrow ways of English folk + Are not for such as we; +They bear the long-accustomed yoke + Of staid conservancy: +But all our roads are new and strange, + And through our blood there runs +The vagabonding love of change +That drove us westward of the range + And westward of the suns. + +The city folk go to and fro + Behind a prison's bars, +They never feel the breezes blow + And never see the stars; +They never hear in blossomed trees + The music low and sweet +Of wild birds making melodies, +Nor catch the little laughing breeze + That whispers in the wheat. + +Our fathers came of roving stock + That could not fixed abide: +And we have followed field and flock + Since e'er we learnt to ride; +By miner's camp and shearing shed, + In land of heat and drought, +We followed where our fortunes led, +With fortune always on ahead + And always further out. + +The wind is in the barley-grass, + The wattles are in bloom; +The breezes greet us as they pass + With honey-sweet perfume; +The parrakeets go screaming by + With flash of golden wing, +And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry +Their long-drawn note of revelry, + Rejoicing at the Spring. + +So throw the weary pen aside + And let the papers rest, +For we must saddle up and ride + Towards the blue hill's breast; +And we must travel far and fast + Across their rugged maze, +To find the Spring of Youth at last, +And call back from the buried past + The old Australian ways. + +When Clancy took the drover's track + In years of long ago, +He drifted to the outer back + Beyond the Overflow; +By rolling plain and rocky shelf, + With stockwhip in his hand, +He reached at last, oh lucky elf! +The Town of Come-and-help-yourself + In Rough-and-ready Land. + +And if it be that you would know + The tracks he used to ride, +Then you must saddle up and go + Beyond the Queensland side -- +Beyond the reach of rule or law, + To ride the long day through, +In Nature's homestead -- filled with awe: +You then might see what Clancy saw + And know what Clancy knew. + + + + By the Grey Gulf-Water + + +Far to the Northward there lies a land, + A wonderful land that the winds blow over, +And none may fathom nor understand + The charm it holds for the restless rover; +A great grey chaos -- a land half made, + Where endless space is and no life stirreth; +And the soul of a man will recoil afraid + From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth. +But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves + Her dole of death and her share of slaughter; +Many indeed are the nameless graves + Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water. + +Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide, + Drifting along with a languid motion, +Lapping the reed-beds on either side, + Wending their way to the Northern Ocean. +Grey are the plains where the emus pass + Silent and slow, with their staid demeanour; +Over the dead men's graves the grass + Maybe is waving a trifle greener. +Down in the world where men toil and spin + Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her; +Only the dead men her smiles can win + In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water. + +For the strength of man is an insect's strength + In the face of that mighty plain and river, +And the life of a man is a moment's length + To the life of the stream that will run for ever. +And so it cometh they take no part + In small-world worries; each hardy rover +Rideth abroad and is light of heart, + With the plains around and the blue sky over. +And up in the heavens the brown lark sings + The songs that the strange wild land has taught her; +Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings -- + And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water. + + + + +Jessie Mackay. + + + + The Grey Company + + +O the grey, grey company + Of the pallid dawn! +O the ghostly faces, + Ashen-like and drawn! +The Lord's lone sentinels + Dotted down the years, +The little grey company + Before the pioneers. + +Dreaming of Utopias + Ere the time was ripe, +They awoke to scorning, + The jeering and the strife. +Dreaming of millenniums + In a world of wars, +They awoke to shudder + At a flaming Mars. + +Never was a Luther + But a Huss was first -- +A fountain unregarded + In the primal thirst. +Never was a Newton + Crowned and honoured well, +But first, alone, Galileo + Wasted in a cell. + +In each other's faces + Looked the pioneers; +Drank the wine of courage + All their battle years. +For their weary sowing + Through the world wide, +Green they saw the harvest + Ere the day they died. + +But the grey, grey company + Stood every man alone +In the chilly dawnlight, + Scarcely had they known +Ere the day they perished, + That their beacon-star +Was not glint of marsh-light + In the shadows far. + +The brave white witnesses + To the truth within +Took the dart of folly, + Took the jeer of sin; +Crying "Follow, follow, + Back to Eden gate!" +They trod the Polar desert, + Met a desert fate. + +Be laurel to the victor, + And roses to the fair, +And asphodel Elysian + Let the hero wear; +But lay the maiden lilies + Upon their narrow biers -- +The lone grey company + Before the pioneers. + + + + A Folk Song + + +I came to your town, my love, + And you were away, away! +I said "She is with the Queen's maidens: + They tarry long at their play. +They are stringing her words like pearls +To throw to the dukes and earls." + But O, the pity! +I had but a morn of windy red +To come to the town where you were bred, + And you were away, away! + +I came to your town, my love, + And you were away, away! +I said, "She is with the mountain elves + And misty and fair as they. +They are spinning a diamond net +To cover her curls of jet." + But O, the pity! +I had but a noon of searing heat +To come to your town, my love, my sweet, + And you were away, away! + +I came to your town, my love, + And you were away, away! +I said, "She is with the pale white saints, + And they tarry long to pray. +They give her a white lily-crown, +And I fear she will never come down." + But O, the pity! +I had but an even grey and wan +To come to your town and plead as man, + And you were away, away! + + + + Dunedin in the Gloaming + + +Like a black, enamoured King whispered low the thunder +To the lights of Roslyn, terraced far asunder: +Hovered low the sister cloud in wild, warm wonder. + +"O my love, Dunedin town, the only, the abiding! +Who can look undazzled up where the Norn is riding, -- +Watch the sword of destiny from the scabbard gliding! + +"Dark and rich and ringing true -- word and look for ever; +Taking to her woman heart all forlorn endeavour; +Heaven's sea about her feet, not the bounded river!" + +"Sister of the mountain mist, and never to be holden +With the weary sophistries that dimmer eyes embolden, -- +O the dark Dunedin town, shot with green and golden!" + +Then a silver pioneer netted in the rift, +Leaning over Maori Hill, dreaming in the lift, +Dropped her starry memories through the passioned drift: -- + +"Once -- I do remember them, the glory and the garden, +Ere the elder stars had learnt God's mystery of pardon, +Ere the youngest, I myself, had seen the flaming warden -- + +"Once even after even I stole ever shy and early +To mirror me within a glade of Eden cool and pearly, +Where shy and cold and holy ran a torrent sought but rarely. + +"And fondly could I swear that this my glade had risen newly, -- +Burst the burning desert tomb wherein she lieth truly, +To keep an Easter with the birds and me who loved her duly." + +Wailing, laughing, loving, hoar, spake the lordly ocean: +"You are sheen and steadfastness: I am sheen and motion, +Gulfing argosies for whim, navies for a notion. + +"Sleep you well, Dunedin Town, though loud the lulling lyre is; +Lady of the stars terrene, where quick the human fire is, +Lady of the Maori pines, the turrets, and the eyries!" + + + + The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie + + (1901) + + +They played him home to the House of Stones + All the way, all the way, +To his grave in the sound of the winter sea: + The sky was dour, the sky was gray. +They played him home with the chieftain's dirge, +Till the wail was wed to the rolling surge, +They played him home with a sorrowful will +To his grave at the foot of the Holy Hill + And the pipes went mourning all the way. + +Strong hands that had struck for right + All the day, all the day, +Folded now in the dark of earth, + Veiled dawn of the upper way! +Strong hands that struck with his +From days that were to the day that is +Carry him now from the house of woe +To ride the way the Chief must go: + And his peers went mourning all the way. + +Son and brother at his right hand + All the way, all the way! +And O for them and O for her + Who stayed within, the dowie day! +Son and brother and near of kin +Go out with the chief who never comes in! +And of all who loved him far and near +'Twas the nearest most who held him dear -- + And his kin went mourning all the way! + +The clan went on with the pipes before + All the way, all the way; +A wider clan than ever he knew + Followed him home that dowie day. +And who were they of the wider clan? +The landless man and the no man's man, +The man that lacked and the man unlearned, +The man that lived but as he earned -- + And the clan went mourning all the way. + +The heart of New Zealand went beside + All the way, all the way, +To the resting-place of her Highland Chief; + Much she thought she could not say; +He found her a land of many domains, +Maiden forest and fallow plains -- +He left her a land of many homes, +The pearl of the world where the sea wind roams, + And New Zealand went mourning all the way. + + + + +Henry Lawson. + + + + Andy's gone with Cattle + + +Our Andy's gone to battle now + 'Gainst Drought, the red marauder; +Our Andy's gone with cattle now + Across the Queensland border. + +He's left us in dejection now; + Our hearts with him are roving. +It's dull on this selection now, + Since Andy went a-droving. + +Who now shall wear the cheerful face + In times when things are slackest? +And who shall whistle round the place + When Fortune frowns her blackest? + +Oh, who shall cheek the squatter now + When he comes round us snarling? +His tongue is growing hotter now + Since Andy cross'd the Darling. + +The gates are out of order now, + In storms the "riders" rattle; +For far across the border now + Our Andy's gone with cattle. + +Oh, may the showers in torrents fall, + And all the tanks run over; +And may the grass grow green and tall + In pathways of the drover; + +And may good angels send the rain + On desert stretches sandy; +And when the summer comes again + God grant 'twill bring us Andy. + + + + Out Back + + +The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, +The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out; +The publican's words were short and few, + and the publican's looks were black -- +And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back. + +~For time means tucker, and tramp you must, + where the scrubs and plains are wide, +With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide; +All day long in the dust and heat -- when summer is on the track -- +With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags Out Back.~ + +He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and hot, +With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not. +The poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack, +But only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares Out Back. + +He begged his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more, +And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore; +But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack -- +The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped for a year Out Back. + +In stifling noons when his back was wrung + by its load, and the air seemed dead, +And the water warmed in the bag that hung to his aching arm like lead, +Or in times of flood, when plains were seas, + and the scrubs were cold and black, +He ploughed in mud to his trembling knees, and paid for his sins Out Back. + +He blamed himself in the year "Too Late" -- in the heaviest hours of life -- +'Twas little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife; +There are times when wrongs from your kindred come, + and treacherous tongues attack -- +When a man is better away from home, and dead to the world, Out Back. + +And dirty and careless and old he wore, as his lamp of hope grew dim; +He tramped for years till the swag he bore seemed part of himself to him. +As a bullock drags in the sandy ruts, he followed the dreary track, +With never a thought but to reach the huts when the sun went down Out Back. + +It chanced one day, when the north wind blew + in his face like a furnace-breath, +He left the track for a tank he knew -- 'twas a short-cut to his death; +For the bed of the tank was hard and dry, and crossed with many a crack, +And, oh! it's a terrible thing to die of thirst in the scrub Out Back. + +A drover came, but the fringe of law was eastward many a mile; +He never reported the thing he saw, for it was not worth his while. +The tanks are full and the grass is high in the mulga off the track, +Where the bleaching bones of a white man lie by his mouldering swag Out Back. + +~For time means tucker, and tramp they must, + where the plains and scrubs are wide, +With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide; +All day long in the flies and heat the men of the outside track +With stinted stomachs and blistered feet must carry their swags Out Back.~ + + + + The Star of Australasia + + +We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; +Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. +From grander clouds in our "peaceful skies" than ever were there before +I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war. +It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase; +For ever the nations rose in storm, to rot in a deadly peace. +There comes a point that we will not yield, no matter if right or wrong, +And man will fight on the battle-field while passion and pride are strong -- +So long as he will not kiss the rod, and his stubborn spirit sours, +And the scorn of Nature and curse of God are heavy on peace like ours. + + . . . . . + +There are boys out there by the western creeks, who hurry away from school +To climb the sides of the breezy peaks or dive in the shaded pool, +Who'll stick to their guns when the mountains quake + to the tread of a mighty war, +And fight for Right or a Grand Mistake as men never fought before; +When the peaks are scarred and the sea-walls crack + till the furthest hills vibrate, +And the world for a while goes rolling back in a storm of love and hate. + + . . . . . + +There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride +Who'll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by side, +Who'll hold the cliffs 'gainst the armoured hells that batter a coastal town, +Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down. +And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day, +Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away -- +Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun, +And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, -- +As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white, +And pray to God in her darkened home for the "men in the fort to-night." + + . . . . . + +All creeds and trades will have soldiers there -- give every class its due -- +And there'll be many a clerk to spare for the pride of the jackeroo. +They'll fight for honour and fight for love, and a few will fight for gold, +For the devil below and for God above, as our fathers fought of old; +And some half-blind with exultant tears, and some stiff-lipped, stern-eyed, +For the pride of a thousand after-years and the old eternal pride; +The soul of the world they will feel and see + in the chase and the grim retreat -- +They'll know the glory of victory -- and the grandeur of defeat. + +The South will wake to a mighty change ere a hundred years are done +With arsenals west of the mountain range and every spur its gun. +And many a rickety "son of a gun", on the tides of the future tossed, +Will tell how battles were really won that History says were lost, +Will trace the field with his pipe, and shirk + the facts that are hard to explain, +As grey old mates of the diggings work the old ground over again -- +How "this was our centre, and this a redoubt, + and that was a scrub in the rear, +And this was the point where the guards held out, + and the enemy's lines were here." + + . . . . . + +And fools, when the fiends of war are out and the city skies aflame, +Will have something better to talk about than an absent woman's shame, +Will have something nobler to do by far than jest at a friend's expense, +Or blacken a name in a public bar or over a backyard fence. +And this you learn from the libelled past, + though its methods were somewhat rude -- +A nation's born where the shells fall fast, or its lease of life renewed. +We in part atone for the ghoulish strife, + and the crimes of the peace we boast, +And the better part of a people's life in the storm comes uppermost. + +The self-same spirit that drives the man to the depths of drink and crime +Will do the deeds in the heroes' van that live till the end of time. +The living death in the lonely bush, the greed of the selfish town, +And even the creed of the outlawed push is chivalry -- upside down. +'Twill be while ever our blood is hot, while ever the world goes wrong, +The nations rise in a war, to rot in a peace that lasts too long. +And southern nation and southern state, aroused from their dream of ease, +Must sign in the Book of Eternal Fate their stormy histories. + + + + Middleton's Rouseabout + + +Tall and freckled and sandy, + Face of a country lout; +This was the picture of Andy, + Middleton's Rouseabout. + +Type of a coming nation, + In the land of cattle and sheep, +Worked on Middleton's station, + "Pound a week and his keep." + +On Middleton's wide dominions + Plied the stockwhip and shears; +Hadn't any opinions, + Hadn't any "idears". + +Swiftly the years went over, + Liquor and drought prevailed; +Middleton went as a drover, + After his station had failed. + +Type of a careless nation, + Men who are soon played out, +Middleton was: -- and his station + Was bought by the Rouseabout. + +Flourishing beard and sandy, + Tall and robust and stout; +This is the picture of Andy, + Middleton's Rouseabout. + +Now on his own dominions + Works with his overseers; +Hasn't any opinions, + Hasn't any "idears". + + + + The Vagabond + + +White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier + As we glide to the grand old sea -- +But the song of my heart is for none to hear + If one of them waves for me. +A roving, roaming life is mine, + Ever by field or flood -- +For not far back in my father's line + Was a dash of the Gipsy blood. + +Flax and tussock and fern, + Gum and mulga and sand, +Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn + Ever away from land; +Strange wild cities in ancient state, + Range and river and tree, +Snow and ice. But my star of fate + Is ever across the sea. + +A god-like ride on a thundering sea, + When all but the stars are blind -- +A desperate race from Eternity + With a gale-and-a-half behind. +A jovial spree in the cabin at night, + A song on the rolling deck, +A lark ashore with the ships in sight, + Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck. + +A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day, + When life is a waking dream, +And care and trouble so far away + That out of your life they seem. +A roving spirit in sympathy, + Who has travelled the whole world o'er -- +My heart forgets, in a week at sea, + The trouble of years on shore. + +A rolling stone! -- 'tis a saw for slaves -- + Philosophy false as old -- +Wear out or break 'neath the feet of knaves, + Or rot in your bed of mould! +But I'D rather trust to the darkest skies + And the wildest seas that roar, +Or die, where the stars of Nations rise, + In the stormy clouds of war. + +Cleave to your country, home, and friends, + Die in a sordid strife -- +You can count your friends on your finger ends + In the critical hours of life. +Sacrifice all for the family's sake, + Bow to their selfish rule! +Slave till your big soft heart they break -- + The heart of the family fool. + +Domestic quarrels, and family spite, + And your Native Land may be +Controlled by custom, but, come what might, + The rest of the world for me. +I'd sail with money, or sail without! -- + If your love be forced from home, +And you dare enough, and your heart be stout, + The world is your own to roam. + +I've never a love that can sting my pride, + Nor a friend to prove untrue; +For I leave my love ere the turning tide, + And my friends are all too new. +The curse of the Powers on a peace like ours, + With its greed and its treachery -- +A stranger's hand, and a stranger land, + And the rest of the world for me! + +But why be bitter? The world is cold + To one with a frozen heart; +New friends are often so like the old, + They seem of the past a part -- +As a better part of the past appears, + When enemies, parted long, +Are come together in kinder years, + With their better nature strong. + +I had a friend, ere my first ship sailed, + A friend that I never deserved -- +For the selfish strain in my blood prevailed + As soon as my turn was served. +And the memory haunts my heart with shame -- + Or, rather, the pride that's there; +In different guises, but soul the same, + I meet him everywhere. + +I had a chum. When the times were tight + We starved in Australian scrubs; +We froze together in parks at night, + And laughed together in pubs. +And I often hear a laugh like his + From a sense of humour keen, +And catch a glimpse in a passing phiz + Of his broad, good-humoured grin. + +And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize -- + But I never went back again . . . +I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes + In many a face since then. + + . . . . . + +The sailors say 'twill be rough to-night, + As they fasten the hatches down, +The south is black, and the bar is white, + And the drifting smoke is brown. +The gold has gone from the western haze, + The sea-birds circle and swarm -- +But we shall have plenty of sunny days, + And little enough of storm. + +The hill is hiding the short black pier, + As the last white signal's seen; +The points run in, and the houses veer, + And the great bluff stands between. +So darkness swallows each far white speck + On many a wharf and quay. +The night comes down on a restless deck, -- + Grim cliffs -- and -- The Open Sea! + + + + The Sliprails and the Spur + + +The colours of the setting sun + Withdrew across the Western land -- +He raised the sliprails, one by one, + And shot them home with trembling hand; +Her brown hands clung -- her face grew pale -- + Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim! -- +One quick, fierce kiss across the rail, + And, "Good-bye, Mary!" "Good-bye, Jim!" + ~Oh, he rides hard to race the pain + Who rides from love, who rides from home; + But he rides slowly home again, + Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.~ + +A hand upon the horse's mane, + And one foot in the stirrup set, +And, stooping back to kiss again, + With "Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret! +When I come back" -- he laughed for her -- + "We do not know how soon 'twill be; +I'll whistle as I round the spur -- + You let the sliprails down for me." + +She gasped for sudden loss of hope, + As, with a backward wave to her, +He cantered down the grassy slope + And swiftly round the dark'ning spur. +Black-pencilled panels standing high, + And darkness fading into stars, +And blurring fast against the sky, + A faint white form beside the bars. + +And often at the set of sun, + In winter bleak and summer brown, +She'd steal across the little run, + And shyly let the sliprails down. +And listen there when darkness shut + The nearer spur in silence deep; +And when they called her from the hut + Steal home and cry herself to sleep. + + . . . . . + +~And he rides hard to dull the pain + Who rides from one that loves him best; +And he rides slowly back again, + Whose restless heart must rove for rest.~ + + + + +Arthur Albert Dawson Bayldon. + + + + Sunset + + +The weary wind is slumbering on the wing: +Leaping from out meek twilight's purpling blue +Burns the proud star of eve as though it knew +It was the big king jewel quivering +On the black turban of advancing night. +In the dim west the soldiers of the sun +Strike all their royal colours one by one, +Reluctantly surrender every height. + + + + The Sea + + +Ere Greece soared, showering sovranties of light, +Ere Rome shook earth with her tremendous tread, +Ere yon blue-feasting sun-god burst blood-red, +Beneath thee slept thy prodigy, O Night! +Aeons have ta'en like dreams their strange, slow flight, +And vastest, tiniest, creatures paved her bed, +E'en cities sapped by the usurping spread +Of her imperious waves have sunk from sight +Since she first chanted her colossal psalms +That swell and sink beneath the listening stars; +Oft, as with myriad drums beating to arms, +She thunders out the grandeur of her wars; +Then shifts through moaning moods her wizard charms +Of slow flutes and caressing, gay guitars. + + + + To Poesy + + +These vessels of verse, O Great Goddess, are filled with invisible tears, +With the sobs and sweat of my spirit and her desolate brooding for years; +See, I lay them -- not on thine altar, for they are unpolished and plain, +Not rounded enough by the potter, too much burnt in the furnace of pain; +But here in the dust, in the shadow, with a sudden wild leap of the heart +I kneel to tenderly kiss them, then in silence arise to depart. + +I linger awhile at the portal with the light of the crimsoning sun +On my wreathless brow bearing the badges of battles I've fought in not won. +At the sound of the trumpet I've ever been found in thy thin fighting line, +And the weapons I've secretly sharpened have flashed in defence of thy shrine. +I've recked not of failure and losses, nor shrunk from the soilure of strife +For thy magical glamour was on me and art is the moonlight of life. + +I move from the threshold, Great Goddess, with steps meditative and slow; +Night steals like a dream to the landscape and slips like a pall + o'er its glow. +I carry no lamp in my bosom and dwindling in gloom is the track, +No token of man's recognition to prompt me to ever turn back. +I strike eastward to meet the great day-dawn with the soul of my soul + by my side, +My goal though unknown is assured me, and the planet of Love is my guide. + + + + +Jennings Carmichael. + + + + An Old Bush Road + + +Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken, + Winding thro' the forest green, +Barred with shadow and with sunshine, + Misty vistas drawn between. +Grim, scarred bluegums ranged austerely, + Lifting blackened columns each +To the large, fair fields of azure, + Stretching ever out of reach. + +See the hardy bracken growing + Round the fallen limbs of trees; +And the sharp reeds from the marshes, + Washed across the flooded leas; +And the olive rushes, leaning + All their pointed spears to cast +Slender shadows on the roadway, + While the faint, slow wind creeps past. + +Ancient ruts grown round with grasses, + Soft old hollows filled with rain; +Rough, gnarled roots all twisting queerly, + Dark with many a weather-stain. +Lichens moist upon the fences, + Twiners close against the logs; +Yellow fungus in the thickets, + Vivid mosses in the bogs. + +Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken, + What delights in thee I find! +Subtle charm and tender fancy, + Like a fragrance in the mind. +Thy old ways have set me dreaming, + And out-lived illusions rise, +And the soft leaves of the landscape + Open on my thoughtful eyes. + +See the clump of wattles, standing + Dead and sapless on the rise; +When their boughs were full of beauty, + Even to uncaring eyes, +I was ever first to rifle + The soft branches of their store. +O the golden wealth of blossom + I shall gather there no more! + +Now we reach the dun morasses, + Where the red moss used to grow, +Ruby-bright upon the water, + Floating on the weeds below. +Once the swan and wild-fowl glided + By those sedges, green and tall; +Here the booming bitterns nested; + Here we heard the curlews call. + +Climb this hill and we have rambled + To the last turn of the way; +Here is where the bell-birds tinkled + Fairy chimes for me all day. +These were bells that never wearied, + Swung by ringers on the wing; +List! the elfin strains are waking, + Memory sets the bells a-ring! + +Dear old road, no wonder, surely, + That I love thee like a friend! +And I grieve to think how surely + All thy loveliness will end. +For thy simple charm is passing, + And the turmoil of the street +Soon will mar thy sylvan silence + With the tramp of careless feet. + +And for this I look more fondly + On the sunny landscape, seen +From the road, wheel-worn and broken, + Winding thro' the forest green, +Something still remains of Nature, + Thoughts of other days to bring: -- +For the staunch old trees are standing, + And I hear the wild birds sing! + + + + A Woman's Mood + + +I think to-night I could bear it all, + Even the arrow that cleft the core, -- +Could I wait again for your swift footfall, + And your sunny face coming in at the door. +With the old frank look and the gay young smile, + And the ring of the words you used to say; +I could almost deem the pain worth while, + To greet you again in the olden way! + +But you stand without in the dark and cold, + And I may not open the long closed door, +Nor call thro' the night, with the love of old, -- + "Come into the warmth, as in nights of yore!" +I kneel alone in the red fire-glow, + And hear the wings of the wind sweep by; +You are out afar in the night, I know, + And the sough of the wind is like a cry. + +You are out afar -- and I wait within, + A grave-eyed woman whose pulse is slow; +The flames round the red coals softly spin, + And the lonely room's in a rosy glow. +The firelight falls on your vacant chair, + And the soft brown rug where you used to stand; +Dear, never again shall I see you there, + Nor lift my head for your seeking hand. + +Yet sometimes still, and in spite of all, + I wistful look at the fastened door, +And wait again for the swift footfall, + And the gay young voice as in hours of yore. +It still seems strange to be here alone, + With the rising sob of the wind without; +The sound takes a deep, insisting tone, + Where the trees are swinging their arms about. + +Its moaning reaches the sheltered room, + And thrills my heart with a sense of pain; +I walk to the window, and pierce the gloom, + With a yearning look that is all in vain. +You are out in a night of depths that hold + No promise of dawning for you and me, +And only a ghost from the life of old + Has come from the world of memory! + +You are out evermore! God wills it so! + But ah! my spirit is yearning yet! +As I kneel alone by the red fire-glow, + My eyes grow dim with the old regret. +O when shall the aching throb grow still, + The warm love-life turn cold at the core! +Must I be watching, against my will, + For your banished face in the opening door? + +It may be, dear, when the sequel's told + Of the story, read to its bitter close; +When the inner meanings of life unfold, + And the under-side of our being shows -- +It may be then, in that truer light, + When all our knowledge has larger grown, +I may understand why you stray to-night, + And I am left, with the past, alone. + + + + +Agnes L. Storrie. + + + + Twenty Gallons of Sleep + + +Measure me out from the fathomless tun + That somewhere or other you keep +In your vasty cellars, O wealthy one, + Twenty gallons of sleep. + +Twenty gallons of balmy sleep, + Dreamless, and deep, and mild, +Of the excellent brand you used to keep + When I was a little child. + +I've tasted of all your vaunted stock, + Your clarets and ports of Spain, +The liquid gold of your famous hock, + And your matchless dry champagne. + +Of your rich muscats and your sherries fine, + I've drunk both well and deep, +Then, measure me out, O merchant mine, + Twenty gallons of sleep. + +Twenty gallons of slumber soft + Of the innocent, baby kind, +When the angels flutter their wings aloft + And the pillow with down is lined; + +I have drawn the corks, and drained the lees + Of every vintage pressed, +If I've felt the sting of my honey bees + I've taken it with the rest. + +I have lived my life, and I'll not repine, + As I sowed I was bound to reap; +Then, measure me out, O merchant mine, + Twenty gallons of sleep. + + + + A Confession + + +You did not know, -- how could you, dear, -- +How much you stood for? Life in you +Retained its touch of Eden dew, +And ever through the droughtiest year +My soul could bring her flagon here +And fill it to the brim with clear + Deep draughts of purity: +And time could never quench the flame +Of youth that lit me through your eyes, +And cozened winter from my skies +Through all the years that went and came. +You did not know I used your name +To conjure by, and still the same + I found its potency. +You did not know that, as a phial +May garner close through dust and gloom +The essence of a rich perfume, +Romance was garnered in your smile +And touched my thoughts with beauty, while +The poor world, wise with bitter guile, + Outlived its chivalry. +You did not know -- our lives were laid +So far apart -- that thus I drew +The sunshine of my days from you, +That by your joy my own was weighed +That thus my debts your sweetness paid, +And of my heart's deep silence made + A lovely melody. + + + + +Martha M. Simpson. + + + + To an Old Grammar + + +Oh, mighty conjuror, you raise + The ghost of my lost youth -- +The happy, golden-tinted days +When earth her treasure-trove displays, + And everything is truth. + +Your compeers may be sage and dry, + But in your page appears +A very fairyland, where I +Played 'neath a changeful Irish sky -- + A sky of smiles and tears. + +Dear native land! this little book + Brings back the varied charm +Of emerald hill and flashing brook, +Deep mountain glen and woodland nook, + And homely sheltered farm. + +I see the hayrick where I sat + In golden autumn days, +And conned thy page, and wondered what +Could be the use, excepting that + It gained the master's praise. + +I conjugate thy verbs again + Beside the winter's fire, +And, as the solemn clock strikes ten, +I lay thee on the shelf, and then + To dreams of thee retire. + +Thy Saxon roots reveal to me + A silent, empty school, +And one poor prisoner who could see, +As if to increase her misery, + Her mates released from rule, + +Rushing to catch the rounder ball, + Or circling in the ring. +Those merry groups! I see them all, +And even now I can recall + The songs they used to sing. + +Thy syntax conjures forth a morn + Of spring, when blossoms rare +Conspired the solemn earth to adorn, +And spread themselves on bank and thorn, + And perfumed all the air. + +The dewdrops lent their aid and threw + Their gems with lavish hand +On every flower of brilliant hue, +On every blade of grass that grew + In that enchanted land. + +The lark her warbling music lent, + To give an added charm, +And sleek-haired kine, in deep content, +Forth from their milking slowly went + Towards the homestead farm. + +And here thy page on logic shows + A troop of merry girls, +A meadow smooth where clover grows, +And lanes where scented hawthorn blows, + And woodbine twines and curls. + +And, turning o'er thy leaves, I find + Of many a friend the trace; +Forgotten scenes rush to my mind, +And some whom memory left behind + Now stare me in the face. + + . . . . . + +Ah, happy days! when hope was high, + And faith was calm and deep! +When all was real and God was nigh, +And heaven was "just beyond the sky", + And angels watched my sleep. + +Your dreams are gone, and here instead + Fair science reigns alone, +And, when I come to her for bread, +She smiles and bows her stately head + And offers me -- a stone. + + + + +William Gay. + + + + Primroses + + +They shine upon my table there, + A constellation mimic sweet, +No stars in Heaven could shine more fair, + Nor Earth has beauty more complete; +And on my table there they shine, +And speak to me of things Divine. + +In Heaven at first they grew, and when + God could no fairer make them, He +Did plant them by the ways of men + For all the pure in heart to see, +That each might shine upon its stem +And be a light from Him to them. + +They speak of things above my verse, + Of thoughts no earthly language knows, +That loftiest Bard could ne'er rehearse, + Nor holiest prophet e'er disclose, +Which God Himself no other way +Than by a Primrose could convey. + + + + To M. + + (With some Verses) + + +If in the summer of thy bright regard + For one brief season these poor Rhymes shall live +I ask no more, nor think my fate too hard + If other eyes but wintry looks should give; +Nor will I grieve though what I here have writ + O'erburdened Time should drop among the ways, +And to the unremembering dust commit + Beyond the praise and blame of other days: +The song doth pass, but I who sing, remain, + I pluck from Death's own heart a life more deep, +And as the Spring, that dies not, in her train + Doth scatter blossoms for the winds to reap, +So I, immortal, as I fare along, +Will strew my path with mortal flowers of song. + + + + Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum + + +O steep and rugged Life, whose harsh ascent + Slopes blindly upward through the bitter night! + They say that on thy summit, high in light, +Sweet rest awaits the climber, travel-spent; +But I, alas, with dusty garments rent, + With fainting heart and failing limbs and sight, + Can see no glimmer of the shining height, +And vainly list, with body forward bent, +To catch athwart the gloom one wandering note + Of those glad anthems which (they say) are sung + When one emerges from the mists below: +But though, O Life, thy summit be remote + And all thy stony path with darkness hung, + Yet ever upward through the night I go. + + + + +Edward Dyson. + + + + The Old Whim Horse + + +He's an old grey horse, with his head bowed sadly, + And with dim old eyes and a queer roll aft, +With the off-fore sprung and the hind screwed badly, + And he bears all over the brands of graft; +And he lifts his head from the grass to wonder + Why by night and day the whim is still, +Why the silence is, and the stampers' thunder + Sounds forth no more from the shattered mill. + +In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowed + On the riven summit of Giant's Hand, +And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowed + All the wide, long sweep of enchanted land; +And he knew his shift, and the whistle's warning, + And he knew the calls of the boys below; +Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning, + He had taken his stand by the old whim bow. + +But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallow + In the silent shaft hangs her home of clay, +And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes follow + O'er the grass-grown brace in the summer day; +And the corn springs high in the cracks and corners + Of the forge, and down where the timber lies; +And the crows are perched like a band of mourners + On the broken hut on the Hermit's Rise. + +All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out, + And the company waits till the calls come in; +But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out, + And no market's near for his bones and skin. +So they let him live, and they left him grazing + By the creek, and oft in the evening dim +I have seen him stand on the rises, gazing + At the ruined brace and the rotting whim. + +The floods rush high in the gully under, + And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees, +Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder + As the fires drive by on the summer breeze. +Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders + To the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb, +And with hanging head by the bow he ponders + Where the whim boy's gone -- why the shifts don't come. + +But there comes a night when he sees lights glowing + In the roofless huts and the ravaged mill, +When he hears again all the stampers going -- + Though the huts are dark and the stampers still: +When he sees the steam to the black roof clinging + As its shadows roll on the silver sands, +And he knows the voice of his driver singing, + And the knocker's clang where the braceman stands. + +See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming, + On the ring once more his accustomed place; +But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming + Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace. +Yet HE hears the sled in the smithy falling, + And the empty truck as it rattles back, +And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling; + And he turns and backs, and he "takes up slack". + +While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver + As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close, +And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver + In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes; +And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder, + Hears again the voice that was dear to him, +Sees the form he knew -- and his heart grows bolder + As he works his shift by the broken whim. + +He hears in the sluices the water rushing + As the buckets drain and the doors fall back; +When the early dawn in the east is blushing, + He is limping still round the old, old track. +Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replying + To a call unspoken, with eyes aglow, +And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying; + From the ring no more will the grey horse go. + +In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming, + And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim, +And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreaming + On the timbers grey and a charred hut frame, +Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squatting + In the high rank grass by the dried-up course, +Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rotting + Are the bleaching bones of the old grey horse. + + + + +Dowell O'Reilly. + + + + The Sea-Maiden + + +Like summer waves on sands of snow, +Soft ringlets clasp her neck and brow, +And wandering breezes kiss away +A threaded light of glimmering spray, +That drifts and floats and softly flies +In a golden mist about her eyes. +Her laugh is fresh as foam that springs +Through tumbling shells and shining things, +And where the gleaming margin dries +Is heard the music of her sighs. +Her gentle bosom ebbs and swells +With the tide of life that deeply wells +From a throbbing heart that loves to break +In the tempest of love for love's sweet sake. +O, the fragrance of earth, and the song of the sea, +And the light of the heavens, are only three +Of the thousand glories that Love can trace, +In her life, and her soul, and her beautiful face. + + . . . . . + +This tangled weed of poesy, +Torn from the heart of a stormy sea, +I fling upon the love divine +Of her, who fills this heart of mine. + + + + +David MacDonald Ross. + + + + Love's Treasure House + + +I went to Love's old treasure house last night, +Alone, when all the world was still -- asleep, +And saw the miser Memory, grown gray +With years of jealous counting of his gems, +There seated. Keen was his eye, his hand +Firm as when first his hoarding he began +Of precious things of Love, long years ago. +"And this," he said, "is gold from out her hair, +And this the moonlight that she wandered in, +With here a rose, enamelled by her breath, +That bloomed in glory 'tween her breasts, and here +The brimming sun-cup that she quaffed at noon, +And here the star that cheered her in the night; +In this great chest, see curiously wrought, +Are purest of Love's gems." A ruby key, +Enclasped upon a golden ring, he took, +With care, from out some secret hiding-place, +And delicately touched the lock, whereat +I staggered, blinded by the light of things +More luminous than stars, and questioned thus -- +"What are these treasures, miser Memory?" +And slowly bending his gray head, he spoke: +"These are the multitudes of kisses sweet +Love gave so gladly, and I treasure here." + + + + The Sea to the Shell + + +The sea, my mother, is singing to me, + She is singing the old refrain, +Of passion, of love, and of mystery, + And her world-old song of pain; +Of the mirk midnight and the dazzling day, +That trail their robes o'er the wet sea-way. + +The sea, my mother, is singing to me + With the white foam caught in her hair, +With the seaweed swinging its long arms free, + To grapple the blown sea air: +The sea, my mother, with billowy swell, +Is telling her tale to the wave-washed shell. + +The sea, my mother, is singing to me, + With the starry gleam in her wave, +A dirge of the dead, of the sad, sad sea, + A requiem song of the brave; +Tenderly, sadly, the surges tell +Their tale of death to the wave-washed shell. + +The sea, my mother, confides to me, + As she turns to the soft, round moon, +The secrets that lie where the spirits be, + That hide from the garish noon: +The sea, my mother, who loves me well, +Is telling their woe to the wave-washed shell. + +O mother o' mine, with the foam-flecked hair, + O mother, I love and know +The heart that is sad and the soul that is bare + To your daughter of ebb and flow; +And I hold your whispers of Heaven and Hell +In the loving heart of a wave-washed shell. + + + + The Silent Tide + + +I heard Old Ocean raise her voice and cry, + In that still hour between the night and day; + I saw the answering tides, green robed and gray, +Turn to her with a low contented sigh; +Marching with silent feet they passed me by, + For the white moon had taught them to obey, + And scarce a wavelet broke in fretful spray, +As they went forth to kiss the stooping sky. + +So, to my heart, when the last sunray sleeps, + And the wan night, impatient for the moon, +Throws her gray mantle over land and sea, +There comes a call from out Life's nether deeps, + And tides, like some old ocean in a swoon, +Flow out, in soundless majesty, to thee. + + + + The Watch on Deck + + +Becalmed upon the equatorial seas, + A ship of gold lay on a sea of fire; + Each sail and rope and spar, as in desire, +Mutely besought the kisses of a breeze; +Low laughter told the mariners at ease; + Sweet sea-songs hymned the red sun's fun'ral pyre: + Yet One, with eyes that never seemed to tire, +Watched for the storm, nursed on the thunder's knees. + +Thou watcher of the spirit's inner keep, +Scanning Death's lone, illimitable deep, + Spread outward to the far immortal shore! +While the vault sleeps, from the upheaving deck, +Thou see'st the adamantine reefs that wreck, + And Life's low shoals, where lusting billows roar. + + + + Autumn + + +When, with low moanings on the distant shore, + Like vain regrets, the ocean-tide is rolled: + When, thro' bare boughs, the tale of death is told +By breezes sighing, "Summer days are o'er"; +When all the days we loved -- the days of yore -- + Lie in their vaults, dead Kings who ruled of old -- + Unrobed and sceptreless, uncrowned with gold, +Conquered, and to be crowned, ah! never more. + +If o'er the bare fields, cold and whitening + With the first snow-flakes, I should see thy form, +And meet and kiss thee, that were enough of Spring; + Enough of sunshine, could I feel the warm +Glad beating of thy heart 'neath Winter's wing, + Tho' Earth were full of whirlwind and of storm. + + + + +Mary Gilmore. + + + + A Little Ghost + + +The moonlight flutters from the sky + To meet her at the door, +A little ghost, whose steps have passed + Across the creaking floor. + +And rustling vines that lightly tap + Against the window-pane, +Throw shadows on the white-washed walls + To blot them out again. + +The moonlight leads her as she goes + Across a narrow plain, +By all the old, familiar ways + That know her steps again. + +And through the scrub it leads her on + And brings her to the creek, +But by the broken dam she stops + And seems as she would speak. + +She moves her lips, but not a sound + Ripples the silent air; +She wrings her little hands, ah, me! + The sadness of despair! + +While overhead the black-duck's wing + Cuts like a flash upon +The startled air, that scarcely shrinks + Ere he afar is gone. + +And curlews wake, and wailing cry + Cur-lew! cur-lew! cur-lew! +Till all the Bush, with nameless dread + Is pulsing through and through. + +The moonlight leads her back again + And leaves her at the door, +A little ghost whose steps have passed + Across the creaking floor. + + + + Good-Night + + +Good-night! . . . my darling sleeps so sound +She cannot hear me where she lies; +White lilies watch the closed eyes, +Red roses guard the folded hands. + +Good-night! O woman who once lay +Upon my breast, so still, so sweet +That all my pulses, throbbing, beat +And flamed -- I cannot touch you now. + +Good-night, my own! God knows we loved +So well, that all things else seemed slight -- +We part forever in the night, +We two poor souls who loved so well. + + + + +Bernard O'Dowd. + + + + Love's Substitute + + +This love, that dares not warm before its flame + Our yearning hands, or from its tempting tree +Yield fruit we may consume, or let us claim + In Hymen's scroll of happy heraldry + The twining glyphs of perfect you and me -- +May kindle social fires whence curls no blame, + Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be, +And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame. + +For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waits + For such as you to cherish it to Youth: + Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verve +That Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates: + And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuth + The perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!" + + + + Our Duty + + +Yet what were Love if man remains unfree, + And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise: +If children's Hope is blasted ere they see + Its shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise: + If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and Lies +Enthroned as Law befoul posterity, + And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguise +Insults the face of God where'er men be? + +Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not love + Our stricken brothers so, as to resign + For Its own sake, the foison of Its dower: +That, so, we two may help them mount above + These layers of charnel air in which they pine, + To seek with us the Presence and the Power? + + + + +Edwin James Brady. + + + + The Wardens of the Seas + + +Like star points in the ether to guide a homing soul +Towards God's Eternal Haven; above the wash and roll, +Across and o'er the oceans, on all the coasts they stand +Tall seneschals of commerce, High Wardens of the Strand -- + The white lights slowly turning + Their kind eyes far and wide, + The red and green lights burning + Along the waterside. + +When Night with breath of aloes, magnolia, spice, and balm +Creeps down the darkened jungles and mantles reef and palm, +By velvet waters making soft music as they surge +The shore lights of dark Asia will one by one emerge -- + Oh, Ras Marshig by Aden + Shows dull on hazy nights; + And Bombay Channel's laid in + Its "In" and "Outer" lights. + +When Night, in rain-wet garments comes sobbing cold and grey +Across the German Ocean and South from Stornoway, +Thro' snarling darkness slowly, some fixed and some a-turn, +The bright shore-lights of Europe like welcome tapers burn, -- + From fierce Fruholmen streaming + O'er Northern ice and snow, + To Cape St. Vincent gleaming, -- + These lamps of danger glow. + +The dark Etruscan tending his watchfires by the shore, +On sacred altars burning, the world shall know no more; +His temple's column standing against the ancient stars +Is gone; Now bright catoptrics flash out electric bars, -- + Slow swung his stately Argos + Unto the Tiber's mouth; + But now the Tuscan cargoes + Screw-driven, stagger South. + +The lantern of Genoa guides home no Eastern fleets +As when the boy Columbus played in its narrow streets: +No more the Keltic `dolmens' their fitful warnings throw +Across the lone Atlantic, so long, so long ago -- + No more the beaked prows dashing + Shall dare a shoreward foam; + No more will great oars threshing + Sweep Dorian galleys home. + +No more the Vikings roaring their sagas wild and weird +Proclaim that Rome has fallen; no more a consul feared +Shall quench the Roman pharos lest Northern pirates free +Be pointed to their plunder on coasts of Italy -- + Nor shall unwilling lovers, + From Lethean pleasures torn, + Fare nor'ward with those rovers, + To frozen lands forlorn. + +The bale-fires and the watch-fires, the wrecker's foul false lure +No more shall vex the shipmen; and on their course secure +Past Pharos in the starlight the tow'ring hulls of Trade +Race in and out from Suez in iron cavalcade, -- + So rode one sunset olden + Across the dark'ning sea, + With banners silk and golden, + The Barge of Antony! + +They loom along the foreshores; they gleam across the Straits; +They guide the feet of Commerce unto the harbor gates. +In nights of storm and thunder, thro' fog and sleet and rain, +Like stars on angels' foreheads, they give man heart again, -- + Oh, hear the high waves smashing + On Patagonia's shore! + Oh, hear the black waves threshing + Their weight on Skerryvore! + +He searches night's grim chances upon his bridge alone +And seeks the distant glimmer of hopeful Eddystone: +And thro' a thick fog creeping, with chart and book and lead, +The homeward skipper follows their green and white and red -- + By day his lighthouse wardens + In sunlit quiet stand, + But in the night the burdens + Are theirs of Sea and Land. + +They fill that night with Knowledge. A thousand ships go by, +A thousand captains bless them, so bright and proud and high: +The world's dark capes they glamour; or low on sand banks dread, +They, crouching, mark a pathway between the Quick and Dead -- + Like star points in the ether + They bring the seamen ease, + These Lords of Wind and Weather + These Wardens of the Seas! + + + + +Will. H. Ogilvie. + + + + Queensland Opal + + +Opal, little opal, with the red fire glancing, + Set my blood a-spinning, set my pulse a-stir, +Strike the harp of memory, set my dull heart dancing + Southward to the Sunny Land and the love of Her! + +Opal, shining opal, let them call you luckless jewel, + Let them curse or let them covet, you are still my heart's desire, +You that robbed the sun and moon and green earth for fuel + To gather to your milky breast and fill your veins with fire! + +Green of fluttering gum-leaves above dim water-courses, + Red of rolling dust-clouds, blue of summer skies, +Flash of flints afire beneath the hoofs of racing horses, + Sunlight and moonlight and light of lovers' eyes + +Pink clasping hands amid a Southern summer gloaming, + Green of August grasses, white of dew-sprung pearls, +Grey of winging wild geese into the Sunset homing, + Twined with all the kisses of a Queen of Queensland girls! + + + + Wind o' the Autumn + + +I love you, wind o' the Autumn, that came from I know not where, +To lead me out of the toiling world to a ballroom fresh and fair, +Where the poplars tall and golden and the beeches rosy and red +Are setting to woodland partners and dancing the stars to bed! + +Oh! say, wild wind o' the Autumn, may I dance this dance with you +Decked out in your gown of moonmist and jewelled with drops of dew? +For I know no waiting lover with arms that so softly twine, +And I know no dancing partner whose step is so made for mine! + + + + Daffodils + + +Ho! You there, selling daffodils along the windy street, +Poor drooping, dusty daffodils -- but oh! so Summer sweet! +Green stems that stab with loveliness, rich petal-cups to hold +The wine of Spring to lips that cling like bees about their gold! + +What price to you for daffodils? I'll give what price you please, +For light and love and memory lie leaf by leaf with these! +And if I bought all Sydney Town I could not hope to buy +The wealth you bring of everything that goes with open sky! + +My money for your daffodils: why do you thank me so? +If I have paid a reckless price, take up my gift and go, +And from the golden garden beds where gold the sunbeams shine +Bring in more flowers to light the hours for lover-hearts like mine! + + + + A Queen of Yore + + +Slowly she hobbles past the town, grown old at heart and gray; +With misty eyes she stumbles down along the well-known way; +She sees her maiden march unrolled by billabong and bend, +And every gum's a comrade old and every oak's a friend; +But gone the smiling faces that welcomed her of yore -- +They crowd her tented places and hold her hand no more. +And she, the friend they once could trust to serve their eager wish, +Shall show no more the golden dust that hides in many a dish; +And through the dismal mullock-heaps she threads her mournful way +Where here and there some gray-beard keeps his windlass-watch to-day; +Half-flood no more she looses her reins as once of old +To wash the busy sluices and whisper through the gold. +She sees no wild-eyed steers above stand spear-horned on the brink; +The brumby mobs she used to love come down no more to drink; +Where green the grasses used to twine above them, shoulder-deep, +Through the red dust -- a long, slow line -- crawl in the starving sheep; +She sees no crossing cattle that Western drovers bring, +No swimming steeds that battle to block them when they ring. + +She sees no barricaded roofs, no loop-holed station wall, +No foaming steed with flying hoofs to bring the word "Ben Hall!" +She sees no reckless robbers stoop behind their ambush stone, +No coach-and-four, no escort troop; -- but, very lorn and lone, +Watches the sunsets redden along the mountain side +Where round the spurs of Weddin the wraiths of Weddin ride. + +Tho' fettered with her earthen bars and chained with bridge and weir +She goes her own way with the stars; she knows the course to steer! +And when her thousand rocky rills foam, angry, to her feet, +Rain-heavy from the Cowra hills she takes her vengeance sweet, +And leaps with roar of thunder, and buries bridge and ford, +That all the world may wonder when the Lachlan bares her sword! + +Gray River! let me take your hand for all your memories old -- +Your cattle-kings, your outlaw-band, your wealth of virgin gold; +For once you held, and hold it now, the sceptre of a queen, +And still upon your furrowed brow the royal wreaths are green; +Hold wide your arms, the waters! Lay bare your silver breast +To nurse the sons and daughters that spread your empire west! + + + + Drought + + +My road is fenced with the bleached, white bones + And strewn with the blind, white sand, +Beside me a suffering, dumb world moans + On the breast of a lonely land. + +On the rim of the world the lightnings play, + The heat-waves quiver and dance, +And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay + And the sunbeams each a lance. + +I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread, + I have whitened the sapless trees, +I have driven the faint-heart rains ahead + To hide in their soft green seas. + +I have bound the plains with an iron band, + I have stricken the slow streams dumb! +To the charge of my vanguards who shall stand? + Who stay when my cohorts come? + +The dust-storms follow and wrap me round; + The hot winds ride as a guard; +Before me the fret of the swamps is bound + And the way of the wild-fowl barred. + +I drop the whips on the loose-flanked steers; + I burn their necks with the bow; +And the green-hide rips and the iron sears + Where the staggering, lean beasts go. + +I lure the swagman out of the road + To the gleam of a phantom lake; +I have laid him down, I have taken his load, + And he sleeps till the dead men wake. + +My hurrying hoofs in the night go by, + And the great flocks bleat their fear +And follow the curve of the creeks burnt dry + And the plains scorched brown and sere. + +The worn men start from their sleepless rest + With faces haggard and drawn; +They cursed the red Sun into the west + And they curse him out of the dawn. + +They have carried their outposts far, far out, + But -- blade of my sword for a sign! -- +I am the Master, the dread King Drought, + And the great West Land is mine! + + + + The Shadow on the Blind + + +Last night I walked among the lamps that gleamed, + And saw a shadow on a window blind, +A moving shadow; and the picture seemed + To call some scene to mind. + +I looked again; a dark form to and fro + Swayed softly as to music full of rest, +Bent low, bent lower: -- Still I did not know. + And then, at last, I guessed. + +And through the night came all old memories flocking, + White memories like the snowflakes round me whirled. +"All's well!" I said; "The mothers still sit rocking + The cradles of the world!" + + + + +Roderic Quinn. + + + + The House of the Commonwealth + + +We sent a word across the seas that said, + "The house is finished and the doors are wide, + Come, enter in. +A stately house it is, with tables spread, + Where men in liberty and love abide + With hearts akin. + +"Behold, how high our hands have lifted it! + The soil it stands upon is pure and sweet + As are our skies. +Our title deeds in holy sweat are writ, + Not red accusing blood -- and 'neath our feet + No foeman lies." + +And England, Mother England, leans her face + Upon her hand and feels her blood burn young + At what she sees: +The image here of that fair strength and grace + That made her feared and loved and sought and sung + Through centuries. + +What chorus shall we lift, what song of joy, +What boom of seaward cannon, roll of drums? +The majesty of nationhood demands +A burst of royal sounds, as when a victor comes +From peril of a thousand foes; +An empire's honour saved from death +Brought home again; an added rose +Of victory upon its wreath. +In this wise men have greeted kings, +In name or fame, +But such acclaim +Were vain and emptiest of things +If love were silent, drawn apart, +And mute the People's mighty heart. + +The love that ivy-like an ancient land doth cherish, +It grows not in a day, nor in a year doth perish. + But, little leaf by leaf, +It creeps along the walls and wreathes the ramparts hoary. +The sun that gives it strength -- it is a nation's glory; + The dew, a people's grief. + +The love that ivy-like around a home-land lingers, +With soft embrace of breast and green, caressive fingers, + We are too young to know. +Not ours the glory-dome, the monuments and arches +At thought of which takes arms the blood, and proudly marches + Exultant o'er the foe. + +Green lands undesolated +For no avengement cry; +No feud of race unsated +Leaps out again to triumph, +Leaps out again to triumph, or to die! + +Attendant here to-day in heart and mind +Must be all lovers of mankind, +Attendant, too, the souls sublime -- +The Prophet-souls of every clime, +Who, living, in a tyrant's time, +Yet thought and wrought and sought to break +The chains about mankind and make +A man where men had made a slave: +Who all intent to lift and save +Beheld the flag of Freedom wave +And scorned the prison or the grave; +For whom the darkness failed to mar +The vision of a world afar, +The shining of the Morning Star. +Attendant here, then, they must be, +And gathering close with eyes elate +Behold the vision of a State +Where men are equal, just, and free: +A State that hath no stain upon her, +No taint to hurt her maiden honour; +A Home where love and kindness centre; +A People's House where all may enter. +And, being entered, meet no dearth +Of welcome round a common hearth; +A People's House not built of stone, +Nor wrought by hand and brain alone, +But formed and founded on the heart; +A People's House, A People's Home, +En-isled in foam and far apart; +A People's House, where all may roam +The many rooms and be at ease; +A People's House, with tower and dome; +And over all a People's Flag -- +A Flag upon the breeze. + + + + The Lotus-Flower + + +All the heights of the high shores gleam + Red and gold at the sunset hour: +There comes the spell of a magic dream, + And the Harbour seems a lotus-flower; + +A blue flower tinted at dawn with gold, + A broad flower blazing with light at noon, +A flower forever with charms to hold + His heart, who sees it by sun or moon. + +Its beauty burns like a ceaseless fire, + And tower looks over the top of tower; +For all mute things it would seem, aspire + To catch a glimpse of the lotus-flower. + +Men meet its beauty with furrowed face, + And straight the furrows are smoothed away; +They buy and sell in the market-place, + And languor leadens their blood all day. + +At night they look on the flower, and lo! + The City passes with all its cares: +They dream no more in its azure glow, + Of gold and silver and stocks and shares. + +The Lotus dreams 'neath the dreaming skies, + Its beauty touching with spell divine +The grey old town, till the old town lies + Like one half-drunk with a magic wine. + +Star-loved, it breathes at the midnight hour + A sense of peace from its velvet mouth. +Though flowers be fair -- is there any flower + Like this blue flower of the radiant South? + +Sun-loved and lit by the moon it yields + A challenge-glory or glow serene, +And men bethink them of jewelled shields, + A turquoise lighting a ground of green. + +Fond lovers pacing beside it see + Not death and darkness, but life and light, +And dream no dream of the witchery + The Lotus sheds on the silent night. + +Pale watchers weary of watching stars + That fall, and fall, and forever fall, +Tear-worn and troubled with many scars, + They seek the Lotus and end life's thrall. + +The spirit spelled by the Lotus swoons, + Its beauty summons the artist mood; +And thus, perchance, in a thousand moons + Its spell shall work in our waiting blood. + +Then souls shall shine with an old-time grace, + And sense be wrapped in a golden trance, +And art be crowned in the market-place + With Love and Beauty and fair Romance. + + + + +David McKee Wright. + + + + An Old Colonist's Reverie + + +Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn, +Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn; +It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang, +The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang +When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea -- +"The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free." + +The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away, +All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay -- +I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again; +But the good new days are better -- I would not be heard to complain; +It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me +Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea. + +Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid, +Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade, +And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie, +With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky. + +And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know, +Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow; +All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea, +But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me. + +There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking + in bloom +I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom. +Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May, +But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey; +While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted + haze of the sea, +To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free. + +The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom, +The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom +Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue, +Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life + running through; +And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me +Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be. + + + + +Christopher John Brennan. + + + + Romance + + +Of old, on her terrace at evening +...not here...in some long-gone kingdom +O, folded close to her breast!... + +--our gaze dwelt wide on the blackness +(was it trees? or a shadowy passion +the pain of an old-world longing +that it sobb'd, that it swell'd, that it shrank?) +--the gloom of the forest +blurr'd soft on the skirt of the night-skies +that shut in our lonely world. + +...not here...in some long-gone world... + +close-lock'd in that passionate arm-clasp +no word did we utter, we stirr'd not: +the silence of Death, or of Love... +only, round and over us +that tearless infinite yearning +and the Night with her spread wings rustling +folding us with the stars. + +...not here...in some long-gone kingdom +of old, on her terrace at evening +O, folded close to her heart!... + + + + Poppies + + +Where the poppy-banners flow + in and out amongst the corn, + spotless morn +ever saw us come and go + +hand in hand, as girl and boy + warming fast to youth and maid, + half afraid +at the hint of passionate joy + +still in Summer's rose unshown: + yet we heard nor knew a fear; + strong and clear +summer's eager clarion blown + +from the sunrise to the set: + now our feet are far away, + night and day, +do the old-known spots forget? + +Sweet, I wonder if those hours + breathe of us now parted thence, + if a sense +of our love-birth thrill their flowers. + +Poppies flush all tremulous -- + has our love grown into them, + root and stem; +are the red blooms red with us? + +Summer's standards are outroll'd, + other lovers wander slow; + I would know +if the morn is that of old. + +Here our days bloom fuller yet, + happiness is all our task; + still I ask -- +do the vanish'd days forget? + + + + +John Le Gay Brereton. + + + + The Sea Maid + + +In what pearl-paven mossy cave +By what green sea +Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave, +In realms more full of splendid mystery +Than that strong northern flood whence came +The rise and fall of music in thy name -- +Thy waiting name, Oithona! + +The magic of the sea's own change +In depth and height, +From where the eternal order'd billows range +To unknown regions of sleep-weary night, +Fills, like a wonder-waking spell +Whispered by lips of some lone-murmuring shell, +Thy dreaming soul, Oithona. + +In gladness of thy reverie +What gracious form +Will fly the errand of our love to thee, +By ways with winged messengers aswarm +Through dawn of opalescent skies, +To say the time is come and bid thee rise +And be our child, Oithona? + + + + Home + + +"Where shall we dwell?" say you. + Wandering winds reply: +"In a temple with roof of blue + -- Under the splendid sky." + +Never a nobler home + We'll find though an age we try +Than is arched by the azure dome + Of the all-enfolding sky. + +Here we are wed, and here + We live under God's own eye. +"Where shall we dwell," my dear? + Under the splendid sky. + + + + Wilfred + + + What of these tender feet + That have never toddled yet? + What dances shall they beat, + With what red vintage wet? +In what wild way will they march or stray, by what sly paynims met? + + The toil of it none may share; + By yourself must the way be won + Through fervid or frozen air + Till the overland journey's done; +And I would not take, for your own dear sake, one thorn from your track, + my son. + + Go forth to your hill and dale, + Yet take in your hand from me + A staff when your footsteps fail, + A weapon if need there be; +'Twill hum in your ear when the foeman's near, athirst for the victory. + + In the desert of dusty death + It will point to the hidden spring; + Should you weary and fail for breath, + It will burgeon and branch and swing +Till you sink to sleep in its shadow deep to the sound of its murmuring. + + . . . . . + + You must face the general foe -- + A phantom pale and grim. + If you flinch at his glare, he'll grow + And gather your strength to him; +But your power will rise if you laugh in his eyes and away in a mist + he'll swim. + + To your freeborn soul be true -- + Fling parchment in the fire; + Men's laws are null for you, + For a word of Love is higher, +And can you do aught, when He rules your thought, but follow your own desire? + + You will dread no pinching dearth + In the home where you love to lie, + For your floor will be good brown earth + And your roof the open sky. +There'll be room for all at your festival when the heart-red wine runs high. + + . . . . . + + Joy to you, joy and strife + And a golden East before, + And the sound of the sea of life + In your ears when you reach the shore, +And a hope that still with as good a will you may fight as you fought of yore. + + + + +Arthur H. Adams. + + + + Bayswater, W. + + +About me leagues of houses lie, +Above me, grim and straight and high, +They climb; the terraces lean up +Like long grey reefs against the sky. + +Packed tier on tier the people dwell; +Each narrow, hollow wall is full; +And in that hive of honeycomb, +Remote and high, I have one cell. + +And when I turn into my street +I hear in murmurous retreat +A tide of noises flowing out -- +The city ebbing from my feet! + +And lo! two long straight walls between, +There dwells a little park serene, +Where blackened trees and railings hem +A little handkerchief of green! + +Yet I can see across the roof +The sun, the stars and . . . God! For proof -- +Between the twisting chimney-pots +A pointing finger, old, aloof! + +The traffic that the city rends +Within my quiet haven ends +In a deep murmur, or across +My pool a gentle ripple sends. + +A chime upon the silence drab +Paints music; hooting motors stab +The pleasant peace; and, far and faint, +The jangling lyric of the cab! + +And when I wander, proud and free, +Through my domain, unceasingly +The endless pageant of the shops +Marches along the street with me. + +About me ever blossoming +Like rich parterres the hoardings fling +An opulence of hue, and make +Within my garden endless Spring. + +The droning tram-cars spitting light: +And like great bees in drunken flight +Burly and laden deep with bloom, +The 'busses lumbering home at night! + +Sometimes an afternoon will fling +New meaning on each sombre thing, +And low upon the level roofs +The sultry sun lies smouldering. + +Sometimes the fog -- that faery girl -- +Her veil of wonder will unfurl, +And crescent gaunt and looming flat +Are sudden mysteries of pearl! + +New miracles the wet streets show; +On stems of flame the gas-lamps glow. +I walk upon the wave and see +Another London drowned below! + +And when night comes strange jewels strew +The winding streets I wander through: +Like pearls upon a woman's throat +The street-lamps' swerving avenue! + +In every face that passes mine +Unfathomed epics I divine: +Each figure on the pavement is +A vial of untasted wine! + +Through lands enchanted wandering, +To all a splendour seems to cling. +Lo! from a window-beacon high +Hope still the Night is questioning! + +And so, ere sleep, I lie and mark +Romance's stealthy footsteps. Hark! +The rhythm of the horse's hoof +Bears some new drama through the dark! + +So in this tall and narrow street +I lie as in Death's lone retreat +And hear, loud in the pulse of Life, +Eternity upon me beat! + + + + Bond Street + + +Its glittering emptiness it brings -- +This little lane of useless things. +Here peering envy arm in arm +With ennui takes her saunterings. + +Here fretful boredom, to appease +The nagging of her long disease, +Comes day by day to dabble in +This foamy sea of fripperies. + +The languid women driven through +Their wearied lives, and in their view, +Patient about the bakers' shops, +The languid children, two and two! + +The champing horses standing still, +Whose veins with life's impatience thrill; +And -- dead beside the carriage door -- +The footman, masked and immobile! + +And bloated pugs -- those epicures +Of darkened boudoirs . . . and of sewers -- +Lolling high on their cushioned thrones +Blink feebly on their dainty wooers! + +And in the blossoming window-shows +Each month another summer glows; +They pay the price of human souls +To rear one rich and sickly rose. + +And a suave carven god of jade, +By some enthralled old Asian made, +With that thin scorn still on his lips, +Waits, in a window-front displayed: + +The hurrying, streaming crowds he sees. +With the same smile he watches these +As from his temple-dusk he saw +The passing of the centuries! + + + + +Ethel Turner. + + + + A Trembling Star + + +"There is my little trembling star," she said. + I looked; once more +The tender sea had put the sun to bed, + And heaven's floor + Was grey. + +And nowhere yet in all that young night sky + Was any star, +But one that hung above the sea. Not high, + Nor very far + Away. + +"I watch it every night," she said, and crept + Within my arm. +"Soft little star, I wish the angels kept + It safe from harm + Alway. + +"I know it is afraid," she said; her eyes + Held a sweet tear. +"They send it all alone into the skies, + No big stars near, + To stay. + +"They push it out before the sweet, kind moon + Lights up the sea. +They laugh because it fears the dark. `Soon, soon, + You'll braver be,' + They say. + +"One night I climbed far up that high white tree + Beside the beach, +And tried to stretch my hand across the sea + And tried to reach + The grey. + +"For something made me feel my heart would break + Unless that night +I in my hand my trembling star could take + And kiss its fright + Away. + +"There only blew a strange wind chillily, + And clouds were swept. +The angels would not let my own star see + That someone wept. + I pray + +"To Christ, who hears my little prayers each night, + That He will seek +Through all His skies for that sweet, frightened light, + And stoop His cheek + And say + +"`My angels must not send so frail a thing + To light the West. +Lift up the little trembling star to cling + About my breast + Alway.'" + + + + `Oh, if that Rainbow up there!' + + +Oh, if that rainbow up there, +Spanning the sky past the hill, +Slenderly, tenderly fair +Shining with colours that thrill, +Oh, if that rainbow up there, +Just for a moment could reach +Through the wet slope of the air +Here where I stand on the beach! + +Here where the waves wash the strand, +Swing itself lovingly low, +Let me catch fast with one hand, +Climb its frail rigging and go. +Climb its frail rigging and go? +Where is its haven of rest? +Out in the gleam and the glow +Of the blood-red waves of the West? + +Or where the isles of the dawn +Lie on an amethyst sea, +Does it drift, pale and forlorn, +Ghost of the glory I see? +Is there, ah, is there a land +Such as the Icelanders say, +Or past the West's ruddy strand +Or on the edge of the day, + +Some undiscovered clime +Seen through a cloud's sudden rift, +Where all the rainbows of Time +Slowly and silently drift? +Some happy port of a sea +Never a world's sail has made, +Where till the earth shadows flee +Never a rainbow may fade. + +Oh, if that rainbow up there, +Just for a moment would reach, +Through the wet slope of the air +Here where I stand on the beach. +Here where the waves wash the strand +Swing itself lovingly low, +Let me catch fast with one hand, +Climb its frail rigging and go! + + + + +Johannes Carl Andersen. + + + + Soft, Low and Sweet + + +Soft, low and sweet, the blackbird wakes the day, +And clearer pipes, as rosier grows the gray + Of the wide sky, far, far into whose deep + The rath lark soars, and scatters down the steep +His runnel song, that skyey roundelay. + +Earth with a sigh awakes; and tremors play, + Coy in her leafy trees, and falt'ring creep +Across the daisy lawn and whisper, "Well-a-day," + Soft, low and sweet. + +From violet-banks the scent-clouds float away + And spread around their fragrance, as of sleep: + From ev'ry mossy nook the blossoms peep; +From ev'ry blossom comes one little ray +That makes the world-wealth one with Spring, alway + Soft, low and sweet. + + + + Maui Victor + + +Unhewn in quarry lay the Parian stone, + Ere hands, god-guided, of Praxiteles +Might shape the Cnidian Venus. Long ungrown + The ivory was which, chiselled, robbed of ease + Pygmalion, sculptor-lover. Now are these, +The stone and ivory, immortal made. + The golden apples of Hesperides +Shall never, scattered, in blown dust be laid, + Till Time, the dragon-guard, has lived his last decade. + +The Cnidian Venus, Galatea's shape, + A wondering world beheld, as we behold, -- +Here, in blest isles beyond the stormy Cape, + Where man the new land dowers with the old, + Are neither marble shapes nor fruits of gold, +Nor white-limbed maidens, queened enchantress-wise; + Here, Nature's beauties no vast ruins enfold, +No glamour fills her such as 'wildering lies +Where Mediterranean waters laugh to Grecian skies. + +Acropolis with figure group and frieze, + Parthenon, Temple, concepts born divine, +Where in these Isles are wonders great as these? + Unquarried lies the stone in teeming mine, + Bare is the land of sanctuary and shrine; +But though frail hands no god-like record set + Great Nature's powers are lavish, and combine +In mountain dome, ice-glancing minaret, +Deep fiord, fiery fountain and lake with tree-wove carcanet. + +And though the dusky race that to and fro, + Like their own shades, pass by and leave no trace, +No age-contemning works from quick brain throw, + They still have left what Time shall not efface, -- + The legends of an isolated race. +Not vainly Maui strove; no, not in vain + He dared the old Mother of Death and her embrace: +That mankind might go free, he suffered pain -- +And death he boldly dared, eternal life to gain. + +Not death but dormancy the old womb has known, + New love shall quicken it, new life attain: +These legends old in ivory and stone + Shall live their recreated life again, -- + Shall wake, like Galatea, to joy and pain. +Legends and myths and wonders; what are these + But glittering mines that long unworked have lain? +A Homer shall unlock with magic keys +Treasure for some antipodean Praxiteles! + + + + +Dora Wilcox. + + + + In London + + +When I look out on London's teeming streets, +On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies, +My courage fails me, and my heart grows sick, +And I remember that fair heritage +Barter'd by me for what your London gives. +This is not Nature's city: I am kin +To whatsoever is of free and wild, +And here I pine between these narrow walls, +And London's smoke hides all the stars from me, +Light from mine eyes, and Heaven from my heart. + +For in an island of those Southern seas +That lie behind me, guarded by the Cross +That looks all night from out our splendid skies, +I know a valley opening to the East. +There, hour by hour, the lazy tide creeps in +Upon the sands I shall not pace again -- +Save in a dream, -- and, hour by hour, the tide +Creeps lazily out, and I behold it not, +Nor the young moon slow sinking to her rest +Behind the hills; nor yet the dead white trees +Glimmering in the starlight: they are ghosts +Of what has been, and shall be never more. +No, never more! + + Nor shall I hear again +The wind that rises at the dead of night +Suddenly, and sweeps inward from the sea, +Rustling the tussock, nor the wekas' wail +Echoing at evening from the tawny hills. +In that deserted garden that I lov'd +Day after day, my flowers drop unseen; +And as your Summer slips away in tears, +Spring wakes our lovely Lady of the Bush, +The Kowhai, and she hastes to wrap herself +All in a mantle wrought of living gold; +Then come the birds, who are her worshippers, +To hover round her; tuis swift of wing, +And bell-birds flashing sudden in the sun, +Carolling: Ah! what English nightingale, +Heard in the stillness of a summer eve, +From out the shadow of historic elms, +Sings sweeter than our Bell-bird of the Bush? +And Spring is here: now the Veronica, +Our Koromiko, whitens on the cliff, +The honey-sweet Manuka buds, and bursts +In bloom, and the divine Convolvulus, +Most fair and frail of all our forest flowers, +Stars every covert, running riotous. +O quiet valley, opening to the East, +How far from this thy peacefulness am I! +Ah me, how far! and far this stream of Life +From thy clear creek fast falling to the sea! + +Yet let me not lament that these things are +In that lov'd country I shall see no more; +All that has been is mine inviolate, +Lock'd in the secret book of memory. +And though I change, my valley knows no change. +And when I look on London's teeming streets, +On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies, +When speech seems but the babble of a crowd, +And music fails me, and my lamp of life +Burns low, and Art, my mistress, turns from me, -- +Then do I pass beyond the Gate of Dreams +Into my kingdom, walking unconstrained +By ways familiar under Southern skies; +Nor unaccompanied; the dear dumb things +I lov'd once, have their immortality. +There too is all fulfilment of desire: +In this the valley of my Paradise +I find again lost ideals, dreams too fair +For lasting; there I meet once more mine own +Whom Death has stolen, or Life estranged from me, -- +And thither, with the coming of the dark, +Thou comest, and the night is full of stars. + + + + +Ernest Currie. + + + + Laudabunt Alii + + +There are some that long for a limpid lake by a blue Italian shore, +Or a palm-grove out where the rollers break and the coral beaches roar; +There are some for the land of the Japanee, and the tea-girls' twinkling feet; +And some for the isles of the summer sea, afloat in the dancing heat; +And others are exiles all their days, midst black or white or brown, +Who yearn for the clashing of crowded ways, and the lights of London town. + +But always I would wish to be where the seasons gently fall +On the Further Isle of the Outer Sea, the last little isle of all, +A fair green land of hill and plain, of rivers and water-springs, +Where the sun still follows after the rain, and ever the hours have wings, +With its bosomed valleys where men may find retreat from + the rough world's way . . . +Where the sea-wind kisses the mountain-wind between the dark and the day. + +The combers swing from the China Sea to the California Coast, +The North Atlantic takes toll and fee of the best of the Old World's boast, +And the waves run high with the tearing crash that the Cape-bound + steamers fear -- +But they're not so free as the waves that lash the rocks by Sumner pier, +And wheresoever my body be, my heart remembers still +The purple shadows upon the sea, low down from Sumner hill. + +The warm winds blow through Kuringai; the cool winds from the South +Drive little clouds across the sky by Sydney harbour-mouth; +But Sydney Heads feel no such breeze as comes from nor'-west rain +And takes the pines and the blue-gum trees by hill and gorge and plain, +And whistles down from Porter's Pass, over the fields of wheat, +And brings a breath of tussock grass into a Christchurch street. + +Or the East wind dropping its sea-born rain, or the South wind wild and loud +Comes up and over the waiting plain, with a banner of driving cloud; +And if dark clouds bend to the teeming earth, and the hills are dimmed + with rain, +There is only to wait for a new day's birth and the hills stand out again. +For no less sure than the rising sun, and no less glad to see +Is the lifting sky when the rain is done and the wet grass rustles free. + +Some day we may drop the Farewell Light, and lose the winds of home -- +But where shall we win to a land so bright, however far we roam? +We shall long for the fields of Maoriland, to pass as we used to pass +Knee-deep in the seeding tussock, and the long lush English-grass. +And we may travel a weary way ere we come to a sight as grand +As the lingering flush of the sun's last ray on the peaks of Maoriland. + + + + +George Charles Whitney. + + + + Sunset + + +Behind the golden western hills +The sun goes down, a founder'd bark, +Only a mighty sadness fills + The silence of the dark. + +O twilight sad with wistful eyes, +Restore in ruth again to me +The shadow of the peace that lies + Beyond the purple sea. + +The sun of my great joy goes down, +Against the paling heights afar, +Gleams out like some glad angel's crown, + A yellow evening star; + +The glory from the western hills +Falls fading, spark on spark, +Only a mighty sadness fills + The spaces of the dark. + + + + +James Lister Cuthbertson. [reprise] + + + + Ode to Apollo + + "Tandem venias precamur + Nube candentes humeros amictus + Augur Apollo." + + + Lord of the golden lyre + Fraught with the Dorian fire, + Oh! fair-haired child of Leto, come again; + And if no longer smile + Delphi or Delos' isle, + Come from the depth of thine Aetnean glen, + Where in the black ravine + Thunders the foaming green + Of waters writhing far from mortals' ken; + Come o'er the sparkling brine, + And bring thy train divine -- +The sweet-voiced and immortal violet-crowned Nine. + + For here are richer meads, + And here are goodlier steeds + Than ever graced the glorious land of Greece; + Here waves the yellow corn, + Here is the olive born -- + The gray-green gracious harbinger of peace; + Here too hath taken root + A tree with golden fruit, + In purple clusters hangs the vine's increase, + And all the earth doth wear + The dry clear Attic air +That lifts the soul to liberty, and frees the heart from care. + + Or if thy wilder mood + Incline to solitude, + Eternal verdure girds the lonely hills, + Through the green gloom of ferns + Softly the sunset burns, + Cold from the granite flow the mountain rills; + And there are inner shrines + Made by the slumberous pines, + Where the rapt heart with contemplation fills, + And from wave-stricken shores + Deep wistful music pours +And floods the tempest-shaken forest corridors. + + Oh, give the gift of gold + The human heart to hold + With liquid glamour of the Lesbian line; + With Pindar's lava glow, + With Sophocles' calm flow, + Or Aeschylean rapture airy fine; + Or with thy music's close + Thy last autumnal rose + Theocritus of Sicily, divine; + O Pythian Archer strong, + Time cannot do thee wrong, +With thee they live for ever, thy nightingales of song. + + We too are island-born; + Oh, leave us not in scorn -- + A songless people never yet was great. + We, suppliants at thy feet, + Await thy muses sweet + Amid the laurels at thy temple gate, + Crownless and voiceless yet, + But on our brows is set + The dim unwritten prophecy of fate, + To mould from out of mud + An empire with our blood, +To wage eternal warfare with the fire and flood. + + Lord of the minstrel choir, + Oh, grant our hearts' desire, + To sing of truth invincible in might, + Of love surpassing death + That fears no fiery breath, + Of ancient inborn reverence for right, + Of that sea-woven spell + That from Trafalgar fell + And keeps the star of duty in our sight: + Oh, give the sacred fire, + And our weak lips inspire +With laurels of thy song and lightnings of thy lyre. + + + + + -------- + + + + +Notes on the Poems + + + +Wentworth, "Australasia": `Warragamba' -- a tributary of the Nepean, + the upper part of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. + +Rowe, "Soul Ferry": "Founded on a note by Tzetzes upon Lycophron, + quoted in Keightley's `Mythology of Greece and Rome'." -- Author's Note. + +Parkes, "The Buried Chief": Sir James Martin, born 1820, + Premier and subsequently Chief Justice of New South Wales, + died 4th November, 1886. + +Gordon, "A Dedication": The first six stanzas of The Dedication of + "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes" to the author of "Holmby House" + (Whyte Melville). + +Gordon, "Thora's Song": First printed in `The Australasian' + under the title of "Frustra". + +Gordon, "The Sick Stock-rider": First appeared in `The Colonial Monthly' + without the final stanza here printed, which was preserved + by Mr. J. J. Shillinglaw. + +Kendall, "Prefatory Sonnets": The phrase -- "tormented and awry + with passion" -- also appears in Walter Pater's essay on "Aesthetic Poetry", + which, according to Mr. Ferris Greenslet's monograph on Pater, + was written in 1868, but first published in `Appreciations', 1889. + "Leaves from Australian Forests", in which these sonnets were first printed, + was published in Melbourne in 1869. + +Kendall, "To a Mountain": Dedicatory verses of "Songs from the Mountains". + +Kendall, "Araluen": The author's daughter, named after a town + in the Shoalhaven District, New South Wales. + +Kendall, "Hy-Brasil": Hy-Brasil, or Tir-Nan-Oge, is the fabled + Island of the Blessed, the paradise of ancient Ireland. + +Kendall, "Outre Mer": From a poem left unfinished at the author's death. + First printed in "Poems" (1886). + +Clarke, "The Song of Tigilau": "Tigilau, the son of Tui Viti"; + an attempt to paraphrase a legend of Samoa, is remarkable + as evidence of direct intercourse between Samoa and Fiji, + and as showing by the use of the term "Tui Viti" that a king once reigned + over ALL Fiji. The singularly poetic and rhythmical original + will be found in a paper contributed by Mr. Pritchard, F.A.S.I., etc., + to the Anthropological Society of London." -- Author's Note. + +Moloney, "Melbourne": First printed in `The Australasian' + over the signature "Australis". + +Domett, "An Invitation": First printed in "Flotsam and Jetsam": reprinted, + with alterations, as Proem to "Ranolf and Amohia", Second Edition, 1883. + +Domett, "A Maori Girl's Song": "A very free paraphrase of a song + in Sir George Grey's collection. `Ropa' is a declaration of love + by pinching the fingers." -- Author's Note. + +Stephens, "Day" & "Night": Stanzas from "Convict Once" + [pp. 336-7, 297-9 respectively of "Poetical Works" (1902)]. + +Foott, "Where the Pelican Builds": "The unexplored parts of Australia + are sometimes spoken of by the bushmen of Western Queensland + as the home of the Pelican, a bird whose nesting-place, + so far as the writer knows, is seldom, if ever, found." -- Author's Note. + +Foott, "New Country": `Gidya' -- a Queensland and N.S.W. aboriginal word + for a tree of the acacia species (A. homalophylla). + + `Clay-Pan' -- a shallow depression of the ground on Australian plains, + whose thin clayey surface retains water for a considerable time. + +Wilson, "Fairyland": `Parson Bird' -- The Tui, or New Zealand mocking bird. + The male has tufts of curled white feathers under the neck, + like a clergyman's bands. + +Farrell, "Australia to England": First printed, under the title of + "Ave Imperatrix", in `The Daily Telegraph' (Sydney), on June 22, 1897, + the day of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. + +F. Adams, "Gordon's Grave": Adam Lindsay Gordon is buried + in Brighton (Victoria) Cemetery. Above the grave is erected + a shattered column crowned with a laurel wreath. + +Evans, "A Pastoral": `Apple-tree' -- an indigenous Australian tree, + so called from a supposed resemblance to the English apple-tree, + but bearing no edible fruit. + +O'Hara, "Flinders": `Flinders' -- Matthew Flinders first came to Australia + with Bass and Hunter in 1795, and made several heroic voyages + around Australian coasts. + +Jephcott, "A Ballad of the last King of Thule": `Mannan' -- the ancient + bardic name of the Isle of Man. + + `Eire' -- the ancient name of Ireland. + + `The Isle of Apple-trees' -- "Emhain Ablach", the Isle of Arran. + This was the land of faery to the Northern and Western Gaels. + +Mackay, "The Burial of Sir John Mackenzie": `Sir John Mackenzie' -- + Born 1838; for many years Minister for Lands in New Zealand. Died 1891. + + Holy Hill -- Puketapu, a hill sacred to the Maoris on the Otago coast. + +Lawson, "Andy's gone with Cattle": `Riders' -- timber used to hold down + the bark roofs of primitive bush houses. + +Lawson, "Out Back": `Mulga' -- an aboriginal name given to various trees + of the acacia family (A. aneura). + +Lawson, "The Star of Australasia": `Jackeroo' -- a "new chum", + or person recently arrived in Australia, who goes to work on a station + to gain experience. + + `Push' -- a gang of larrikins, or city roughs. + +Lawson, "Middleton's Rouseabout": `Rouseabout' -- a man who does + general work on a station. + +Lawson, "The Vagabond": `Flax' -- a native New Zealand plant + yielding a strong fibre (Phormium tenax, N. O. Liliaceae). + + `Tussock' -- a native grass, common in New Zealand (Lomandra longifolia). + +R. Quinn, "The Lotus-Flower": `Harbour' -- Sydney Harbour. + +Wright, "An Old Colonist's Reverie": `Whare' -- Maori name + for a hut or house. + + `Kowhai' -- the Locust tree (yellow Kowhai), and the Parrot-bill + (scarlet Kowhai) -- N.Z. flowering trees. + + `Rata' -- a remarkable New Zealand tree with crimson flowers + (Metrosideros robusta), which often starts from a seed + dropped in the fork of a tree, grows downward to the earth, + and, taking root there, winds itself closely round the supporting tree + and eventually destroys it. + +Andersen, "Maui Victor": `Maui' -- In Polynesian mythology, + the great hero who attempted to overcome Death, which could only be done + by passing through Hine-nui-te-po (Great Woman of Night). + This Maui attempted to do while she slept. Awakened, however, + by the cry of a black fantail, she nipped Maui in two. + +Wilcox, "In London": `Weka' -- Maori name for the wood-hen, + so called from its note "Weeka" (Ocydromus Australis). + + `Bell-bird' -- the korimako (Anthornis Melanura). + + `Koromiko' -- Veronica salicifolia. + + `Manuka' -- the tea-tree (Leptospermum scoparium and L. ericoides). + + + + + +Biographical Notes + + The bibliographies include books of verse only. + [This information was compiled in or before 1907. -- A. L.] + + + +Adams, Arthur H. + Born at Lawrence, Central Otago, New Zealand, 6th June, 1872. + Both parents colonial born; father of English, mother of Irish family. + Educated, High School, Christchurch, Wellington College and High School, + Dunedin; thence with Scholarship to Otago University: graduated B.A. + Studied law; Journalist for three years; literary secretary + to Mr. J. C. Williamson for two years. Went as war-correspondent to China + through Boxer campaign. Visited London, 1902. Returned to Australia, 1905. + `Maoriland, and other Verses' (Sydney, 1899). + `The Nazarene' (London, 1902). + +Adams, Francis William Lauderdale. + Born at Malta, 27th September, 1862; son of Prof. Leith Adams. + Educated at Shrewsbury School, England. In Australia, 1884-89. + Died at Margate, England, by his own hand, 4th September, 1893. + `Henry, and other Tales' (London, 1884). + `Poetical Works' (Brisbane and London, 1887). + `Songs of the Army of the Night' (Sydney, 1888; London, 1890, 1893, 1894). + `The Mass of Christ' (London, 1893). + `Tiberius, a Drama' (London, 1894). + +Andersen, Johannes Carl. + Born at Jutland, Denmark, 14th March, 1873; came to New Zealand + with his parents, October, 1874. Educated, New Zealand public schools. + Now in Government service, Christchurch. + `Songs Unsung' [Christchurch, n.d. (1903)]. + +Bathgate, Alexander. + Born at Peebles, Scotland, 1845. Educated, local schools and + Edinburgh University. Came to New Zealand, 1863. Banking for six years; + Barrister and Solicitor in Dunedin, 1872 to present date. + `Far South Fancies' [London, n.d. (1889)]. + `The Legend of the Wandering Lake' [Dunedin, n.d. (1905)]. + +Bayldon, Arthur Albert Dawson. + Born at Leeds, England, 20th March, 1865, of an old North of England family. + Educated at Leeds and travelled extensively in Europe. + Arrived in Queensland, 1889, and since then has travelled over + a good deal of Eastern Australia. Now in Sydney, writing stories, + essays, etc. + `Lays and Lyrics' (London, 1887). + `The Sphinx, and other Poems' (Hull, 1889). + `Poems' (Brisbane, 1897). + `Poems', enlarged edition [Brisbane, n.d. (1898)]. + `The Western Track, and other Verses' (Sydney, 1905). + +Bracken, Thomas. + Born in Ireland, 1843. Came to Victoria, 1855. Settled in New Zealand, + 1869. Engaged as storekeeper, miner and journalist. + Represented Dunedin in Parliament, 1881-4. Died, 16th February, 1898. + `The Haunted Vale, and other Poems' (Sandhurst, 1867). + `Behind the Tomb, and other Poems' (Melbourne, 1871). + `Flowers of the Freelands' (Melbourne, 1877). + `Lays of the Land of the Maori and The Moa' (London, 1884). + `Paddy Murphy's Annual' (Dunedin, 1886). + `A Sheaf from the Sanctum' (Dunedin, 1887). + `Musings in Maoriland' (Dunedin and Sydney, 1890). + `Lays and Lyrics' (Wellington, 1893). + `Tom Bracken's Annual' (Wellington, 1896). + `Tom Bracken's Annual', No. 2 (Dunedin, 1897). + `Not Understood, and other Poems' (Wellington, 1905, Sydney, 1906). + +Brady, Edwin James. + Born at Carcoar, N.S.W., 7th August, 1869, of Irish parents. + Educated, public schools (N.S.W.) and Washington (D.C.), America. + Engaged in farming and various other occupations in N.S.W. + Editor `Australian Workman', 1891; Editor and proprietor of `The Grip', + Grafton, N.S.W.; Editor of `The Worker' (Sydney), 1905; + now a free-lance Journalist in Sydney. + `The Ways of Many Waters' (Sydney, 1899). + `The Earthen Floor' (Grafton, 1902). + +Brennan, Christopher John. + Born at Sydney, 1st November, 1870, of Irish parents. + Educated, St. Aloysius and St. Ignatius Coll., Sydney. + Graduated M.A., Sydney University, won James King Travelling Scholarship, + and spent some years in Europe. Now Assistant Librarian, + Sydney Public Library. + `XXI Poems: Towards the Source' (Sydney, 1897). + +Brereton, John Le Gay. + Born at Sydney, 2nd September, 1871; son of the late Dr. J. Le Gay Brereton. + Educated, Sydney Grammar School; graduated B.A., Sydney University. + Now Assistant Librarian at the same University. + `The Song of Brotherhood, and other Verses' (London, 1896). + `Perdita' (Sydney, 1896). + `Sweetheart Mine' (Sydney, 1897). + `Sea and Sky' (Sydney, 1901). + `Oithona' (Sydney, 1902). + +Browne, Thomas Alexander ("Rolf Boldrewood"). + Born in London, 6th August, 1826. Son of Captain Sylvester Browne, + who came to Australia with his family in 1830. Educated, + W. T. Cape's School, Sydney. Became a Squatter in Port Fairy district, + Victoria, at seventeen. Police Magistrate and Gold Fields Commissioner, + 1870-1895. Wrote serials for `Town and Country Journal'; + "Ups and Downs" (subsequently re-named "The Squatter's Dream", + London, 1879); "Robbery under Arms" (appeared in `Sydney Mail', 1882, + published in London, 1888); since then has issued seventeen other novels. + Now residing in Melbourne. + `Old Melbourne Memories' (Melbourne, 1884, prose and verse). + +Cambridge, Ada (Mrs. Cross). + Born at St. Germains, Norfolk, England, 21st November, 1844; + eldest daughter of Henry Cambridge and Thomasine, + daughter of Dr. C. Emerson. Married Rev. George F. Cross, of Ely, + 25th April, 1870. Arrived in Melbourne, 19th August, 1870. + Commenced writing serial stories for `Australasian', 1875; has since + published a number of novels in London and given an account of her life here + in "Thirty Years in Australia" (1901). + `Hymns on the Holy Communion' (London, 1866). + `The Manor House and other Poems' (London, 1875). + `Unspoken Thoughts' (London, 1887). + +Carmichael, Grace Jennings (Mrs. Mullis). + Born in Gippsland, Victoria, about 1867. Spent most of her early life + in the bush. Went to Melbourne, entered Children's Hospital Training School + and obtained certificate, 1890. Married Mr. Francis Mullis. + Died, 9th February, 1904, at Leyton, near London. + `Poems' (London and Melbourne, 1895). + +Castilla, Ethel. + Born at Kyneton, Victoria, 19th June, 1861; daughter of + Frederic Ramos de Castilla, an Englishman of Spanish descent, + and May Robertson, daughter of an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet. + Has lived mostly in Melbourne and contributed frequently to `Australasian', + `Sydney Mail', etc. + `The Australian Girl, and other Verses' (Melbourne, 1900). + +Clarke, Marcus Andrew Hislop. + Born at Kensington, London, 24th April, 1846; son of William Hislop Clarke, + Barrister. Educated, Dr. Dyne's School, Highgate. Came to Victoria, 1864. + Employed as a Bank clerk for a few months, then on a station for a year. + Journalist in Melbourne, 1867-71. Appointed Secretary to Trustees, + Melbourne Public Library, 1871; Assistant Librarian, 1875. + Married, 1869, Marian Dunn, daughter of John Dunn, Comedian. + Wrote "For the Term of His Natural Life" for `The Australian Journal', 1870, + which, partly re-written, was published in London, 1874. + Died, 2nd August, 1881. + Verse collected and published in `The Marcus Clarke Memorial Volume', + 1884, and `The Austral Edition of Selected Works of Marcus Clarke', + 1890 (Melbourne). + +Colborne-Veel, Mary Caroline (Miss). + Born at Christchurch, N.Z.; daughter of Joseph Veel Colborne-Veel, + M.A., Oxon., who came to New Zealand in 1857. Educated at home. + Contributed frequently to Australian, English and other periodicals. + `The Fairest of the Angels, and other Verse' (London, 1894). + +Currie, Archibald Ernest. + Born at Christchurch, New Zealand, 1884, of British stock. + Educated, Christchurch High School and Canterbury College. + Graduated M.A., University of New Zealand. + +Cuthbertson, James Lister. + Born in Scotland, 1851. Educated, Glenalmond, and Merton College, Oxford. + Graduated B.A. Arrived in Melbourne, 1874. Senior Classical Master, + Geelong Grammar School, 1875-96. + `Barwon Ballads' (Melbourne, 1893). + +Daley, Victor James. + Born at Navan, Armagh, Ireland, 5th September, 1858; + father Irish, mother of Scottish descent. Went to Plymouth, England, + at fourteen, and left there in 1876 for Australia; landed in Sydney + and shortly after went to Adelaide, where he worked as a clerk. + Went to Melbourne and joined the Staff of `The Carlton Advertiser'. + Tramped to Queanbeyan, N.S.W., and edited a paper there for five months. + Came to Sydney and wrote for Australian papers, principally `The Bulletin'. + Lived in Melbourne for a few years; then again in Sydney + until his death from phthisis, 29th December, 1905. + `At Dawn and Dusk' (Sydney, 1898). + +Deniehy, Daniel Henry. + Born at Sydney, 18th August, 1828, of Irish parentage. Educated, + M. Jonson's and W. T. Cape's schools. At fifteen wrote a novelette, + "Love at First Sight", printed in `Colonial Literary Journal', 1844. + Went to England with his parents, studied in London and visited + the Continent. Returned to Sydney, was articled to Nicol D. Stenhouse + and eventually admitted -- the first native-born solicitor on the rolls. + Married Adelaide Elizabeth Hoalls, 1855. Elected to N.S.W. Parliament, + 1856-9. Edited `Southern Cross' (Sydney) 1859-60, + `Victorian' (Melbourne) 1862-4. Died at Bathurst, N.S.W., + 22nd October, 1865. + Some of his writings were collected and published in + `The Life and Speeches of Daniel Henry Deniehy', by Miss E. A. Martin, + Melbourne (1884). + +Domett, Alfred. + Born at Camberwell, England, 20th May, 1811. Matriculated at Cambridge, + 1829, called to the Bar, 1841, left England, 1842, for New Zealand. + Was a friend of Robert Browning and inspired the latter's poem, `Waring', + which first appeared in `Bells and Pomegranates', No. III., 1842. + Became Colonial Secretary for Province of Munster, N.Z., 1848, + and Premier of the Colony in 1862. Wrote "Ranolf and Amohia" + in New Zealand. Returned to England, 1871. Died at Kensington, + November, 1887. + `Poems' (London, 1833). + `Venice, a Poem' (London, 1839). + `Ranolf and Amohia, A South Sea Day Dream' (London, 1872, + second edition, 2 vols., 1883). + `Flotsam and Jetsam' (London, 1877). + +Dyson, Edward George. + Born near Ballarat, Victoria, 5th March, 1865, of English parentage. + Educated, public schools. Worked for some time as a miner + in Victoria and Tasmania. Now a Journalist in Melbourne. + `Rhymes from the Mines, and other Lines' (Sydney, 1896). + +Evans, George Essex. + Born in London, 18th June, 1863; son of John Evans, Q.C., M.P., + of Welsh descent. Educated at Haverford West (Wales) and St. Heliers + (Channel Islands). Came to Queensland, 1881. Farming for some time. + Entered Queensland Government service, 1888, and is now District Registrar + at Toowoomba. Joint Editor of `The Antipodean', 1893, 1894, and 1897. + Won prize for best Ode on the Inauguration of the Commonwealth. + `The Repentance of Magdalene Despar, and other Poems' (London, 1891). + `Won by a Skirt' (Brisbane, n.d.). + `Loraine, and other Verses' (Melbourne, 1898). + `The Sword of Pain' (Toowoomba, 1905). + +Farrell, John. + Born at Buenos Aires (S. America), 18th December, 1851, of Irish parents. + Came to Australia, 1852; spent his childhood and youth + in the Victorian bush. Worked as a farmer, afterwards became a brewer + in Victoria and New South Wales. Journalist from 1887, + principally on the staff of `The Daily Telegraph', Sydney, + till his death in Sydney, 9th January, 1904. + `Ephemera: An Iliad of Albury' (Albury, 1878). + `Two Stories' (Melbourne, 1882). + `How He Died, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1887). + `Australia to England' (Sydney, 1897). + `My Sundowner, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1904). + `How He Died, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1905). + +Foott, Mary Hannay (Mrs.). + Born at Glasgow, 26th September, 1846; daughter of James Black, + mother descended from literary family of Hannay. Arrived in Australia, + 1853. Educated in Melbourne. Married Thomas Wade Foott, 1874, + and went to live at Dundoo, Queensland. After death of her husband, 1884, + was Literary Editor of `The Queenslander' for ten years. + Now a teacher at Rocklea, Queensland. + `Where the Pelican Builds, and other Poems' (Brisbane, 1885). + `Morna Lee, and other Poems' (London, 1890). + +Forster, William. + Born at Madras, 1818. Came to Australia, 1829. + Educated, W. T. Cape's School, Sydney. Became a Squatter. + Entered New South Wales Parliament, was Premier, 1860, + and afterwards held portfolios in various ministries. + Appointed Agent-General and went to London, 1876. + Returned to New South Wales and died there, 30th October, 1882. + `The Weirwolf: a Tragedy' (London, 1876). + `The Brothers: a Drama' (London, 1877). + `Midas' (London, 1884). + +Gay, William. + Born at Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, Scotland, 1865. + Arrived in New Zealand, April, 1885. Went to Melbourne, 1888. + Appointed Assistant Master, Scotch College, which position he held + until his health broke down. Travelled about the colony until 1892, + when he became much worse and was removed to Bendigo. + Bedridden for the last two years of his life. Died at Bendigo, + 22nd December, 1897. + `Sonnets, and other Verses' (Melbourne, 1894). + `Sonnets' (Bendigo, 1896). + `Christ on Olympus, and other Poems' (Bendigo, 1896). + +Gilmore, Mary J. (Mrs.). + Born near Goulburn, New South Wales, 16th August, 1865; + father -- Donal Cameron -- a Highlander, mother a Hawkesbury native. + Educated at public schools; became a school teacher, 1881. + Joined the New Australia movement and went to Paraguay, 1895. + Married William Gilmore, 1897. Returned to Australia, 1902. + Now resident in Casterton (Victoria). + +Gordon, Adam Lindsay. + Born at Fayal, Azores Islands, 1833; son of Captain Adam Durnford Gordon + of Worcester (England), descendant of an old Scottish family. + Went to England, 1840; entered Cheltenham College about 1844, + Woolwich Military Academy 1850, and afterwards Merton College, Oxford. + Arrived at Adelaide, South Australia, November, 1853, + and became a mounted trooper, afterwards a horse-breaker. + Married Maggie Park, October, 1862, and lived at Mt. Gambier, + South Australia, for two years. Elected to South Australian Parliament, + 1865; resigned November, 1866. Moved to Ballarat (Victoria), + November, 1867, where he purchased a livery stable. Became celebrated + as a steeplechase rider. His only child, Annie Lindsay, died in 1868, + his business failed, and he had several falls while racing; + his claim to the Barony of Esslemont (Scotland) was defeated; + shot himself, 24th June, 1870. + `The Feud' (Mt. Gambier, 1864). + `Sea Spray and Smoke Drift' (Melbourne, 1867 and 1876). + `Ashtaroth: a Dramatic Lyric' (Melbourne, 1867 and 1877). + `Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes' (Melbourne, 23rd June 1870). + `Poems' (Melbourne, 1877, 1880, 1882, 1884, 1888). + +Harpur, Charles. + Born at Windsor, New South Wales, 1817; son of a schoolmaster. + Followed various occupations, principally farming. + Gold Commissioner at Araluen for eight years. Married Mary Doyle, 1850. + Died 10th June, 1868, at Eurobodalla, N.S.W. + `Thoughts: A Series of Sonnets' (Sydney, 1845). + `The Bushrangers, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1853). + `A Poet's Home' (Sydney, 1862). + `The Tower of the Dream' (Sydney, 1865). + `Poems' (Melbourne, 1883). + +Heney, Thomas William. + Born at Sydney, November, 1862; eldest son of Thomas W. Heney, + Editor and part proprietor of `Monaro Mercury'. Educated at Cooma. + Entered `Sydney Morning Herald' office, 1878; `Daily Telegraph', + Sydney, 1884; `Western Grazier', Wilcannia, 1886; `Echo', 1889; + `S. M. Herald', 1891, and is now Editor of the last-named Journal. + `Fortunate Days' (Sydney, 1886). + `In Middle Harbour, and other Verse' (London, 1890). + +Holdsworth, Philip Joseph. + Born at Balmain, near Sydney, 12th January, 1849; father English, + mother Irish. Editor Sydney `Athenaeum', `Illustrated Sydney News'. + For many years Cashier in the Treasury, Sydney; afterwards Secretary, + Forest Department, till 1892. Died 19th January, 1902. + `Station Hunting on the Warrego, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1885). + +Hyland, Inez K. (Miss). + Born at Portland (Victoria), 1863; daughter of T. F. Hyland + and grand-daughter of Dr. Penfold, Magill (S.A.). + Educated at Miss Kentish's School, Castlemaine, and by Madame Marvel. + Died at Magill (S.A.), 1892. + `In Sunshine and in Shadow' (Melbourne, 1893). + +Jephcott, Sydney Wheeler. + Born at Colac-Colac (Victoria), 30th November, 1864, + parents having lately immigrated from Warwickshire (England). + Grew up in the bush and educated himself. Engaged in farming + on the Upper Murray (Victoria). + `The Secrets of the South' (London, 1892). + +Kelly, John Liddell. + Born near Airdrie, Scotland, 19th February, 1850. Left school at eleven, + self-educated afterwards. Married, 1870. Emigrated to New Zealand, 1880. + Has since worked as a Journalist. Sub-editor `Auckland Star'; + Editor `Auckland Observer'; Assistant Editor `Lyttelton Times'; + now Editor `New Zealand Times', Wellington. + `Tahiti, the Land of Love and Beauty' (Auckland, 1885). + `Tarawera, or the Curse of Tuhoto' (Auckland, 1887). + `Zealandia's Jubilee' (Auckland, 1890). + `Heather and Fern' (Wellington, 1902). + +Kendall, Henry Clarence. + Born at Kermington, near Ulladulla, N.S.W., 18th April, 1841; son of + Basil Kendall (born in New Zealand) and Melinda M`Nally (of Irish descent). + Brought up and educated in the bush of N.S.W. coast districts. + At the age of thirteen went with his uncle as a cabin boy, + and spent two years cruising in the Pacific. Returned to Sydney + and became a shop assistant for a time; then clerk of J. Lionel Michael, + Solicitor at Grafton. After the death of Michael he obtained, + through Henry Halloran, an appointment in the Government Lands Office, + Sydney. Married Charlotte, daughter of Dr. Rutter, of Sydney, 1868; + went to Melbourne, 1869, and engaged in journalistic work. + After the death of his daughter Araluen, he returned to Sydney, 1871: + went to Camden Haven in charge of Messrs. Fagan Bros.' timber-yards, + and spent seven years there. Appointed by Sir Henry Parkes + Superintendent of State Forests, 1881, and went to live + at Cundletown (N.S.W.). Died in Sydney, 1st August, 1882. + `At Long Bay: Euroclydon' (Sydney, n.d.). + `The Glen of the White Man's Grave' (Sydney, n.d.). + `Poems and Songs' (Sydney, 1862). + `The Bronze Trumpet: a Satirical Poem' (Sydney, 1866). + `Leaves from Australian Forests' (Melbourne, 1869, 1870). + `Songs from the Mountains' (Sydney, 1880). + `Orara, a Tale' (Melbourne, 1881). + `Poems' (Melbourne, 1886, 1890, 1903). + +Lawson, Henry Hertzberg. + Born near Grenfell, N.S.W., 17th June, 1867; son of Peter Hertzberg Larsen, + a Norwegian, and Louisa Albury, native of N.S.W. Worked with his father, + who was a farmer and contractor; came to Sydney at seventeen + and learned the trade of a coach-painter; commenced writing verse, 1887; + was on the staff of the Queensland `Boomerang', 1890, travelled in N.S.W., + West Australia and New Zealand, engaged in various occupations; + went to London, 1900. Returned to Sydney, 1903. + `Short Stories in Prose and Verse' (Sydney, 1894). + `In the Days when the World was Wide, and other Verses' (Sydney, 1896). + `Verses Popular and Humorous' (Sydney, 1900). + `Children of the Bush' (London, 1902, prose and verse). + `When I was King, and other Verses' (Sydney, 1905). + +Loughran, Edward Booth. + Born at Glasgow, 13th December, 1850, of Irish parents. + Educated in North of Ireland. Arrived in Australia, January, 1866. + Public school teacher in Queensland for several years. Became a Journalist, + and was employed on `Rockhampton Bulletin', `Brisbane Courier', + and `Melbourne Argus'. Joined Victorian Government `Hansard' in 1879, + and in 1893 was appointed Chief of Staff. + `'Neath Austral Skies' (Melbourne, 1894). + +Mackay, Jessie (Miss). + Born at foot of the Southern Alps, Canterbury, New Zealand, + 15th December, 1864; father and mother Scottish Highlanders. + Brought up on her father's station, South Canterbury. + Educated, Christchurch Normal School. Public school teacher for four years; + afterwards private teacher and regular contributor to `Otago Witness' + and other journals. + `The Spirit of the Rangatira, and other Ballads' (Melbourne, 1889). + `The Sitter on the Rail, and other Poems' (Christchurch, 1891). + +Martin, Arthur Patchett. + Born at Woolwich, England, 18th February, 1851; eldest son of an Australian + pioneer colonist. Educated at Melbourne. Entered Victorian Civil Service, + 1862 [sic]; helped to found and was Editor of `Melbourne Review', 1876-1882. + Went to England, 1882. Died there, 15th February, 1902. + `Random Rhymes' (Melbourne, 1876). + `Lays of To-day' (Melbourne, 1878). + `Fernshawe', sketches in prose and verse (Melbourne, 1882; London, 1885). + `The Withered Jester, and other Verses' (London, 1895). + +Michael, James Lionel. + Born in London, 1824; eldest son of James Walter Michael, Solicitor, + and Rose Lemon-Hart. Articled to his father and became a Solicitor; + was a friend of Millais and others of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. + Came to Australia, 1853; practised in Sydney, and subsequently at Grafton, + Clarence River, where Kendall entered his office in 1857. + Found drowned in Clarence River with a wound in his skull, 1865. + `Songs without Music' (Sydney, 1857). + `John Cumberland' [Sydney, n.d. (1860)]. + +Moloney, Patrick. + Born at Hawthorn, Victoria, 1843. Educated, St. Patrick's College, + Melbourne; graduated M.B., Melbourne University, 1867. + Married Miss Quirk of Carlton (Vic.). Died at Ulverstone, Eng., + September, 1904. + +O'Dowd, Bernard Patrick. + Born at Beaufort, Victoria, 11th April, 1866, of Irish parents. + Educated in Victorian State schools. Graduated B.A., LL.B., + Melbourne University. Admitted to the Bar. Now Assistant Librarian, + Supreme Court, Melbourne. + `Dawnward?' (Sydney, 1903), reprinted in `A Southern Garland' + (Sydney, 1904). + `The Silent Land, and other Verses' (Melbourne, 1906). + +Ogilvie, William Henry. + Born near Kelso, Scotland, 21st August, 1869. Educated, + Kelso High School and Fettes College, Edinburgh. Came to Australia, 1889; + engaged in droving, horse-breaking and other occupations in N.S.W. bush. + Returned to Scotland, 1901. Now in Iowa, U.S.A. + `Fair Girls and Gray Horses' (Sydney, 1898, second edition, 1899). + `Hearts of Gold' (Sydney, 1903). + +O'Hara, John Bernard. + Born at Bendigo (Victoria), 29th October, 1864, of Irish parents. + Educated, Carlton College and Ormond College; graduated M.A. + Melbourne University. Became Principal, South Melbourne College, 1890, + which position he still occupies. + `Songs of the South' (London and Melbourne, 1891). + `Songs of the South', Second series (London, 1895). + `Lyrics of Nature' (Melbourne, 1899). + `A Book of Sonnets' (Melbourne, 1902). + +O'Reilly, Dowell Phillip. + Born at Sydney, 1865, son of Rev. Canon O'Reilly. + Educated, Sydney Grammar School; went to Sydney University + but left before completing the course. Represented Parramatta + in N.S.W. Parliament, 1894-1898. Now a Master at Sydney Grammar School. + `A Fragment' (Sydney, 1884). + `Australian Poems' (Sydney, 1884). + `A Pedlar's Pack' (Sydney, 1888). + +Parkes, Sir Henry. + Born at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, England, 27th May, 1815. + Son of an English farmer. Self-educated. Learned trade of ivory-turner. + Emigrated to Australia, 1839. Elected to old Legislative Council, 1854, + and to first Parliament under responsible government, 1856. + Was several times Premier and almost continuously in N.S.W. Parliament + until his death at Annandale, near Sydney, on 27th April, 1896. + `Stolen Moments' (Sydney, 1842). + `Murmurs of the Stream' (Sydney, 1857). + `Studies in Rhyme' (Sydney, 1870). + `The Beauteous Terrorist, and other Poems' (Sydney, 1885). + `Fragmentary Thoughts' (Sydney, 1889). + `Sonnets, and other Verse' (London, 1895). + +Paterson, Andrew Barton ("Banjo"). + Born at Narrambla, near Molong (N.S.W.), 17th February, 1864; + father Scottish, mother Australian. Admitted as a solicitor + and practised in Sydney for some years. Went to South Africa + as War Correspondent, and to China as special correspondent. + Now Editor Sydney `Evening News'. + `The Man from Snowy River, and other Verses' (Sydney, 1895, 1902). + `Rio Grande's Last Race and other Verses' (Sydney, 1902). + +Quinn, Patrick Edward. + Born at Sydney, N.S.W., 17th March, 1862, of Irish parents. + Educated at various Sydney schools. Journalist. + Member of N.S.W. Legislative Assembly for six years. + +Quinn, Roderic Joseph. + Born at Sydney, 26th November, 1869 (brother of P. E. Quinn). + Educated in Sydney; studied law; State school teacher at Milbrulong, N.S.W. + Returned to Sydney, 1890, where he now resides. + `The Hidden Tide' (Sydney, 1899). + `The Circling Hearths' (Sydney, 1901). + Both reprinted in `A Southern Garland' (Sydney, 1904). + +Richardson, Robert. + Born at Armidale, N.S.W., 7th January, 1850; son of John Richardson. + Educated, Sydney Grammar School, graduated B.A. Sydney University. + Journalist. Went to England and died there 4th October, 1901. + `Willow and Wattle' (Edinburgh, 1893). + +Ross, David MacDonald. + Born at Moeraki, on Otago coast, New Zealand, 1865. + Parents Scottish Highlanders; who, shortly after his birth, + removed to Palmerston in the Waihemo Valley, where he attended school. + Engaged in farming work, shearing, etc. in various parts of New Zealand. + Entered Agricultural Department, and in 1893 was appointed Stock Inspector, + Waikato district, which position he still holds. + `The After Glow' [Auckland, n.d. (1904)]. + +Rowe, Richard P. L. + Born at Doncaster, England, 9th March, 1828. Emigrated to Australia + when young. Journalist. Returned to England, 1858, and subsequently + published a number of works there. Died, 9th November, 1879. + `Peter 'Possums' Portfolio' (Sydney, 1858, prose and verse). + +Sandes, John. + Born at Cork, Ireland, 26th February, 1863; son of Rev. S. Dickson Sandes. + Family left Ireland, 1872. Educated at King's College, London, + Trinity College, Stratford-on-Avon, and Magdalen College, Oxford; + graduated B.A., 1885. Travelled on Continent as tutor for a year. + Came to Australia, 1887. Joined staff of Melbourne `Argus', 1888, + Sydney `Daily Telegraph', 1903. + `Rhymes of the Times' (Melbourne, 1898). + `Ballads of Battle' (Melbourne, 1900). + +Simpson, Martha Mildred (Miss). + Born in Co. Tyrone, Ireland, 3rd May, 1869. Came to New South Wales + with her father at the age of fourteen. Entered service + of Department of Public Instruction, 1886, and is now + in charge of Kindergarten section, Public School, Tamworth, + and Lecturer on educational matters in the same district. + +Sinclair, Margaret A. (Miss). + Born at Auckland, N.Z., of Scottish parents. Educated at home + on Thames Goldfield. Now resides in Auckland. + `The Huia's Homeland, and other Verses' (London, 1897). + `Echoing Oars, or "Waitemata", and other Verses' (Auckland, 1903). + +Sladen, Douglas Brooke Wheelton. + Born in London, 5th February, 1856. Educated, + Cheltenham and Trinity College, Oxford; graduated B.A. + Emigrated to Melbourne, 1879, graduated LL.B. at University there. + Returned to England, 1884. Edited "Australian Ballads and Rhymes", + "A Century of Australian Song", and "Australian Poets", 1888. + `Frithjof and Ingebjorg' (London, 1882). + `Australian Lyrics' (Melbourne, 1883; London, 1885). + `A Poetry of Exiles' (Sydney, 1883; London, 1886). + Second Series (London, 1888). + `A Summer Christmas' (London, 1884). + `In Cornwall and Across the Sea' (London, 1885). + `Edward the Black Prince' (Florence, 1886; London, 1887). + `The Spanish Armada' (London, 1888). + +Stephens, James Brunton. + Born at Borrowstowness, near Edinburgh, 17th June, 1835. + Educated, Edinburgh University. Travelling tutor, 1857-1860; + teaching at Greenock till 1866. Arrived in Australia, April, 1866; + tutor at station on Logan River, Queensland, and in Brisbane. + Married Rosalie, daughter of T. W. Donaldson. Entered Colonial + Secretary's Department, Brisbane, 1883, as correspondence clerk; + subsequently appointed Under Secretary. Died 29th June, 1902. + `Convict Once' (London, 1871). + `The Godolphin Arabian' (Brisbane, 1873, 1894). + `The Black Gin, and other Poems' (Melbourne, 1873). + `Mute Discourse' (Brisbane, 1878). + `Marsupial Bill' (Brisbane, 1879). + `Miscellaneous Poems' (London and Brisbane, 1880). + `Convict Once, and other Poems' (Melbourne, 1885, 1888). + `Fayette, or Bush Revels' (Brisbane, 1892). + `Poetical Works' (Sydney, 1902). + +Storrie, Agnes L. (Mrs. Kettlewell). + Born near Adelaide, South Australia; now resident in Sydney. + `Poems' (Sydney, 1899). + +Turner, Ethel (Mrs. H. R. Curlewis). + Born at Doncaster, England, 24th January, 1872. Daughter of H. Turner, + of Scottish family; mother English. Arrived in Australia, 1880. + Educated, Sydney High School, where she conducted a school paper. + Edited `The Parthenon', and engaged in journalistic work for some years. + Published "Seven Little Australians", 1894, and since then + twelve other children's books. + `Gum Leaves' [Sydney, n.d. (1900), prose and verse]. + +Twisleton, Henry Lea. + Born at Winskill, near Settle, Yorkshire, England, 9th November, 1847. + Arrived in New Zealand, September, 1876; since then engaged in + bush work and teaching. At present teacher at Te Awaite, near Picton, N.Z. + `Poems in the Craven Dialect', by T. Twisleton, + with poems by H. L. Twisleton (Settle, 1876). + `Poems' (Wellington, N.Z., 1895). + +Wentworth, William Charles. + Born at Norfolk Island, 26th October, 1793; son of D'Arcy Wentworth, + a surgeon from Dublin. Educated, Greenwich, England, + and Cambridge University. Returned to Australia and took foremost part + in securing a Constitution for Australia. Founder of Sydney University. + Went to England, 1862. Died at Wimborne, Dorset, 20th March, 1872. + `Australasia, a Poem' (London, 1823, 1873). + +Werner, Alice (Miss). + Born at Trieste, Austria, 1859; mother English, father German. + In the same year the family emigrated to New Zealand, and lived at Dunedin. + Went with her father to Mexico in 1864, and then to London. + Newnham College, 1878-80. Writing for `The Speaker' and other papers + until 1893. Went to South Africa, studying native languages. + Returned to London, 1896. Now writing stories and verse. + `The King of the Silver City' (London). + `A Time and Times' (London, 1886). + +Whitney, George Charles. + Born at Drummoyne, near Sydney, 25th May, 1884; father Australian, + mother English. Educated, Fort Street Public School and Sydney University. + Graduated B.A., 1906. + +Wilcox, Dora (Miss). + Born at Christchurch, New Zealand, 1873; father an Englishman, + mother New Zealander. Matriculated, Canterbury College. + Teaching in New South Wales and New Zealand for some years. + Went to Europe, and is now in London. + `Verses from Maoriland' (London, 1905). + +Wilson, Mrs. James Glenny. + Born (Ann Adams), at Greenvale, Victoria, 11th June, 1848; + father from North of Ireland, mother member of an Aberdeenshire family. + Educated at home. Married, 1874, and went to New Zealand, + and has been living at Rangitikei ever since. + `Themes and Variations' (London, 1889). + `A Book of Verses' (London, 1901). + +Wright, David McKee. + Born in Co. Down, Ireland, 6th August, 1869; son of Rev. W. Wright, + author of "The Brontes in Ireland", etc. Arrived in New Zealand, 1887. + Entered Congregational Ministry, 1898. Now stationed at Nelson, N.Z. + `Aorangi, and other Verses' (1896). + `Station Ballads, and other Verses' (Dunedin, 1897). + `Wisps of Tussock' (Oamaru, 1900). + `New Zealand Chimes' (Wellington, 1900). + + + + + +Some Notes on this Etext: + + + +The poems in this etext by Gordon, Kendall, Paterson, and Lawson +were compared to other texts, and it should be noted that a series of dots +(. . . . .) sometimes indicates (here and elsewhere) +that some lines or stanzas have been omitted. The selections +from these poets indicates that Stevens was aware of their importance, +but he seems to have missed the mark with regards to Paterson -- +and (in the original) doesn't even mention his well-known pseudonym, "Banjo". +Excepting "Clancy of the Overflow", Stevens neglects Paterson's best work. +There could be many reasons for this, perhaps beyond his control, +("Waltzing Matilda", for example, was not widely published until 1917), +but "The Man from Snowy River" (which the movie of the same name +is loosely based upon) should certainly have been included. +"The Man from Ironbark", "A Bush Christening", and "Conroy's Gap" +would also be good choices, and are fortunately available online +in "The Man from Snowy River, and other Verses". + +Other than adding "Banjo" to the lines containing Paterson's name, +the only noteworthy changes made to the text were in format, +including standardizing the names and titles in the table of contents +with those in the text; and in the "Notes" section, where references +to page numbers have been replaced with the name of the poet and poem +to which the notes refer. This anthology was first published in 1907. + +Accents were necessarily removed as follows: + +Parkes, "The Buried Chief": + Or winge\d chariot rolling past? + +Domett, "A Maori Girl's Song": +On Arapa/ I'll launch my skiff, and soon be borne away + +Foott, "New Country": +Conde\ had come with us all the way -- + +Evans, "A Pastoral": +Darkly, like an arme\d host + +Colborne-Veel, "Distant Authors": + "Aqu/i esta\ encerrada el alma licenciado Pedro Garcias." + +Jephcott, "A Ballad of the last King of Thule": +Hy-Bra/sil, Manna/n and Eire/, + +Wright, "An Old Colonist's Reverie": +I sigh for the good old days in the station whare\ again; + +Cuthbertson, "Ode to Apollo": +The sweet-voiced and immortal violet-crowne\d Nine. + + + +These other books of Australian poetry are presently online (October 1997), +and available via Project Gutenberg: + + Adam Lindsay Gordon: Poems + + Henry Kendall: Poems (ed. Bertram Stevens) + + "Banjo" Paterson: The Man from Snowy River; Rio Grande's Last Race + + Henry Lawson: In the Days when the World was Wide + (Lawson is best known in Australia for his excellent short stories. + One book of these, "Joe Wilson and his Mates", is also online.) + + + -- Alan R. Light, Monroe, N.C., 1997. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of An Anthology of Australian Verse + diff --git a/1199.zip b/1199.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c863c9e --- /dev/null +++ b/1199.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b592d33 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1199 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1199) |