At The "J. C."
None ever knew his name,
Honoured, or one of shame,
Highborn or lowly;
Only upon that tree
Two letters, J and C,
Carved by him, mark where he
Lay dying slowly.
Why came he to the West?
Had then the parent nest
Grown so distasteful?
What cause had he to shun
Life, ere ‘twas well begun?
Was he that youngest son,
Of substance wasteful?
Were Fate and he at War?
Was it a pennance, or
Renunciation?
Is it a glad release?
Has he at length found peace,
Now Death hath bid him cease
Peregrination?
Hands white, without a blot,
Told us that he was not
One of “the vulgar.”
What can those cyphers be?
Two only, J and C.
Carved in his agony
Deep in the mulga.
Was there no woman’s face
Whose sunny smile might chase
Clouds from above him?
No bosom white as snow?
No lips to whisper low,
“Why doth he seek to go?
Do I not love him.”
Haunted by flashing charms -
White bosoms, rounded arms,
Lips of fair ladies,
Striving to break some link,
Was ‘t that which made him sink,
Dragged by the curse of drink
Deeper than Hades?
Now, the wind across the grave,
Tuning a sultry stave,
Drearily whistles,
Stirring those branches where
Two silent cyphers stare,
Two letters of a prayer,
God’s Son’s initials.
From The Far West
'Tis a song of the Never Never land—
Set to the tune of a scorching gale
On the sandhills red,
When the grasses dead
Loudly rustle, and bow the head
To the breath of its dusty hail:
Where the cattle trample a dusty pad
Across the never-ending plain,
And come and go
With muttering low
In the time when the rivers cease to flow,
And the Drought King holds his reign;
When the fiercest piker who ever turned
With lowered head in defiance proud,
Grown gaunt and weak,
Release doth seek
In vain from the depths of the slimy creek—
His sepulchre and his shroud;
His requiem sung by an insect host,
Born of the pestilential air,
That seethe and swarm
In hideous form
Where the stagnant waters lie thick and warm,
And Fever lurks in his lair:
Where a placid, thirst-provoking lake
Clear in the flashing sunlight lies—
But the stockman knows
No water flows
Where the shifting mirage comes and goes
Like a spectral paradise;
And, crouched in the saltbush' sickly shade,
Murmurs to Heaven a piteous prayer:
‘O God! must I
Prepare to die?'
And, gazing up at the brazen sky,
Reads his death-warrant there.
Gaunt, slinking dingoes snap and snarl,
Watching his slowly-ebbing breath;
Crows are flying,
Hoarsely crying
Burial service o'er the dying—
Foul harbingers of Death.
Full many a man has perished there,
Whose bones gleam white from the waste of sand—
Who left no name
On the scroll of Fame,
Yet died in his tracks, as well became
A son of that desert land.
A Valentine
A Valentine The Bree was up; the floods were out
Around the hut of Culgo Jim:
The hand of God had broke the drought
And filled the channels to the brim:
The outline of the hut loomed dim
Among the shades of murmurous pine,
That eve of good Saint Valentine.
He watched, and to his sleepy gaze
The dying embers of the fire,
Its yellow reds and pearly greys,
Made pictures of his younger days.
Outside the waters mounted higher
Beneath a half-moon's sickly shine,
That eve of good Saint Valentine.
There, in the great slab fire-place
The oak log, burnt away to coal,
Showed him the semblance of a face
Framed in a golden aureole:
Eyes, the clear windows of a soul—
Soul of a maid, who used to sign
Herself, ‘Jim, dear, your Valentine.'
Lips, whose pink curves were made to bear
Love's kisses, not to be the mock
Of grave-worms . . . Suddenly a whirr,
And twelve loud strokes upon the clock;
Then at the door a gentle knock.
The collie dog began to whine
That morn of good Saint Valentine.
He opened; by his heels the hound
Sniffed at the night. ‘Who comes, and why?
What? no one! Hush! was that a sound?
Methought I heard a human cry.
Bah! 'twas a curlew passing by
Out where the lignum bushes twine,
This morn of good Saint Valentine.
‘What ails the dog? Down, Stumpy, down!
No? Well, lead on, perchance a
It is, poor brute, that fears to drown.
Heavens! how chill the waters creep!
Why, Stumpy, do you splash and leap?
'Tis but a foolish quest of thine,
This morn of good Saint Valentine.
‘Nay, not so foolish as I thought . . .
Hark! 'mid those reeds a feeble scream!
Mother of God! a cradle—brought
Down from some homestead up the stream!
A white-robed baby! Do I dream?
No, 'tis that dear dead love of mine
Who sends me thus a Valentine!'
