David McKee Wright: Verses about Time

Ye old mule that think yourself so fair,
Leave off with craft your beauty to repair,
For it is true, without any fable,
No man setteth more by riding in your saddle.
Too much travail so do your train appair.
Ye old mule
With false savour though you deceive th'air,
Whoso taste you shall well perceive your lair
Savoureth somewhat of a Kappurs stable.
Ye old mule
Ye must now serve to market and to fair,
All for the burden, for panniers a pair.
For since gray hairs been powdered in your sable,
The thing ye seek for, you must yourself enable
To purchase it by payment and by prayer,
Ye old mule.

My lute awake! perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;
For when this song is sung and past,
My lute be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none,
As lead to grave in marble stone,
My song may pierce her heart as soon;
Should we then sigh or sing or moan?
No, no, my lute, for I have done.

The rocks do not so cruelly
Repulse the waves continually,
As she my suit and affection;
So that I am past remedy,
Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got
Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot,
By whom, unkind, thou hast them won,
Think not he hath his bow forgot,
Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain
That makest but game on earnest pain.
Think not alone under the sun
Unquit to cause thy lovers plain,
Although my lute and I have done.

Perchance thee lie wethered and old
The winter nights that are so cold,
Plaining in vain unto the moon;
Thy wishes then dare not be told;
Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent
The time that thou hast lost and spent
To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon;
Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,
And wish and want as I have done.

Now cease, my lute; this is the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And ended is that we begun.
Now is this song both sung and past:
My lute be still, for I have done.

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.

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.

In the lands away beyond the sea, where Khan and Sultan rule,
Where they drink their coffee thick and black, and sip the sherbet cool,
They have white Circassian girls for slaves, as well as the Negro black;
And it seems to me in our free land that slavery's coming back:
It's fenced about with custom and law, and they give it a prettier name.
But, spite of the paltry wage that's paid, it's slavery all the same.

In a handsome home in a stately town is worthy Mrs MacFee,
Chairwoman known of a Christian guild, for a noble dame is she:
Her doors are open to strangers all who call and leave their card;
But Amelia Jane, who left last week, declares the place was hard.
Surely Amelia Jane was wrong: she should have been happy to stay,
For she's only hanging around the town looking for work today.

Such a good woman is Mrs MacFee, toiling with voice and hand
In the cause of the poor little Indian girls away in a distant land;
Such a good woman is Mrs MacFee, for hers is an open door,
And her name's at the top of the charity list for the wives of the drunken poor.
But Amelia Jane has a hungry look, with hollows under the eyes:
She says she was starved, but everyone knows that Amelia Jane tells lies.

Such a good woman is Mrs MacFee, she has family prayers at night,
And she loves, she says, to make the lives of her poorer sisters bright.
Amelia Jane has a hardened heart: she talks of her weary feet,
And says that, in spite of all the prayers, she had never enough to eat.
It was hard to join the chorused words of 'Give us our daily bread',
And, after washing the dishes up, to stagger hungry to bed.

Once in the week Amelia Jane got out for an hour or two,
Once in a fortnight went to church with another slave she knew.
She never had time to read a book, and the changeless mill went round,
And nobody knew how she ached at night while body and soul were ground.
But these are the lies of Amelia Jane, and it's wrong to set them down,
For everyone knows that Mrs MacFee is the kindest woman in town.

Silly and light is Amelia Jane: she has no ideas of her own;
You never would think her the bright little girl that you once on a time had known.
She was clever enough when she went to school; she was pretty enough in her way;
She hasn't improved, her schoolmates think, when they met her in town today:
And it's all her fault, for, whatever the cause, I am sure that Mrs MacFee
Is a model mistress in every way, and with that you will all agree.

In the lands away beyond the sea, where Khan and Sultan rule,
Where they drink their coffee thick and black, and sip the sherbet cool,
They have white Circassian girls for slaves, as well as the Negro black;
And it seems to me in our free land that slavery's coming back:
It's fenced about with custom and law, and they give it a prettier name.
But, spite of the paltry wage that's paid, it's slavery all the same.

I came up to-night to the station, the tramp had been longish and cold,
My swag ain't too heavy to carry, but then I begin to get old.
I came through this way to the diggings -- how long will that be ago now?
Thirty years! how the country has altered, and miles of it under the plough,
And Jack was my mate on the journey -- we both run away from the sea;
He's got on in the world and I haven't, and now he looks sideways on me.

We were mates, and that didn't mean jokers who meets for a year or a day,
We meant to go jogging together the whole of the blooming long way.
We slept with one blanket between us the night that we run from the port,
There was nothing above us but heaven, yet we took it as jolly good sport.
And now he's the boss of a station, and I'm -- well, the bloke that you see;
For he had the luck and I hadn't, and now he looks sideways on me.

We pegged out a claim on the Dunstan, there used to be gold in them days,
There's blokes that still sticks to the digging, but Lord only knows how it pays;
For the country as far as I've seen it's as chock full of holes as a sieve
With the Chinkies amullocking through it, and yet them coves manage to live.
But when Jack took me to the cradle, the place was a wonder to see,
We washed out a fortune between us, and now he looks sideways on me.

We both fell in love with one woman -- she worked in a pub for a spell;
It ain't the best place for an angel, but angels ain't better than Nell;
For she was as good as they make 'em and hadn't a notion of ill --
It's long years and years since we parted, and seems I'm in love with her still!
But Jack was the handsomest fellow -- I saw how the thing had to be;
He got the best wife on the diggings, and now he looks sideways on me.

I left him, I just couldn't stand it -- I knew it was better to part;
I couldn't look on at the wedding with a pain like a knife at my heart!
I never said nothing to no one -- we didn't whack out all the gold;
I wanted my mate to be happy without my own yarn being told.
So I went to the coast by the steamer, and now I'm the bloke that you see;
He told me to go to the wharè, it seems he looks sideways on me.

There's steps coming down to the wharè -- some other poor bloke on the road;
'Taint nothing to him to get growled at, the boss ain't a bloke that he knowed.
Too dark to make out who's a-coming -- he's crossing the plank at the creek;
The years and the whisky are telling, my eyesight begins to get weak.
What's the odds? it ain't like me to whimper, and all that's gone by had to be,
But the old times came crowding around me to see him look sideways on me.

What, Jack! Why, old man, you don't mean it? You didn't right know it was me?
Well I'm altered -- it ain't for the better -- never mind, never mind, let it be.
O mate, the long years since we parted -- there's a blooming great lump in my throat --
I ain't been as glad, mate, I tell you, since the time that we run from the boat.
You ain't a bit altered -- you're crying -- why, Jack, don't be sorry for me,
I'm that glad that I think I'll go cranky -- and I thought you looked sideways on me.