Ernest Favenc: Verses about Nature

No cheerful note of bird in leafy bower,
No glistening water dancing in the light,
No dewdrop trembling on some modest flower,
No early cock to crow farewell to-night.

Only a greater stillness in the air,
Save for hot sighs of desert-heated breath,
Only the stars, ceasing their sleepless stare,
Only the east, rose-flushing, fresh from death.

All the wide plain, hid ’neath the waning round
Of a tired moon, grew dimly into view;
With a dull haze hung on its furthest bound,
Then sprang the sun into the steely blue.

A cloudless sky o’erhead, and all around
The level country stretching like a sea—
A dull grey sea, that had no seeming bound,
The very semblance of eternity.

All common things that this poor life contained
Had passed from me, leaving no sign nor token;
My footfall first broke stillness that had reigned
For centuries unbroken.

Almost it was as if my steps had strayed
Into some strange old land or unknown isle,
Where Time himself, with drowsy hand had stayed
The shadow on the dial.

The sun at even sank down angry red
In the dim haze that bounded the far plain;
And then the stars usurped the heavens instead,
With silence in their train—

A deep, dread silence, save when fitful sighs
Of wailing wind were wafted from the south.
Nature seemed dying: light had left her eyes,
The smile of her mouth.

Only in dreams unquietly she talked,
In broken murmurs restlessly did ’plain;
Then came strange sounds, as if a spirit walked,
Wringing its hands in pain,

Crying, ‘No rest! no rest! Who dares intrude,
And waken silence that for countless years
Has been unbroken? Must our solitude
At last know human tears?

Leave but a little space, O restless race!
Free from your carking vanity and care.
Keep back! keep back!’ And then, a phantom face
Shone lurid in the air,

Gazing in mine, with a strange, earnest look
Of solemn sadness, more than mortal pain,
Then vanished with a bitter cry that shook
The dim, dead plain.

Bold Torres, the sailor, came and went,
with his swarthy, storm-worn band,
he saw Saavedra's Isle to north-
to south a loom of land.
He left unknowing his name would live
through ages with big fate,
as the first to stem with broad-bowed ship
the wash of the Northern Strait.

Round the western coast the Dutch ships crept,
seeking the hidden way;
some left their bones on that bare, west coast,
and the others sailed away.
Turned back, turned back, by reef and shoal,
twin guards of the narrow gate-
the path of the sun from the eastern seas-
they were mocked by the Northern Strait.

Year in, year out, the monsoons swept
o'er the isles of the coral shore,
The savage tossed in his frail canoe,
but the white man came no more.
No sail in sight at the flash of dawn!
No sail at the gloaming late!
Silent and still was the lonley pass-
Unsought was the Northern Strait.

A rattle of arms and a roll of drums,
and the meteor flag flies free,
as an English voice proclaims King George
Lord of the tropic sea.
The parrots scream as the volleys flash;
the gulls their haunts vacate;
and the 'south-east' fills the 'Endeavours' sails
as she heads through the Northern Strait.

And ever since then has our watch been kept
o'er the ships in the narrow way,
where the smoking funnels flare by night,
and the house-flags flaunt by day.
Ever the same strong south-east blows,
and ever we watch and wait,
the wardens we, in Australia's name,
the guard of the Northern Strait.