Henry Kendall: Verses about Weather

Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder and the wildering wings of rain
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;
But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,
Year after year, the days of tender heat,
And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,
And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain.
A still, bright pool. To men I may not tell
The secrets that its heart of water knows,
The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell:
A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well,
Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.

What bitter sorrow courses down
Yon mourner’s faded cheek?
Those scalding drops betray a grief
Within, too full to speak.
Outspoken words cannot express
The pangs, the pains of years;
They’re ne’er so deep or eloquent
As are those silent tears.
Here is a wound that in the breast
Must canker, hid’n from sight;
Though all without seems sunny day,
Within ’Tis ever night.
Yet sometimes from this secret source
The gloomy truth appears;
The wind’s dark dungeon must have vent
If but in silent tears.

The world may deem from outward looks
That heart is hard and cold;
But oh! could they the mantle lift
What sorrows would be told!
Then, only then, the truth would show
Which most the bosom sears:
The pain portrayed by burning words
Or that by—silent tears.

The Caves of the sea have been troubled to-day
With the water which whitens, and widens, and fills;
And a boat with our brother was driven away
By a wind that came down from the tops of the hills.
Behold I have seen on the threshold again
A face in a dazzle of hair!
Do you know that she watches the rain, and the main,
And the waves which are moaning there?
Ah, moaning and moaning there!
Now turn from your casements, and fasten your doors,
And cover your faces, and pray, if you can;
There are wails in the wind, there are sighs on the shores,
And alas, for the fate of a storm-beaten man!
Oh, dark falls the night on the rain-rutted verge,
So sad with the sound of the foam!
Oh, wild is the sweep and the swirl of the surge;
And his boat may never come home!
Ah, never and never come home!

JUST when the western light
Flickered out dim,
Flushing the mountain-side,
Summit and rim,
A last, low, lingering gleam
Fell on a yellow stream,
And then there came a dream
Shining to him.

Splendours miraculous
Mixed with his pain
All like a vision of
Radiance and rain!
He faced the sea, the skies,
Old star-like thoughts did rise;
But tears were in his eyes,
Stifled in vain.

Infinite tokens of
Sorrows set free
Came in the dreaming wind
Far from the sea!
Past years about him trooped,
Fair phantoms round him stooped,
Sweet faces o’er him drooped
Sad as could be!

“This is our brother now:
Sisters, deplore
Man without purpose, like
Ship without shore!
He tracks false fire,” one said,
“But weep you—he must tread
Whereto he may be led—
Lost evermore.”

“Look,” said another,
“Summit and slope
Burn, in the mountain-land—
Basement and cope!
Till daylight, dying dim,
Faints on the world’s red rim,
We’ll tint this Dream for him
Even—with hope!”

They built his mound of the rough, red ground,
By the dip of a desert dell,
Where all things sweet are killed by the heat,
And scattered o'er flat and fell;
In a burning zone they left him alone,
Past the uttermost western plain,
And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymn
In the voices of wind and rain.

The songs austere of the forests drear,
And the echoes of clift and cave,
When the dark is keen where the storm hath been,
Fleet over the far-away grave.
And through the days when the torrid rays
Strike down on a coppery gloom,
Some spirit grieves in the perished leaves,
Whose theme is that desolate tomb.

No human foot or paw of brute
Halts now where the stranger sleeps;
But cloud and star his fellows are,
And the rain that sobs and weeps.
The dingo yells by the far iron fells,
The plover is loud in the range,
But they never come near to the slumberer here,
Whose rest is a rest without change.

Ah! in his life, had he mother or wife,
To wait for his step on the floor?
Did beauty wax dim while watching for him
Who passed through the threshold no more?
Doth it trouble his head? He is one with the dead;
He lies by the alien streams;
And sweeter than sleep is death that is deep
And unvexed by the lordship of dreams.

Amongst the thunder-splintered caves
On Ocean's long and windy shore,
I catch the voice of dying waves
Below the ridges old and hoar;
The spray descends in silver showers,
And lovely whispers come and go,
Like echoes from the happy hours
I never more may hope to know!
The low mimosa droops with locks
Of yellow hair, in dewy glade,
While far above the caverned rocks
I hear the dark Bellambi's Maid!

The moonlight dreams upon the sail
That drives the restless ship to sea;
The clouds troop past the mountain vale,
And sink like spirits down the lee;
The foggy peak of Corrimal,
Uplifted, bears the pallid glow
That streams from yonder airy hall
And robes the sleeping hills below;
The wandering meteors of the sky
Beneath the distant waters wade,
While mystic music hurries by -
The songs of dark Bellambi's Maid!

Why comes your voice, you lonely One,
Along the wild harp's wailing strings?
Have not our hours of meeting gone,
Like fading dreams on phantom wings?
Are not the grasses round your grave
Yet springing green and fresh to view?
And does the gleam on Ocean's wave
Tide gladness now to me and you?
Oh! cold and cheerless falls the night
On withered hearts and hopes decayed:
And I have seen but little light
Since died the dark Bellambi's Maid!

A HEAP of low, dark, rocky coast,
Unknown to foot or feather!
A sea-voice moaning like a ghost;
And fits of fiery weather!

The flying Syrinx turned and sped
By dim, mysterious hollows,
Where night is black, and day is red,
And frost the fire-wind follows.

Strong, heavy footfalls in the wake
Came up with flights of water:
The gods were mournful for the sake
Of Ladon’s lovely daughter.

For when she came to spike and spine,
Where reef and river gather,
Her feet were sore with shell and chine;
She could not travel farther.

Across a naked strait of land
Blown sleet and surge were humming;
But trammelled with the shifting sand,
She heard the monster coming!

A thing of hoofs and horns and lust:
A gaunt, goat-footed stranger!
She bowed her body in the dust
And called on Zeus to change her;

And called on Hermes, fair and fleet,
And her of hounds and quiver,
To hide her in the thickets sweet
That sighed above the river.

So he that sits on flaming wheels,
And rules the sea and thunder,
Caught up the satyr by the heels
And tore his skirts asunder.

While Arcas, of the glittering plumes,
Took Ladon’s daughter lightly,
And set her in the gracious glooms
That mix with moon-mist nightly;

And touched her lips with wild-flower wine,
And changed her body slowly,
Till, in soft reeds of song and shine,
Her life was hidden wholly.

A strong sea-wind flies up and sings
Across the blown-wet border,
Whose stormy echo runs and rings
Like bells in wild disorder.

Fierce breath hath vexed the foreland's face,
It glistens, glooms, and glistens;
But deep within this quiet place
Sweet Illa lies and listens.

Sweet Illa of the shining sands,
She sleeps in shady hollows,
Where August flits with flowerful hands,
And silver Summer follows.

Far up the naked hills is heard
A noise of many waters,
But green-haired Illa lies unstirred
Amongst her star-like daughters.

The tempest, pent in moaning ways,
Awakes the shepherd yonder,
But Illa dreams unknown to days
Whose wings are wind and thunder.

Here fairy hands and floral feet
Are brought by bright October;
Here, stained with grapes and smit with heat,
Comes Autumn, sweet and sober.

Here lovers rest, what time the red
And yellow colours mingle,
And daylight droops with dying head
Beyond the western dingle.

And here, from month to month, the time
Is kissed by peace and pleasure,
While Nature sings her woodland rhyme
And hoards her woodland treasure.

Ah, Illa Creek! ere evening spreads
Her wings o'er towns unshaded,
How oft we seek thy mossy beds
To lave our foreheads faded!

For, let me whisper, then we find
The strength that lives, nor falters,
In wood and water, waste and wind,
And hidden mountain altars.

The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide;
And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride.
The gleaming clouds, above the brows of western steeps uphurled,
Look like the spires of some fair town that bounds a brighter world.
Lo, from the depths of yonder wood, where many a blind creek strays,
The pure Australian moon comes forth, enwreathed with silver haze.
The rainy mists are trooping down the folding hills behind,
And distant torrent-voices rise like bells upon the wind.
The echeu's* songs are dying, with the flute-bird's mellow tone,
And night recalls the gloomy owl to rove the wilds alone;
Night, holy night, in robes of blue, with golden stars encrowned,
Ascending mountains like to walls that hem an Eden round.

Oh, lovely moon! oh, holy night! how good your God must be,
When, through the glories of your light, He stoops to look at me!
Oh, glittering clouds and silvery shapes, that vanish one by one!
Is not the kindness of our Lord too great to think upon?
If human song could flow as free as His created breeze,
When, sloping from some hoary height, it sweeps the vacant seas,
Then should my voice to heaven ascend, my tuneful lyre be strung,
And music sweeter than the winds should roam these glens among.
Go by, ye golden-footed hours, to your mysterious bourne,
And hide the sins ye bear from hence, so that they ne'er return.
Teach me, ye beauteous stars, to kiss kind Mercy's chastening rod,
And, looking up from Nature's face, to worship Nature's God.

IT LIES amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.

A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb’rous suns of summer days.

You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!

’Tis often now the pilgrim turns
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.

There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.

And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,
Doth gather near it grapes and grain,
Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,
To lop the leaves in wind and rain.

O, greenest moss of mountain glen,
The face of Rose is known to thee;
But we shall never share with men
A knowledge dear to love and me!

For are they not between us saved,
The words my darling used to say,
What time the western waters laved
The forehead of the fainting day?

Cool comfort had we on your breast
While yet the fervid noon burned mute
O’er barley field and barren crest,
And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.

Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,
And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
But it was many years ago,
When each, you know, was loved of each.

He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,
And hides in the dark of his hair;
For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,
Or think of the loneliness there -
Of the loss and the loneliness there.

The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
And turn to their coverts for fear;
But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass
Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear -
With the nullah, the sling and the spear.

Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaks
On the tops of the rocks with the rain,
And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,
Have made him a hunter again -
A hunter and fisher again.

For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought;
But he dreams of the hunts of yore,
And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought
With those who will battle no more -
Who will go to the battle no more.

It is well that the water which tumbles and fills
Goes moaning and moaning along;
For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,
And he starts at a wonderful song -
At the sound of a wonderful song.

And he sees through the rents of the scattering fogs
The corroboree warlike and grim,
And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,
To watch, like a mourner, for him -
Like a mother and mourner for him.

Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands,
Like a chief, to the rest of his race,
With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands,
And gleams like a dream in his face -
Like a marvellous dream in his face?

Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell
The torrent voice rings strong
And clear, above a star-bright well,
I write this woodland song.

The melodies of many leaves
Float in a fragrant zone;
And here are flowers by deep-mossed eaves
That day has never known.

I'll weave a garland out of these,
The darlings of the birds,
And send it over singing seas
With certain sunny words -

With certain words alive with light
Of welcome for a thing
Of promise, born beneath the white,
Soft afternoon of Spring.

The faithful few have waited long
A life like this to see;
And they will understand the song
That flows to-day from me.

May every page within this book
Be as a radiant hour;
Or like a bank of mountain brook,
All flower and leaf and flower.

May all the strength and all the grace
Of Letters make it beam
As beams a lawn whose lovely face
Is as a glorious dream.

And may that strange divinity
That men call Genius write
Some deathless thing in days to be,
To fill those days with light.

Here where the free, frank waters run,
I pray this book may grow
A sacred candour like the sun
Above the morning snow.

May noble thoughts in faultless words -
In clean white diction - make
It shine as shines the home of birds
And moss and leaf and lake.

This fair fresh life with joy I hail,
And this belief express,
Its days will be a brilliant tale
Of effort and success.

Here ends my song; I have a dream
Of beauty like the grace
Which lies upon the land of stream
In yonder mountain place.

Lo! in storms, the triple-headed
Hill, whose dreaded
Bases battle with the seas,
Looms across fierce widths of fleeting
Waters beating
Evermore on roaring leas!
Arakoon, the black, the lonely!
Housed with only
Cloud and rain-wind, mist and damp;
Round whose foam-drenched feet and nether
Depths, together
Sullen sprites of thunder tramp!

There the East hums loud and surly,
Late and early,
Through the chasms and the caves,
And across the naked verges
Leap the surges!
White and wailing waifs of waves.

Day by day the sea-fogs gathered—
Tempest-fathered—
Pitch their tents on yonder peak,
Yellow drifts and fragments lying
Where the flying
Torrents chafe the cloven creek!

And at nightfall, when the driven
Bolts of heaven
Smite the rock and break the bluff,
Thither troop the elves whose home is
Where the foam is,
And the echo and the clough.

Ever girt about with noises,
Stormy voices,
And the salt breath of the Strait,
Stands the steadfast Mountain Giant,
Grim, reliant,
Dark as Death, and firm as Fate.

So when trouble treads, like thunder,
Weak men under—
Treads and breaks the thews of these—
Set thyself to bear it bravely,
Greatly, gravely,
Like the hill in yonder seas;

Since the wrestling and endurance
Give assurance
To the faint at bay with pain,
That no soul to strong endeavour
Yoked for ever,
Works against the tide in vain.

The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,
The black clouds follow fast,
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,
And the ships go heaving past, past, past -
The ships go heaving past!
Bar the doors, and higher, higher
Pile the faggots on the fire:
Now abroad, by many a light,
Empty seats there are to-night -
Empty seats that none may fill,
For the storm grows louder still:
How it surges and swells through the gorges and dells,
Under the ledges and over the lea,
Where a watery sound goeth moaning around -
God help our men at sea!

Oh! never a tempest blew on the shore
But that some heart did moan
For a darling voice it would hear no more
And a face that had left it lone, lone, lone -
A face that had left it lone!
I am watching by a pane
Darkened with the gusty rain,
Watching, through a mist of tears,
Sad with thoughts of other years,
For a brother I did miss
In a stormy time like this.
Ah! the torrent howls past, like a fiend on the blast,
Under the ledges and over the lea;
And the pent waters gleam, and the wild surges scream -
God help our men at sea!

Ah, Lord! they may grope through the dark to find
Thy hand within the gale;
And cries may rise on the wings of the wind
From mariners weary and pale, pale, pale -
From mariners weary and pale!
'Tis a fearful thing to know,
While the storm-winds loudly blow,
That a man can sometimes come
Too near to his father's home;
So that he shall kneel and say,
'Lord, I would be far away!'
Ho! the hurricanes roar round a dangerous shore,
Under the ledges and over the lea;
And there twinkles a light on the billows so white -
God help our men at sea!

ALL NIGHT long the sea out yonder—all night long the wailful sea,
Vext of winds and many thunders, seeketh rest unceasingly!
Seeketh rest in dens of tempest, where, like one distraught with pain,
Shouts the wild-eyed sprite, Confusion—seeketh rest, and moans in vain:
Ah! but you should hear it calling, calling when the haggard sky
Takes the darks and damps of Winter with the mournful marsh-fowl’s cry;
Even while the strong, swift torrents from the rainy ridges come
Leaping down and breaking backwards—million-coloured shapes of foam!
Then, and then, the sea out yonder chiefly looketh for the boon
Portioned to the pleasant valleys and the grave sweet summer moon:
Boon of Peace, the still, the saintly spirit of the dew-dells deep—
Yellow dells and hollows haunted by the soft, dim dreams of sleep.

All night long the flying water breaks upon the stubborn rocks—
Ooze-filled forelands burnt and blackened, smit and scarred with lightning shocks;
But above the tender sea-thrift, but beyond the flowering fern,
Runs a little pathway westward—pathway quaint with turn on turn—
Westward trending, thus it leads to shelving shores and slopes of mist:
Sleeping shores, and glassy bays of green and gold and amethyst!
There tread gently—gently, pilgrim; there with thoughtful eyes look round;
Cross thy breast and bless the silence: lo, the place is holy ground!
Holy ground for ever, stranger! All the quiet silver lights
Dropping from the starry heavens through the soft Australian nights—
Dropping on those lone grave-grasses—come serene, unbroken, clear,
Like the love of God the Father, falling, falling, year by year!
Yea, and like a Voice supernal, there the daily wind doth blow
In the leaves above the sailor buried ninety years ago.

LOW as a lute, my love, beneath the call
Of storm, I hear a melancholy wind;
The memorably mournful wind of yore
Which is the very brother of the one
That wanders, like a hermit, by the mound
Of Death, in lone Annatanam. A song
Was shaped for this, what time we heard outside
The gentle falling of the faded leaf
In quiet noons: a song whose theme doth turn
On gaps of Ruin and the gay-green clifts
Beneath the summits haunted by the moon.
Yea, much it travels to the dens of dole;
And in the midst of this strange rhyme, my lords,
Our Desolation like a phantom sits
With wasted cheeks and eyes that cannot weep
And fastened lips crampt up in marvellous pain.

A song in whose voice is the voice of the foam
And the rhyme of the wintering wave,
And the tongue of the things that eternally roam
In forest, in fell or in cave;
But mostly ’tis like to the Wind without home
In the glen of a desolate grave—
Of a deep and desolate grave.

The torrent flies over the thunder-struck clift
With many and many a call;
The leaves are swept down, and a dolorous drift
Is hurried away with the fall.
But mostly ’tis like the Wind without home
In the glen of a desolate grave—
Of a deep and desolate grave.

Whoever goes thither by night or by day
Must mutter, O Father, to Thee,
For the shadows that startle, the sounds that waylay
Are heavy to hear and to see;
And a step and a moan and a whisper for aye
Have made it a sorrow to be—
A sorrow of sorrows to be.

Oh! cover your faces and shudder, and turn
And hide in the dark of your hair,
Nor look to the Glen in the Mountains, to learn
Of the mystery mouldering there;
But rather sit low in the ashes and urn
Dead hopes in your mighty despair—
In the depths of your mighty despair.

The gums in the gully stand gloomy and stark,
A torrent beneath them is leaping,
And the wind goes about like a ghost in the dark
Where a chief of Wahibbi lies sleeping!
He dreams of a battle -- of foes of the past,
But he hears not the whooping abroad on the blast,
Nor the fall of the feet that are travelling fast.
Oh, why dost thou slumber, Kooroora?

They come o'er the hills in their terrible ire,
And speed by the woodlands and water;
They look down the hills at the flickering fire,
All eager and thirsty for slaughter.
Lo! the stormy moon glares like a torch from the vale,
And a voice in the belah grows wild in its wail,
As the cries of the Wanneroos swell with the gale --
Oh! rouse thee and meet them, Kooroora!

He starts from his sleep and he clutches his spear,
And the echoes roll backward in wonder,
For a shouting strikes into the hollow woods near,
Like the sound of a gathering thunder.
He clambers the ridge, with his face to the light,
The foes of Wahibbi come full in his sight --
The waters of Mooki will redden to-night.
Go! and glory awaits thee, Kooroora!

Lo! yeelamans splinter and boomerangs clash,
And a spear through the darkness is driven --
It whizzes along like a wandering flash
From the heart of a hurricane riven.
They turn to the mountains, that gloomy-browed band;
The rain droppeth down with a moan to the land,
And the face of a chieftain lies buried in sand --
Oh, the light that was quenched with Kooroora!

To-morrow the Wanneroo dogs will rejoice,
And feast in this desolate valley;
But where are his brothers -- the friends of his choice,
And why art thou absent, Ewalli?
Now silence draws back to the forest again,
And the wind, like a wayfarer, sleeps on the plain,
But the cheeks of a warrior bleach in the rain.
Oh! where are thy mourners, Kooroora?

THE SPIRIT of beautiful faces,
The light on the forehead of Love,
And the spell of past visited places,
And the songs and the sweetness thereof;
These, touched by a hand that is hoary;
These, vext with a tune of decay,
Are spoiled of their glow and their glory;
And the burden is, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

Old years and their changes come trooping
At nightfall to you and to me,
When Autumn sits faded and drooping
By the sorrowful waves of the sea.
Faint phantoms that float in the gloaming,
Return with the whispers that say,
“The end which is quiet is coming;
Ye are weary, and passing away!
Passing away!”

It is hard to awake and discover
The swiftness that waits upon Time;
But youth and its beauty are over,
And Love has a sigh in its rhyme.
The Life that looks back and remembers,
Is troubled and tired and gray,
And sick of the sullen Decembers,
Whose burden is, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

We have wandered and wandered together,
And our joys have been many and deep;
But seasons of alien weather
Have ended in longings for sleep.
Pale purpose and perishing passion,
With never a farewell to say,
Die down into sobs of suppression;
The burden is, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

We loved the soft tangle of tresses,
The lips that were fain and afraid.
And the silence of far wildernesses,
With their dower of splendour and shade!
For faces of sweetness we waited,
And days of delight and delay,
Ere Time and its voices were mated
To a voice that sighs, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

O years interwoven with stories
Of strong aspirations and high,
How fleet and how false were the glories
That lived in your limited sky!
Here, sitting by ruinous altars
Of Promise, what word shall we say
To the speech that the rainy wind falters,
Whose burden is, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

The warrigal's lair is pent in bare,
Black rocks at the gorge's mouth;
It is set in ways where Summer strays
With the sprites of flame and drouth;
But when the heights are touched with lights
Of hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,
His bed is made of the dead grass-blade
And the leaves of the windy pine.

Through forest boles the storm-wind rolls,
Vext of the sea-driv'n rain;
And, up in the clift, through many a rift,
The voices of torrents complain.
The sad marsh-fowl and the lonely owl
Are heard in the fog-wreaths grey,
When the warrigal wakes, and listens, and takes
To the woods that shelter the prey.

In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,
And the silver, showery moon
Glides over the hills, and floats, and fills,
And dreams in the dark lagoon;
While halting hard by the station yard,
Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,
The warrigal yells, and flats and fells
Are loud with his dismal cry.

On the topmost peak of mountains bleak
The south wind sobs, and strays
Through moaning pine and turpentine,
And the rippling runnel ways;
And strong streams flow, and great mists go,
Where the warrigal starts to hear
The watch-dog's bark break sharp in the dark,
And flees like a phantom of fear!

The swift rains beat, and the thunders fleet
On the wings of the fiery gale,
And down in the glen of pool and fen,
The wild gums whistle and wail,
As over the plains and past the chains
Of waterholes glimmering deep,
The warrigal flies from the shepherd's cries,
And the clamour of dogs and sheep.

He roves through the lands of sultry sands,
He hunts in the iron range,
Untamed as surge of the far sea verge,
And fierce and fickle and strange.
The white man's track and the haunts of the black
He shuns, and shudders to see;
For his joy he tastes in lonely wastes
Where his mates are torrent and tree.

TAKE the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old
Through the hours we would not hear of—nights we would not fain behold!
Other voices, sweeter voices, shall lament him year by year,
Though the morning finds us lonely, though we sit and marvel here:
Marvel much while Summer cometh, trammelled with November wheat,
Gold about her forehead gleaming, green and gold about her feet;
Yea, and while the land is dark with plover, gull, and gloomy glede,
Where the cold, swift songs of Winter fill the interlucent reed.
Yet, my harp—and oh, my fathers! never look for Sorrow’s lay,
Making life a mighty darkness in the patient noon of day;
Since he resteth whom we loved so, out beyond these fleeting seas,
Blowing clouds and restless regions paved with old perplexities,
In a land where thunder breaks not, in a place unknown of snow,
Where the rain is mute for ever, where the wild winds never go:
Home of far-forgotten phantoms—genii of our peaceful prime,
Shining by perpetual waters past the ways of Change and Time:
Haven of the harried spirit, where it folds its wearied wings,
Turns its face and sleeps a sleep with deep forgetfulness of things.

His should be a grave by mountains, in a cool and thick-mossed lea,
With the lone creek falling past it—falling ever to the sea.
His should be a grave by waters, by a bright and broad lagoon,
Making steadfast splendours hallowed of the quiet, shining moon.
There the elves of many forests—wandering winds and flying lights—
Born of green, of happy mornings, dear to yellow summer nights,
Full of dole for him that loved them, then might halt and then might go,
Finding fathers of the people to their children speaking low—
Speaking low of one who, failing, suffered all the poet’s pain,
Dying with the dead leaves round him—hopes which never grow again.

The night grows dark, and weird, and cold; and thick drops patter on the pane;
There comes a wailing from the sea; the wind is weary of the rain.
The red coals click beneath the flame, and see, with slow and silent feet
The hooded shadows cross the woods to where the twilight waters beat!
Now, fan-wise from the ruddy fire, a brilliance sweeps athwart the floor;
As, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door:
As, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door.

Dull echoes round the casement fall, and through the empty chambers go,
Like forms unseen whom we can hear on tip-toe stealing to and fro.
But fill your glasses to the brims, and, through a mist of smiles and tears,
Our eyes shall tell how much we love to toast the shades of other years!
And hither they will flock again, the ghosts of things that are no more,
While, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door:
While, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door.

The tempest-trodden wastelands moan - the trees are threshing at the blast;
And now they come, the pallid shapes of Dreams that perished in the past;
And, when we lift the windows up, a smothered whisper round us strays,
Like some lone wandering voice from graves
that hold the wrecks of bygone days.
I tell ye that I ~love~ the storm, for think we not of ~thoughts~ of yore,
When, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door?
When, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door?

We'll drink to those we sadly miss, and sing some mournful song we know,
Since they may chance to hear it all, and muse on friends they've left below.
Who knows - if souls in bliss can leave the borders of their Eden-home -
But that some loving one may now about the ancient threshold roam?
Oh, like an exile, he would hail a glimpse of the familiar floor,
Though, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door!
Though, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door!

FIVE years ago! you cannot choose
But know the face of change,
Though July sleeps and Spring renews
The gloss in gorge and range.

Five years ago! I hardly know
How they have slipped away,
Since here we watched at ebb and flow
The waters of the Bay;

And saw, with eyes of little faith,
From cumbered summits fade
The rainbow and the rainbow wraith,
That shadow of a shade.

For Love and Youth were vext with doubt,
Like ships on driving seas,
And in those days the heart gave out
Unthankful similes.

But let it be! I’ve often said
His lot was hardly cast
Who never turned a happy head
To an unhappy Past—

Who never turned a face of light
To cares beyond recall:
He only fares in sorer plight
Who hath no Past at all!

So take my faith, and let it stand
Between us for a sign
That five bright years have known the land
Since yonder tumbled line

Of seacliff took our troubled talk—
The words at random thrown,
And Echo lived about this walk
Of gap and slimy stone.

Here first we learned the Love which leaves
No lack or loss behind,
The dark, sweet Love which woos the eves
And haunts the morning wind.

And roves with runnels in the dell,
And houses by the wave
What time the storm hath struck the fell
And Terror fills the cave—

A Love, you know, that lives and lies
For moments past control,
And mellows through the Poet’s eyes
And sweetens in his soul.

Here first we faced a briny breeze,
What time the middle gale
Went shrilling over whitened seas
With flying towers of sail.

And here we heard the plovers call
As shattered pauses came,
When Heaven showed a fiery wall
With sheets of wasted flame.

Here grebe and gull and heavy glede
Passed eastward far away,
The while the wind, with slackened speed,
Drooped with the dying Day.

And here our friendship, like a tree,
Perennial grew and grew,
Till you were glad to live for me,
And I to live for you.

The embers were blinking and clinking away,
The casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the threshold alone!

And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
'I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a wanderer still!'

And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
'There are memories moaning and homeless to-night
That can never be tranquil again!'

And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a flutter and sigh to the eaves,
'They are wrinkled and wasted, and tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves.'

Did I hear a low echo of footfalls about,
Whilst watching those forest trees stark?
Or was it a dream that I hurried without
To clutch at and grapple the dark?

In the shadow I stood for a moment and spake -
'Bright thing that was loved in the past,
Oh! am I asleep - or abroad and awake?
And are you so near me at last?

'Oh, roamer from lands where the vanished years go,
Oh, waif from those mystical zones,
Come here where I long for you, broken and low,
On the mosses and watery stones!

'Come out of your silence and tell me if Life
Is so fair in that world as they say;
Was it worth all this yearning, and weeping, and strife
When you left it behind you to-day?

'Will it end all this watching, and doubting, and dread?
Do these sorrows die out with our breath?
Will they pass from our souls like a nightmare,' I said,
'While we glide through the mazes of Death?

'Come out of that darkness and teach me the lore
You have learned since I looked on your face;
By the summers that blossomed and faded of yore -
By the lights which have fled to that place!

'You answer me not when I know that you could -
When I know that you could and you should;
Though the storms be abroad on the wave;
Though the rain droppeth down with a wail to the wood,
And my heart is as cold as your grave!'

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling;
It lives in the mountain, where moss and the sedges
Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges;
Through brakes of the cedar and sycamore bowers
Struggles the light that is love to the flowers.
And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.

The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time,
They sing in September their songs of the May-time.
When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle,
They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;
When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together
They start up like fairies that follow fair weather,
And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden
Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.

October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,
Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;
Loiters knee-deep in the grasses to listen,
Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten.
Then is the time when the water-moons splendid
Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended
Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning
Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the morning.

Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers
Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.
When fiery December sets foot in the forest,
And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,
Pent in the ridges for ever and ever.
The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,
With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrents
Are toned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.

Often I sit, looking back to a childhood
Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,
Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion
Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of passion --
Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters
Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest rafters;
So I might keep in the city and alleys
The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys,
Charming to slumber the pain of my losses
With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.

A SILVER slope, a fall of firs, a league of gleaming grasses,
And fiery cones, and sultry spurs, and swarthy pits and passes!

The long-haired Cyclops bated breath, and bit his lip and hearkened,
And dug and dragged the stone of death, by ways that dipped and darkened.

Across a tract of furnaced flints there came a wind of water,
From yellow banks with tender hints of Tethys’ white-armed daughter.

She sat amongst wild singing weeds, by beds of myrrh and moly;
And Acis made a flute of reeds, and drew its accents slowly;

And taught its spirit subtle sounds that leapt beyond suppression,
And paused and panted on the bounds of fierce and fitful passion.

Then he who shaped the cunning tune, by keen desire made bolder,
Fell fainting, like a fervent noon, upon the sea-nymph’s shoulder.

Sicilian suns had laid a dower of light and life about her:
Her beauty was a gracious flower—the heart fell dead without her.

“Ah, Galate,” said Polypheme, “I would that I could find thee
Some finest tone of hill or stream, wherewith to lull and bind thee!

“What lyre is left of marvellous range, whose subtle strings, containing
Some note supreme, might catch and change, or set thy passion waning?—

“Thy passion for the fair-haired youth whose fleet, light feet perplex me
By ledges rude, on paths uncouth, and broken ways that vex me?

“Ah, turn to me! else violent sleep shall track the cunning lover;
And thou wilt wait and thou wilt weep when I his haunts discover.”

But golden Galatea laughed, and Thosa’s son, like thunder,
Broke through a rifty runnel shaft, and dashed its rocks asunder,

And poised the bulk, and hurled the stone, and crushed the hidden Acis,
And struck with sorrow drear and lone the sweetest of all faces.

To Zeus, the mighty Father, she, with plaint and prayer, departed:
Then from fierce Aetna to the sea a fountained water started—

A lucent stream of lutes and lights—cool haunt of flower and feather,
Whose silver days and yellow nights made years of hallowed weather.

Here Galatea used to come, and rest beside the river;
Because, in faint, soft, blowing foam, her shepherd lived for ever.

Where the strength of dry thunder splits hill-rocks asunder,
And the shouts of the desert-wind break,
By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,
Lo, the cattle track twists like a snake!
Like a sea of dead embers, burnt white by Decembers,
A plain to the left of it lies;
And six fleeting horses dash down the creek courses
With the terror of thirst in their eyes.

The false strength of fever, that deadly deceiver,
Gives foot to each famishing beast;
And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten,
The mirage gleams out in the east.
Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and ridden
In a stream where the cattle track dips;
And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces,
And the drought is a fire on their lips.

It is far to the station, and gaunt Desolation
Is a spectre that glooms in the way;
Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is,
And as flame are the feet of the day.
The wastes are like metal that forges unsettle
When the heat of the furnace is white;
And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth,
Is unknown to the wild desert night.

A cry of distress there! a horseman the less there!
The mock-waters shine like a moon!
It is 'Speed, and speed faster from this hole of disaster!
And hurrah for yon God-sent lagoon!'
Doth a devil deceive them? Ah, now let us leave them -
We are burdened in life with the sad;
Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble,
And the gladdest is never too glad.

From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile,
To a sweet river shadowed with reeds,
Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly,
The hoof-rutted cattle track leads.
There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light;
There fiery things falter and fall;
And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now,
And the wings of a peace over all.

Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy cover
Away by the snow-smitten Pole!
The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth;
And what is the end of the whole?
Some men are successful after seasons distressful
[Now, masters, the drift of my tale];
But the brink of salvation is a lair of damnation
For others who struggle, yet fail.

Where Hornby, like a mighty fallen star,
Burns through the darkness with a splendid ring
Of tenfold light, and where the awful face
Of Sydney’s northern headland stares all night
O’er dark, determined waters from the east,
From year to year a wild, Titanic voice
Of fierce aggressive sea shoots up and makes, —
When storm sails high through drifts of driving sleet,
And in the days when limpid waters glass
December’s sunny hair and forest face, —
A roaring down by immemorial caves,
A thunder in the everlasting hills.
But calm and lucid as an English lake,
Beloved by beams and wooed by wind and wing,
Shut in from tempest-trampled wastes of wave,
And sheltered from white wraths of surge by walls —
Grand ramparts founded by the hand of God,
The lordly Harbour gleams. Yea, like a shield
Of marvellous gold dropped in his fiery flight
By some lost angel in the elder days,
When Satan faced and fought Omnipotence,
It shines amongst fair, flowering hills, and flows
By dells of glimmering greenness manifold.
And all day long, when soft-eyed Spring comes round
With gracious gifts of bird and leaf and grass —
And through the noon, when sumptuous Summer sleeps
By yellowing runnels under beetling cliffs,
This royal water blossoms far and wide
With ships from all the corners of the world.

And while sweet Autumn with her gipsy face
Stands in the gardens, splashed from heel to thigh
With spinning vine-blood — yea, and when the mild,
Wan face of our Australian Winter looks
Across the congregated southern fens,
Then low, melodious, shell-like songs are heard
Beneath proud hulls and pompous clouds of sail,
By yellow beaches under lisping leaves
And hidden nooks to Youth and Beauty dear,
And where the ear may catch the counter-voice
Of Ocean travelling over far, blue tracts.

Moreover, when the moon is gazing down
Upon her lovely reflex in the wave,
(What time she, sitting in the zenith, makes
A silver silence over stirless woods),
Then, where its echoes start at sudden bells,
And where its waters gleam with flying lights,
The haven lies, in all its beauty clad,
More lovely even than the golden lakes
The poet saw, while dreaming splendid dreams
Which showed his soul the far Hesperides.

ACROSS bleak widths of broken sea
A fierce north-easter breaks,
And makes a thunder on the lea—
A whiteness of the lakes.
Here, while beyond the rainy stream
The wild winds sobbing blow,
I see the river of my dream
Four wasted years ago.

Narrara of the waterfalls,
The darling of the hills,
Whose home is under mountain walls
By many-luted rills!
Her bright green nooks and channels cool
I never more may see;
But, ah! the Past was beautiful—
The sights that used to be.

There was a rock-pool in a glen
Beyond Narrara’s sands;
The mountains shut it in from men
In flowerful fairy lands;
But once we found its dwelling-place—
The lovely and the lone—
And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
Our names upon a stone.

Above us, where the star-like moss
Shone on the wet, green wall
That spanned the straitened stream across,
We saw the waterfall—
A silver singer far away,
By folded hills and hoar;
Its voice is in the woods to-day—
A voice I hear no more.

I wonder if the leaves that screen
The rock-pool of the past
Are yet as soft and cool and green
As when we saw them last!
I wonder if that tender thing,
The moss, has overgrown
The letters by the limpid spring—
Our names upon the stone!

Across the face of scenes we know
There may have come a change—
The places seen four years ago
Perhaps would now look strange.
To you, indeed, they cannot be
What haply once they were:
A friend beloved by you and me
No more will greet us there.

Because I know the filial grief
That shrinks beneath the touch—
The noble love whose words are brief—
I will not say too much;
But often when the night-winds strike
Across the sighing rills,
I think of him whose life was like
The rock-pool’s in the hills.

A beauty like the light of song
Is in my dreams, that show
The grand old man who lived so long
As spotless as the snow.
A fitting garland for the dead
I cannot compass yet;
But many things he did and said
I never will forget.

In dells where once we used to rove
The slow, sad water grieves;
And ever comes from glimmering grove
The liturgy of leaves.
But time and toil have marked my face,
My heart has older grown
Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace
Our names upon the stone.

Hear ye not the waters beating where the rapid rivers, meeting
With the winds above them fleeting, hurry to the distant seas,
And a smothered sound of singing from old Ocean upwards springing,
Sending hollow echoes ringing like a wailing on the breeze?
For the tempest round us brewing, cometh with the clouds pursuing,
And the bright Day, like a ruin, crumbles from the mournful trees.
When the thunder ceases pealing, and the stars up heaven are stealing,
And the Moon above us wheeling throws her pleasant glances round,
From our homes we boldly sally ‘neath the trysting tree to rally,
For a night-hunt up the valley, with our brothers and the hound!
Through a wild-eyed Forest, staring at the light above it glaring,
We will travel, little caring for the dangers where we bound.

Twisted boughs shall tremble o’er us, hollow woods shall moan before us,
And the torrents like a chorus down the gorges dark shall sing;
And the vines shall shake and shiver, and the startled grasses quiver,
Like the reeds beside a river in the gusty days of Spring;
While we forward haste delighted, through a region seldom lighted —
Souls impatient, hearts excited — like a wind upon the wing!

Oh! the solemn tones of Ocean, like the language of devotion,
Or a voice of deep emotion, wander round the evening scene.
Oh! the ragged shadows cluster where, my brothers, we must muster
Ere the warm moon lends her lustre to the cedars darkly green;
And the lights like flowers shall blossom, in high Heaven’s kindly bosom,
While we hunt the wild opossum, underneath its leafy screen;

Underneath the woven bowers, where the gloomy night-hawk cowers,
Through a lapse of dreamy hours, in a stirless solitude!
And the hound — that close beside us still will stay whate’er betide us —
Through a ‘wildering waste shall guide us —
through a maze where few intrude,
Till the game is chased to cover, till the stirring sport is over,
Till we bound, each happy rover, homeward down the laughing wood.

Oh, the joy in wandering thither, when fond friends are all together
And our souls are like the weather — cloudless, clear and fresh and free!
Let the sailor sing the story of the ancient ocean’s glory,
Forests golden, mountains hoary — can he look and love like we?
Sordid worldling, haunt thy city with that heart so hard and gritty!
There are those who turn with pity when they turn to think of thee!

River, myrtle rimmed, and set
Deep amongst unfooted dells—
Daughter of grey hills of wet,
Born by mossed and yellow wells;
Now that soft September lays
Tender hands on thee and thine,
Let me think of blue-eyed days,
Star-like flowers and leaves of shine!

Cities soil the life with rust;
Water banks are cool and sweet;
River, tired of noise and dust,
Here I come to rest my feet.

Now the month from shade to sun
Fleets and sings supremest songs,
Now the wilful wood-winds run
Through the tangled cedar throngs.

Here are cushioned tufts and turns
Where the sumptuous noontide lies:
Here are seen by flags and ferns
Summer’s large, luxurious eyes.

On this spot wan Winter casts
Eyes of ruth, and spares its green
From his bitter sea-nursed blasts,
Spears of rain and hailstones keen.

Rather here abideth Spring,
Lady of a lovely land,
Dear to leaf and fluttering wing,
Deep in blooms—by breezes fanned.

Faithful friend beyond the main,
Friend that time nor change makes cold;
Now, like ghosts, return again
Pallid, perished days of old.

Ah, the days!—the old, old theme,
Never stale, but never new,
Floating like a pleasant dream,
Back to me and back to you.

Since we rested on these slopes
Seasons fierce have beaten down
Ardent loves and blossoming hopes—
Loves that lift and hopes that crown.

But, believe me, still mine eyes
Often fill with light that springs
From divinity, which lies
Ever at the heart of things.

Solace do I sometimes find
Where you used to hear with me
Songs of stream and forest wind,
Tones of wave and harp-like tree.

Araluen—home of dreams,
Fairer for its flowerful glade
Than the face of Persian streams
Or the slopes of Syrian shade;

Why should I still love it so,
Friend and brother far away?
Ask the winds that come and go,
What hath brought me here to-day.

Evermore of you I think,
When the leaves begin to fall,
Where our river breaks its brink,
And a rest is over all.

Evermore in quiet lands,
Friend of mine beyond the sea,
Memory comes with cunning hands,
Stays, and paints your face for me.

Barren Age and withered World!
Oh! the dying leaves,
Like a drizzling rain,
Falling round the roof -
Pattering on the pane!
Frosty Age and cold, cold World!
Ghosts of other days,
Trooping past the faded fire,
Flit before the gaze.
Now the wind goes soughing wild
O'er the whistling Earth;
And we front a feeble flame,
Sitting round the hearth!
Sitting by the fire,
Watching in its glow,
Ghosts of other days
Trooping to and fro.



Oh, the nights - the nights we've spent,
Sitting by the fire,
Cheerful in its glow;
Twenty summers back -
Twenty years ago!
If the days were days of toil
Wherefore should we mourn;
There were shadows near the shine,
Flowers with the thorn?
And we still can recollect
Evenings spent in mirth -
Fragments of a broken life,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Cheerful in its glow,
Twenty summers back -
Twenty years ago.

Beauty stooped to bless us once,
Sitting by the fire,
Happy in its glow;
Forty summers back -
Forty years ago.
Words of love were interchanged,
Maiden hearts we stole;
And the light affection throws
Slept on every soul.
Oh, the hours went flying past -
Hours of priceless worth;
But we took no note of Time,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Happy in its glow,
Forty summers back -
Forty years ago.

Gleesome children were we not?
Sitting by the fire,
Ruddy in its glow,
Sixty summers back -
Sixty years ago.
Laughing voices filled the room;
Oh, the songs we sung,
When the evenings hurried by -
When our hearts were young!
Pleasant faces watched the flame -
Eyes illumed with mirth -
And we told some merry tales,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Ruddy in its glow,
Sixty summers back -
Sixty years ago.



Barren Age and withered World!
Oh, the dying leaves,
Like a drizzling rain,
Falling round the roof -
Pattering on the pane!
Frosty Age and cold, cold World!
Ghosts of other days,
Trooping past the faded fire,
Flit before the gaze.
Now the wind goes soughing wild
O'er the whistling Earth;
And we front a feeble flame,
Sitting round the hearth:
Sitting by the fire,
Watching, in its glow,
Ghosts of other days
Trooping to and fro!

A MIGHTY theatre of snow and fire,
Girt with perpetual Winter, and sublime
By reason of that lordly solitude
Which dwells for ever at the world’s white ends;
And in that weird-faced wilderness of ice,
There is no human foot, nor any paw
Or hoof of beast, but where the shrill winds drive
The famished birds of storm across the tracts
Whose centre is the dim mysterious Pole.
Beyond—yea far beyond the homes of man,
By water never dark with coming ships,
Near seas that know not feather, scale, or fin,
The grand volcano, like a weird Isaiah,
Set in that utmost region of the Earth,
Doth thunder forth the awful utterance,
Whose syllables are flame; and when the fierce
Antarctic Night doth hold dominionship
Within her fastnessess, then round the cone
Of Erebus a crown of tenfold light
Appears; and shafts of marvellous splendour shoot
Far out to east and west and south and north,
Whereat a gorgeous dome of glory roofs
Wild leagues of mountain and transfigured waves,
And lends all things a beauty terrible.

Far-reaching lands, whereon the hand of Change
Hath never rested since the world began,
Lie here in fearful fellowship with cold
And rain and tempest. Here colossal horns
Of hill start up and take the polar fogs
Shot through with flying stars of fire; and here,
Above the dead-grey crescents topped with spires
Of thunder-smoke, one half the heaven flames
With that supremest light whose glittering life
Is yet a marvel unto all but One—
The Entity Almighty, whom we feel
Is nearest us when we are face to face
With Nature’s features aboriginal,
And in the hearing of her primal speech
And in the thraldom of her primal power.

While like the old Chaldean king who waxed
Insane with pride, we human beings grow
To think we are the mightiest of the world,
And lords of all terrestrial things, behold
The sea rolls in with a superb disdain
Upon our peopled shores, omnipotent;
And while we set up things of clay and call
Our idols gods; and while we boast or fume
About the petty honours, or the poor,
Pale disappointments of our meagre lives,
Lo, changeless as Eternity itself,
The grand Antarctic mountain looms outside
All breathing life; and, with its awful speech,
Is as an emblem of the Power Supreme,
Whose thunders shake the boundless Universe,
Whose lightnings make a terror of all Space.

Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams,
And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping,
Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,
And hoarse with sounds of storms unsleeping.
Fit grave it is for one whose song
Was tuned by tones he caught from torrents,
And filled with mountain breaths, and strong,
Wild notes of falling forest currents.

So let him sleep, the rugged hymns
And broken lights of woods above him!
And let me sing how sorrow dims
The eyes of those that used to love him.

As April in the wilted wold
Turns faded eyes on splendours waning,
What time the latter leaves are old,
And ruin strikes the strays remaining;

So we that knew this singer dead,
Whose hands attuned the harp Australian,
May set the face and bow the head,
And mourn his fate and fortunes alien.

The burden of a perished faith
Went sighing through his speech of sweetness,
With human hints of time and death,
And subtle notes of incompleteness.

But when the fiery power of youth
Had passed away and left him nameless,
Serene as light, and strong as truth,
He lived his life, untired and tameless.

And, far and free, this man of men,
With wintry hair and wasted feature,
Had fellowship with gorge and glen,
And learned the loves and runes of Nature.

Strange words of wind, and rhymes of rain,
And whispers from the inland fountains
Are mingled, in his various strain,
With leafy breaths of piny mountains.

But as the undercurrents sigh
Beneath the surface of a river,
The music of humanity
Dwells in his forest-psalms for ever.

No soul was he to sit on heights
And live with rocks apart and scornful:
Delights of men were his delights,
And common troubles made him mournful.

The flying forms of unknown powers
With lofty wonder caught and filled him;
But there were days of gracious hours
When sights and sounds familiar thrilled him.

The pathos worn by wayside things,
The passion found in simple faces,
Struck deeper than the life of springs
Or strength of storms and sea-swept places.

But now he sleeps, the tired bard,
The deepest sleep; and, lo! I proffer
These tender leaves of my regard,
With hands that falter as they offer.

In the beams of a beautiful day,
Made soft by a breeze from the sea,
The horses were started away,
The fleet-footed thirty and three;
Where beauty, with shining attire,
Shed more than a noon on the land,
Like spirits of thunder and fire
They flashed by the fence and the stand.
And the mouths of pale thousands were hushed
When Somnus, a marvel of strength,
Past Bowes like a sudden wind rushed,
And led the bay colt by a length;
But a chestnut came galloping through,
And, down where the river-tide steals,
O’Brien, on brave Waterloo,
Dashed up to the big horse’s heels.

But Cracknell still kept to the fore,
And first by the water bend wheeled,
When a cry from the stand, and a roar
Ran over green furlongs of field;
Far out by the back of the course —
A demon of muscle and pluck —
Flashed onward the favourite horse,
With his hoofs flaming clear of the ruck.

But the wonderful Queenslander came,
And the thundering leaders were three;
And a ring, and a roll of acclaim,
Went out, like a surge of the sea:
“An Epigram! Epigram wins!” —
“The Colt of the Derby” — “The bay!”
But back where the crescent begins
The favourite melted away.

And the marvel that came from the North,
With another, was heavily thrown;
And here at the turning flashed forth
To the front a surprising unknown;
By shed and by paddock and gate
The strange, the magnificent black,
Led Darebin a length in the straight,
With thirty and one at his back.

But the Derby colt tired at the rails,
And Ivory’s marvellous bay
Passed Burton, O’Brien, and Hales,
As fleet as a flash of the day.
But Gough on the African star
Came clear in the front of his “field”,
Hard followed by Morrison’s Czar
And the blood unaccustomed to yield.

Yes, first from the turn to the end,
With a boy on him paler than ghost,
The horse that had hardly a friend
Shot flashing like fire by the post.
When Graham was “riding” ‘twas late
For his friends to applaud on the stands,
The black, through the bend and “the straight”,
Had the race of the year in his hands.

In a clamour of calls and acclaim,
He landed the money — the horse
With the beautiful African name,
That rang to the back of the course.
Hurrah for the Hercules race,
And the terror that came from his stall,
With the bright, the intelligent face,
To show the road home to them all!

Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing
Falters because of the vision it sees;
Voice that is not of the living is ringing
Down in the depths where the darkness is clinging,
Even when Noon is the lord of the leas,
Fast, like a curse, to the ghosts of the trees!
Here in a mist that is parted in sunder,
Half with the darkness and half with the day;
Face of a woman, but face of a wonder,
Vivid and wild as a flame of the thunder,
Flashes and fades, and the wail of the grey
Water is loud on the straits of the bay!

Father, whose years have been many and weary—
Elder, whose life is as lovely as light
Shining in ways that are sterile and dreary—
Tell me the name of this beautiful peri,
Flashing on me like the wonderful white
Star, at the meeting of morning and night.

Look to thy Saviour, and down on thy knee, man,
Lean on the Lord, as the Zebedee leaned;
Daughter of hell is the neighbour of thee, man—
Lilith, of Adam the luminous leman!
Turn to the Christ to be succoured and screened,
Saved from the eyes of a marvellous fiend!

Serpent she is in the shape of a woman,
Brighter than woman, ineffably fair!
Shelter thyself from the splendour, and sue, man;
Light that was never a loveliness human
Lives in the face of this sinister snare,
Longing to strangle thy soul with her hair!

Lilith, who came to the father and bound him
Fast with her eyes in the first of the springs;
Lilith she is, but remember she drowned him,
Shedding her flood of gold tresses around him—
Lulled him to sleep with the lyric she sings:
Melody strange with unspeakable things!

Low is her voice, but beware of it ever,
Swift bitter death is the fruit of delay;
Never was song of its beauty—ah! never—
Heard on the mountain, or meadow, or river,
Not of the night is it, not of the day—
Fly from it, stranger, away and away.

Back on the hills are the blossom and feather,
Glory of noon is on valley and spire;
Here is the grace of magnificent weather,
Where is the woman from gulfs of the nether?
Where is the fiend with the face of desire?
Gone, with a cry, in miraculous fire!

Sound that was not of this world, or the spacious
Splendid blue heaven, has passed from the lea;
Dead is the voice of the devil audacious:
Only a dream is her music fallacious,
Here, in the song and the shadow of tree,
Down by the green and the gold of the sea.

LIKE one who meets a staggering blow,
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past—
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?

His face is smitten with the wind,
His cheeks are chilled with rain;
And you were right, his hair is white,
But eyes are calm and heart is light
He does not fear the strife to-night,
He knows the roaring main.

Ho, Sailor! Will to-morrow bring
The hours of pleasant rest?
An answer low—“I do not know,
The thunders grow and far winds blow,
But storms may come and storms may go—
Our God, He judgeth best!”

Now you are right, brave mariner,
But we are not like you;
We, used to shore, our fates deplore,
And fear the more when waters roar;
So few amongst us look before,
Or stop to think that Heaven is o’er—
Ah! what you say is true.

And those who go abroad in ships,
Who seldom see the land,
But sail and stray so far away,
Should trust and pray, for are not they,
When Darkness blinds them on their way,
All guided by God’s hand?

But you are wrinkled, grey and worn;
’Tis time you dwelt in peace!
Your prime is past; we fail so fast;
You may not last through every blast,
And, oh, ’tis fearful to be cast
Amongst the smothering seas!

Is there no absent face to love
That you must live alone?
If faith did fade, if friends betrayed,
And turned, and staid resolves you’d made,
Ah, still ’tis pleasant to be laid
Where you at least are known.

The answer slides betwixt our words—
“The season shines and glooms
On ship and strand, on sea and land,
But life must go and Time is spanned,
As well you know when out you stand
With Death amongst the tombs!

“It matters not to one so old
Who mourns when Fate comes round,
And one may sleep down in the deep
As well as those beneath the heap
That fifty stormy years will sweep
And trample to the ground.”

Your speech is wise, brave mariner,
And we would let you be;
You speak with truth, you strive to soothe;
But, oh, the wrecks of Love and Truth,
What say you to our tears for Youth
And Beauty drowned at sea?

“Oh, talk not of the Beauty lost,
Since first these decks I trod
The hopeless stare on faces fair,
The streaming, bare, dishevelled hair,
The wild despair, the sinking—where,
Oh where, oh where?— My God!”

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.

Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;
The leaves and flowers I know so well
Are gleaming in my sight.

And yonder is the mountain glen,
Where sings in trees unstirred
By breath of breeze or axe of men
The shining satin-bird.

The old weird cry of plover comes
Across the marshy ways,
And here the hermit hornet hums,
And here the wild bee strays.

No novel life or light I see,
On hill, in dale beneath:
All things around are known to me
Except this bit of heath.

This touching growth hath made me dream -
It sends my soul afar
To where the Scottish mountains gleam
Against the Northern star.

It droops - this plant - like one who grieves;
But, while my fancy glows,
There is that glory on its leaves
Which never robed the rose.

For near its wind-blown native spot
Were born, by crags uphurled,
The ringing songs of Walter Scott
That shook the whole wide world.

There haply by the sounding streams,
And where the fountains break,
He saw the darling of his dreams,
The Lady of the Lake.

And on the peaks where never leaf
Of lowland beauty grew,
Perhaps he met Clan Alpine's chief,
The rugged Roderick Dhu.

Not far, perchance, this heather throve
(Above fair banks of ferns),
From that green place of stream and grove
That knew the voice of Burns.

Against the radiant river ways
Still waves the noble wood,
Where in the old majestic days
The Scottish poet stood.

Perhaps my heather used to beam
In robes of morning frost,
By dells which saw that lovely dream -
The Mary that he lost.

I hope, indeed, the singer knew
The little spot of land
On which the mountain beauty grew
That withers in my hand.

A Highland sky my vision fills;
I feel the great, strong North -
The hard grey weather of the hills
That brings men-children forth.

The peaks of Scotland, where the din
And flame of thunders go,
Seem near me, with the masculine,
Hale sons of wind and snow.

So potent is this heather here,
That under skies of blue,
I seem to breathe the atmosphere
That William Wallace knew.

And under windy mountain wall,
Where breaks the torrent loose,
I fancy I can hear the call
Of grand old Robert Bruce.

Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
About with clouds and racks of rain,
And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
Across the plain.

Now twilight, with a shadowy hand
Of wild dominionship, doth keep
Strong hold of hollow straits of land,
And watery sounds are loud and deep
By gap and steep.

Keen, fitful gusts, that fly before
The wings of storm when day hath shut
Its eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,
Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,
Against the hut.

And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,
Far eastern cliffs start up, and take
Thick steaming vapours from a swamp
That lieth like a great blind lake,
Of face opaque.

The moss that, like a tender grief,
About an English ruin clings -
What time the wan autumnal leaf
Faints, after many wanderings
On windy wings -

That gracious growth, whose quiet green
Is as a love in days austere,
Was never seen - hath never been -
On slab or roof, deserted here
For many a year.

Nor comes the bird whose speech is song -
Whose songs are silvery syllables
That unto glimmering woods belong,
And deep, meandering mountain dells
By yellow wells.

But rather here the wild-dog halts,
And lifts the paw, and looks, and howls;
And here, in ruined forest vaults,
Abide dim, dark, death-featured owls,
Like monks in cowls.

Across this hut the nettle runs,
And livid adders make their lair
In corners dank from lack of suns,
And out of foetid furrows stare
The growths that scare.

Here Summer's grasp of fire is laid
On bark and slabs that rot, and breed
Squat ugly things of deadly shade,
The scorpion, and the spiteful seed
Of centipede.

Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,
And flaming noontides, mute with heat,
Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,
Upon these rifted rafters beat
With torrid feet.

And night by night the fitful gale
Doth carry past the bittern's boom,
The dingo's yell, the plover's wail,
While lumbering shadows start, and loom,
And hiss through gloom.

No sign of grace - no hope of green,
Cool-blossomed seasons marks the spot;
But chained to iron doom, I ween,
'Tis left, like skeleton, to rot
Where ruth is not.

For on this hut hath murder writ,
With bloody fingers, hellish things;
And God will never visit it
With flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,
Or gentle wings.

'Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
Shut your ears, stranger,' saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.

To-night the north-easter goes travelling slowly,
But it never stoops down to that hollow unholy;
To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,
But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten.

For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,
And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing -
The wraiths of two sawyers (~step under and under~),
Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!

Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving,
Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving -
You may see the saw heaving, and falling, and heaving,
Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving!

And across a burnt body, as black as an adder,
Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog (was ever sight sadder?)
For, as the dry thunder splits louder and faster,
This sprite of a sheep-dog howls for his master.

'Oh, count your beads deftly,' saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
And well may she mutter, for the dark, hollow laughter
You will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after.

Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary,
For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary.
Pray for your peace in these perilous places,
And pray for the laying of horrible faces.

One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid,
Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid;
One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there
(Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there:

The stranger, who came from the loved, the romantic
Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic,
Leaving behind him a patient home, yearning
For the steps in the distance - never returning;

Who was left in the forest, shrunken and starkly,
Burnt by his slayers (so men have said, darkly),
With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there,
And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there.

Yea, cross your breast humbly and hold your breath tightly,
Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly,
From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too),
And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to.

I tell you - that bushman is braver than most men
Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen,
Although in that hollow, unholy and lonely,
He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only.

Just a shell, to which the seaweed glittering yet with greenness clings,
Like the song that once I loved so, softly of the old time sings -
Softly of the old time speaketh - bringing ever back to me
Sights of far-off lordly forelands - glimpses of the sounding sea!
Now the cliffs are all before me - now, indeed, do I behold
Shining growths on wild wet hillheads, quiet pools of green and gold.
And, across the gleaming beaches, lo! the mighty flow and fall
Of the great ingathering waters thundering under Wamberal!

Back there are the pondering mountains; there the dim, dumb ranges loom -
Ghostly shapes in dead grey vapour - half-seen peaks august with gloom.
There the voice of troubled torrents, hidden in unfathomed deeps,
Known to moss and faint green sunlight, wanders down the oozy steeps.
There the lake of many runnels nestles in a windless wild
Far amongst thick-folded forests, like a radiant human child.
And beyond surf-smitten uplands - high above the highest spur -
Lo! the clouds like tents of tempest on the crags of Kincumber!

Wamberal, the home of echoes! Hard against a streaming strand,
Sits the hill of blind black caverns, at the limits of the land.
Here the haughty water marches - here the flights of straitened sea
Make a noise like that of trumpets, breaking wide across the lea!
But behold, in yonder crescent that a ring of island locks
Are the gold and emerald cisterns shining moonlike in the rocks!
Clear, bright cisterns, zoned by mosses, where the faint wet blossoms dwell
With the leaf of many colours - down beside the starry shell.

Friend of mine beyond the mountains, here and here the perished days
Come like sad reproachful phantoms, in the deep grey evening haze -
Come like ghosts, and sit beside me when the noise of day is still,
And the rain is on the window, and the wind is on the hill.
Then they linger, but they speak not, while my memory roams and roams
Over scenes by death made sacred - other lands and other homes!
Places sanctified by sorrow - sweetened by the face of yore -
Face that you and I may look on (friend and brother) nevermore!

Seasons come with tender solace - time lacks neither light nor rest;
But the old thoughts were such ~dear~ ones, and the old days seem the best.
And to those who've loved and suffered, every pulse of wind or rain -
Every song with sadness in it, brings the peopled Past again.
Therefore, just this shell yet dripping, with this weed of green and grey,
Sets me thinking - sets me dreaming of the places far away;
Dreaming of the golden rockpools - of the foreland and the fall;
And the home behind the mountains looming over Wamberal.