James Lister Cuthbertson: Verses about Water

The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea,
And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free,
The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night,
Waned in the gray awakening that heralded the light;
Still in the dying darkness, still in the forest dim
The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb,
Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist,
And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed;
Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard,
And the wind in the she-oak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred,
The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast,
The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest,
And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow gray
And burnt with cloudy crimson at dawning of the day.

Gold of the tangled wilderness of wattle,
   Break in the lone green hollows of the hills,
Flame on the iron headlands of the ocean,
   Gleam on the margin of the hurrying rills.

Come with thy saffron diadem and scatter
   Odours of Araby that haunt the air,
Queen of our woodland, rival of the roses,
   Spring in the yellow tresses of thy hair.

Surely the old gods, dwellers on Olympus,
   Under thy shining loveliness have strayed,
Crowned with thy clusters, magical Apollo,
   Pan with his reedy music may have played.

Surely within thy fastness, Aphrodite,
   She of the sea-ways, fallen from above,
Wandered beneath thy canopy of blossom,
   Nothing disdainful of a mortal's love.

Aye, and Her sweet breath lingers on the wattle,
   Aye, and Her myrtle dominates the glade,
And with a deep and perilous enchantment
   Melts in the heart of lover and of maid.

AUSTRALIA! land of lonely lake
And serpent-haunted fen;
Land of the torrent and the fire
And forest-sundered men:
Thou art not now as thou shalt be
When the stern invaders come,
In the hush before the hurricane,
The dread before the drum.
A louder thunder shall be heard
Than echoes on thy shore,
When o’er the blackened basalt cliffs
The foreign cannon roar—
When the stand is made in the sheoaks’ shade
When heroes fall for thee,
And the creeks in gloomy gullies run
Dark crimson to the sea:

When under honeysuckles gray,
And wattles’ swaying gold,
The stalwart arm may strike no more,
The valiant heart is cold—
When thou shalt know the agony,
The fever, and the strife
Of those who wrestle against odds
For liberty and life:

Then is the great Dominion born,
The seven sisters bound,
From Sydney’s greenly wooded port
To lone King George’s Sound—
Then shall the islands of the south,
The lands of bloom and snow,
Forth from their isolation come
To meet the common foe.

Then, only then—when after war
Is peace with honour born,
When from the bosom of the night
Comes golden-sandalled morn,
When laurelled victory is thine,
And the day of battle done,
Shall the heart of a mighty people stir,
And Australia be as one.

Down to the lighthouse pillar
   The rolling woodland comes,
Gay with the gold of she-oaks
   And the green of the stunted gums,
With the silver-grey of honeysuckle,
   With the wasted bracken red,
With a tuft of softest emerald
   And a cloud-flecked sky o'erhead.

We climbed by ridge and boulder,
   Umber and yellow scarred,
Out to the utmost precipice,
   To the point that was ocean-barred,
Till we looked below on the fastness
   Of the breeding eagle's nest,
And Cape Wollomai opened eastward
   And the Otway on the west.

Over the mirror of azure
   The purple shadows crept,
League upon league of rollers
   Landward evermore swept,
And burst upon gleaming basalt,
   And foamed in cranny and crack,
And mounted in sheets of silver,
   And hurried reluctant back.

And the sea, so calm out yonder,
   Wherever we turned our eyes,
Like the blast of an angel's trumpet
   Rang out to the earth and skies,
Till the reefs and the rocky ramparts
   Throbbed to the giant fray,
And the gullies and jutting headlands
   Were bathed in a misty spray.

Oh, sweet in the distant ranges,
   To the ear of inland men,
Is the ripple of falling water
   In sassafras-haunted glen,
The stir in the ripening cornfield
   That gently rustles and swells,
The wind in the wattle sighing,
   The tinkle of cattle bells.

But best is the voice of ocean,
   That strikes to the heart and brain,
That lulls with its passionate music
   Trouble and grief and pain,
That murmurs the requiem sweetest
   For those who have loved and lost,
And thunders a jubilant anthem
   To brave hearts tempest-tossed.

That takes to its boundless bosom
   The burden of all our care,
That whispers of sorrow vanquished,
   Of hours that may yet be fair,
That tells of a Harbour of Refuge
   Beyond life's stormy straits,
Of an infinite peace that gladdens,
   Of an infinite love that waits.