A Poetry of Exiles By Douglas B. W. Sladen: An Australian colonist: Second edition, revised |
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A POETRY OF EXILES. |
 | A Poetry of Exiles |  |
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A POETRY OF EXILES.
A poetry of Exiles—we are exiles
From the heirlooms and cradle of our race,
Its hallowed scenes of trials and of triumphs,
Its battlefields, its castles and its graves.
From the heirlooms and cradle of our race,
Its hallowed scenes of trials and of triumphs,
Its battlefields, its castles and its graves.
We cannot go to some thatch-roofed farm-house
Or garret in a ruin overhanging
The High Street of a mediæval town,
And say “'twas here that first his eyes saw light
Who won the famous victory,” or pause,
With head uncovered, by the battered tomb
Of one who gave a nation liberty.
Or garret in a ruin overhanging
The High Street of a mediæval town,
And say “'twas here that first his eyes saw light
Who won the famous victory,” or pause,
With head uncovered, by the battered tomb
Of one who gave a nation liberty.
We cannot worship in a village church
With walls declaring how our ancestors
Of generations died and were beloved.
We cannot stand in our old halls and say
Here all my sires for centuries have stood.
With walls declaring how our ancestors
Of generations died and were beloved.
We cannot stand in our old halls and say
Here all my sires for centuries have stood.
Ah no! a world of ocean shuts us off
From each association that we prize,
Our boasts, our yearnings and our history,
Are bound up in the land we left behind;
We to the end are Men of Kent and Scots,
North countrymen, West countrymen and Irish,
Begotten in the Colonies indeed,
But bearing in our speech and our traditions
And prejudice the stamp of the old home.
From each association that we prize,
Our boasts, our yearnings and our history,
Are bound up in the land we left behind;
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North countrymen, West countrymen and Irish,
Begotten in the Colonies indeed,
But bearing in our speech and our traditions
And prejudice the stamp of the old home.
But then if we are exiles, we are free,
The clouds, the chill, the tempest left behind,
For warmth and clear blue skies and calm blue seas.
We, who were cooped up by competing crowds
In ever narrowing strips of the old land,
Can push out into distance unsurveyed:
And we who lived amid the smoke of cities
Can ramble into virgin forest-glades,
Where crimson tulips and rock-lilies blow
Surpassing in their span and brilliance
The monarchs of the garden, and each tree
And shrub and thicket glows with wealth of bloom
As beautiful and fragrant as the flowers
Which only grow down on the ground in fields
And woods of England. Each can have a home
And freehold of his own, and no close phalanx
Of sons of Norman knights and Saxon thegns
Confronts the artizan and labourer
When he aspires to climb into command.
The clouds, the chill, the tempest left behind,
For warmth and clear blue skies and calm blue seas.
We, who were cooped up by competing crowds
In ever narrowing strips of the old land,
Can push out into distance unsurveyed:
And we who lived amid the smoke of cities
Can ramble into virgin forest-glades,
Where crimson tulips and rock-lilies blow
Surpassing in their span and brilliance
The monarchs of the garden, and each tree
And shrub and thicket glows with wealth of bloom
As beautiful and fragrant as the flowers
Which only grow down on the ground in fields
And woods of England. Each can have a home
And freehold of his own, and no close phalanx
Of sons of Norman knights and Saxon thegns
Confronts the artizan and labourer
When he aspires to climb into command.
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But wherewith shall we strike a resonant string
Upon the exile's lyre?—what note of pride,
Of ecstasy, of horror, of regret?
We have no history, no battlefields,
No shattered castles, no debateable
And ballad-crowded border; no romance
Of courtly birth, no storied Westminster;
But we have our own heroes, men who dared
The unknown perils of the wilderness
To make the land we live in known to us,
And died by nameless deaths. And we have chasms
Paved with primeval forests and with ramparts
Dwarfing to ant-heaps human fortresses.
And we have sunny days and cloudless skies
In long procession: harbours fairy green
And forest flowery from topmost tree
Down to the tiny creek that drains the dell.
Upon the exile's lyre?—what note of pride,
Of ecstasy, of horror, of regret?
We have no history, no battlefields,
No shattered castles, no debateable
And ballad-crowded border; no romance
Of courtly birth, no storied Westminster;
But we have our own heroes, men who dared
The unknown perils of the wilderness
To make the land we live in known to us,
And died by nameless deaths. And we have chasms
Paved with primeval forests and with ramparts
Dwarfing to ant-heaps human fortresses.
And we have sunny days and cloudless skies
In long procession: harbours fairy green
And forest flowery from topmost tree
Down to the tiny creek that drains the dell.
Our battlesongs must be of exploration,
Our idylls of Bush-flowers and the wives
Who are the flowers of our exiled life:
Our metaphors of awe and the sublime
Must paint the fell and forest, and our rhythm
Must gallop o'er illimitable plains,
Or listen to the swaying of the trees
Couched by campfires at night, when day-sounds sleep:
The majesty of space and solitude
Must kindle wonder, and the undimmed blue
Of southern skies breathe airiness and grace.
Our idylls of Bush-flowers and the wives
Who are the flowers of our exiled life:
Our metaphors of awe and the sublime
Must paint the fell and forest, and our rhythm
Must gallop o'er illimitable plains,
Or listen to the swaying of the trees
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The majesty of space and solitude
Must kindle wonder, and the undimmed blue
Of southern skies breathe airiness and grace.
But ever through our measures let there run
An echo of old voices, a reflex
Of unforgotten scenes, a waft of flowers
Which grow on English banks and Scottish braes
Or round the stillness of an Irish lake,
To show that on the far Pacific isle
The blood flows uncorrupted in our veins.
An echo of old voices, a reflex
Of unforgotten scenes, a waft of flowers
Which grow on English banks and Scottish braes
Or round the stillness of an Irish lake,
To show that on the far Pacific isle
The blood flows uncorrupted in our veins.
| A Poetry of Exiles | |