University of Virginia Library

How happy he, who, far from Sydney heat
And from the noisy, dusty street,
Can spend his days in carelessness among
The woodland shade and woodland song.
How gladly could I pass a peaceful life,
Away from city stir and strife,
On the Blue Mountains in a little cot,
By road and rail not quite forgot,
With half a square mile round it, where my mood
Could be indulged with clearing wood
And laying out an orchard and a plot
Of kitchen garden, a still spot
With shelter from the gales which eastward blow,
And ever-running creek below,
Threading its way twixt tangled ferny bowers.
I'd leave one half to native flowers,
Boronias, lobelias and heaths
And lilac-pencilled creamy wreaths
Of clematis, with myriad bells around
The stems and crowns of saplings wound.
I'd never cut the royal Waratah
But leave each crimson glowing star
To shine, a glory, through the ambient bush,
Or open in its peerless flush
The monarch of a flower-bed supreme,
The blossom of an eastern dream.
Here I'd watch Nature in her housewife sphere
Of daily duties through the year,
In winter making earth's parched surface cool
And filling creek and tank and pool,
In spring releasing budding leaves and flowers,
Imprisoned through the wintry hours
And in the fiercest of the summer heat,
In summer filling fruits with sweet
And bringing glittering days and clear fresh nights,
Fair as the “Father of the Lights”
Has deigned in any age, in any clime
Since earth was in her Eden-prime,
And in the autumn shedding eves of rest
For heads with summer-noons distressed.
In winter I would have a noble blaze,
A glimpse of summer in dark days,—
No stint of fuel where the ground to clear
Could fill the hearths for many a year.
Felling majestic logs would give me health
As well as save a mint of wealth
In coal unpurchased. Great men oft have found
A fount of youth in clearing ground:
Gladstone in England; our most learned men
Have wielded axe as well as pen.
The fallen stringy-bark would give the slab
To roof the wattle and the dab;
The straight, young sapling-trees would build the frame,
And make the fence to bound my claim;
The best and handiest of trunk and root
My fuel-hoard would constitute;
The giant stumps too massive to out-grub
I'd burn on windy days with scrub
Too poor to stack. Felling and firing trees
Would be my winter cure for ease,
When not employed in breaking up field soil
To fit it for its annual toil,
Or hoeing up the weeds between the lines
Of lemons, oranges, and vines.
And when the swift night of the winter came,
Beside a homely oil-lamp flame
I'd dip into the hoard of books I've ta'en
In all my flights o'er land and main.
To take up one would mind me of the home
I left beyond the northern foam,
With its bright plate and ancient portraits hung
The spacious dining-room along.
Round sisters fair and father good and dear
Enjoying dainty English cheer,
Almost in earshot of the classic bells,
Whose ring the infant cockney tells;
Another would recall the famous school
Where I was ruled and taught to rule,
As captain of it: this, with notes and signs
On margins and between the lines,
Would conjure up an image of grey walls
And Oxford's memorable halls,
And the conflicting tides of college days,
The hopes of academic praise
With the temptations to let fair days slip
In bright ease and boon fellowship;
And that so daintily preserved might tell
Of some fair girl whom I loved well,
Or whom I pleased in the old land, wherein
It was my proud fate to begin.
And all this pageant might unfold its state
In a small room some twelve by eight
Of bark hut or of weatherboarded cot
In a secluded mountain spot
Five thousand leagues from where I “took my gown,”
And fifty odd from Sydney town.

In spring I'd keep the untaxed wood-fires on
Till my full meed of sun-fire shone,
And, out of doors, I'd spend my morning hours
In regist'ring the births of flowers.
I'd make a calendar and mark each day
Not in the antiquated way
But with the opening buds. The prickly heath,
The first to leave its wintry sheath,
And each unfolding star that followed it,
Should on my watchful page be writ.
I'd listen to the brown bee's lulling speech
From the pink promise of the peach
And pluck the golden oranges which hung
Their incense-snow of bloom among,
And in the southern noontide's solemn hush
I'd take my book into the bush
And watch the operations of the spring,
The wrens their nestlings fostering,
The lizards darting out again to greet
The advent of their favourite heat,
A stray snake here and there half-numbed and slow
In the well-nigh forgotten glow,
And insects coming back to haunt the shade
Wherein their race last summer played,
The flickering shade of chequered light and dark,
Of Austral forest depths the mark.
For the thin gum-leaves with their mournful droop
And stiff mimosas loath to stoop,
Cannot block out the puissant southern sun
As oak and ash and beech have done
In many an unforgotten Kentish glade,
Wherein in childhood's days we played.

In summer I would leave my bed betimes
To have the mornings in their primes
For gathering the ripened English fruits
From trees and plants with bloom and roots,
These guarded from the frost, those duly fed,—
From cherry-croft and strawberry-bed,
Currant and gooseberry garden, all in vain
Implanted on the sultry plain.
And when the sun attained his noonday crown
I'd on an easy bank lie down
And revel in contrasted hues divine,
The sky blue on the sombre line
Of dark-green forest round the mountain top,
With here and there a grey outcrop
Of bald defiant rock: and when the eve
The heaven and earth should interweave
In web of golden fire, I'd stand upon
A gorge's summit, looking on
The shadow cast by intervening hill
Upon the treetops, sleeping still
Down in its heart a thousand feet below,
Where man's foot might not ever go,
And then retrace my steps once more to give
My garden wherewithal to live—
The water whereof Heav'n so great a need,
So little store has us decreed.
A hearty meal should close the day, and night
Should soon lend slumber and delight.
When autumn followed, I should feel at first
A throb of exultation burst
At its fresh morns, but I should mind me soon
That autumn was the afternoon,
That winter's night, and spring's awakening dawn,
Even when autumn was withdrawn,
Must intervene, ere in full grace the morn
The mount and forest could adorn,
Although in this inimitable land,
Even the winter skies were bland.
I'd spend the autumn noons in calling back
From the loath summer's downward track
Gleams of his glory, and when autumn's night
Swooped down more swiftly on the light
Once more, I'd lit my lamp, and bring my books
At dusk from their accustomed nooks.

Here I'd cast off ambition and the cares
Of making fortunes, with their snares,
Forget each eager longing of my life,
Forget each triumph, trial, strife,

Forget the toils of boyhood and of youth,
For crowns scholastic, and in sooth
Censure and praise and social days forget,
With each attendant joy and fret,
Content an uneventful life to lead,
With nought but health and peace for meed.

A man who has a cot, though small it be,
From rent and tax and mortgage free,
With half a mile of freehold round it, where
He can take exercise and air,
With trees to cut for fire, and fence, and shed,
And orchard, flower- and cabbage-bed,
And old book friends and stranger books within,
When rain or nightfall drives him in,
And just enough of yearly income clear
To let him drink his English beer,
Careless of cost as oft as he may please,
Should be a very prince-at-ease,
And doubly prince if he can have his cot
Upon some lovely mountain spot,
With view of forest, fall and precipice,
To dazzle and delight his eyes,
And on vine, shrub and tree, a wealth of flowers,
Wondrous and wild in springtide hours,
And trebly if he have with cot and land
And vista flowery and grand,
A fair girl in her womanhood's fresh spring,
With something of the flowering,
And something of the lofty mountain side
Of Nature in herself allied,
To share and to illuminate his life,
As sweetheart ne'er discrowned and wife,
A girl whose elegance and pleading face
And the refinement of whose grace
Will guard him from neglecting, while they roam,
The gentle habits of a home;
A girl who will not fear to walk or ride
Long journeys at her husband's side,
Or, if need be, to spend a long lone day,
When business summons him away,
And one whose approbation sweet will lend
The palm to every labour's end.

But human nature 's human nature still,
Just one joy more his cup would fill
That on his little freehold near the spot
Where he has reared his rustic cot,
Rich seams of coal should near the surface lie,
That he might “float a company”
And have the means, whenever he was fain,
Of living in the town again
'Mid every luxury that wealth and art
Could add to gratify his heart.