Australian Lyrics &c :: :: University of Virginia Library

What shall protect from the assassin's aim?
A long life free from littleness or blame,
A reign devoted to a nation's good,
A model mother, wife, and widowhood?
The grand simplicity that Alfred used,
The upright mind that ever has refused
To let dismay or interest seduce
Her from her people's constituted use?
No, nor subordination of her choice,
And recognition of the country's voice,
When duly, and in proper form conveyed,
Nor all the sacrifices hourly made
Of a most rare conjugal happiness,
To minute ceremony and the stress
And conduct of affairs, such as she judged
To need her taking part. Be sure she grudged
The precious moments often, and would fain
Upon the threshold have turned back again,
But she was never deaf to duty's call,
But loved to learn them and find time for all;
And, 'mid the hundred cares of queen and wife,
The ties of royal and domestic life,
She yet would make the time to satisfy
With her own hands the claims of charity.
We hold in just abhorrence the mad churl
Who had the heart to fire upon a girl,
Just in the bud of beauty, pow'r, and love;
But what was this man to the wretch that strove

To pick her off, whose life this forty years
Has been a drying up of widow's tears,
Healing of wounds, and nurture of the sick;
Under whose even rule hath fallen thick
The golden rain of plenty on her realm;
A pilot who hath never left the helm;
A mother of her people, and their queen;
A lawlover such as there has not been
Since the great Saxon king was gathered in
To rest at Winchester beside his kin.

TO A FAIR AUSTRALIAN.

I wonder what home folks would think, who saw you sitting there
In that delightful maze of pink by some French dressmaker,
Toying a slender foot, size two, in broidered silk encased,
In and out of the last court shoe that took Parisian taste.

The first time they took stock of you they'd note the union rare,
Complexion of the warmer hue with crown of pale gold hair,
'Twas this Italian masters loved on canvas to portray,
And some such witchery which moved the king Cophetua.

While the refinement of your face and the unconscious knack,
The careless captivating grace with which you're leaning back,
Could not be bettered, if you were the daughter of a peer,
Or long-descended commoner in the same social sphere.

There's not a fairer in Mayfair or better bred or drest,
In the galaxy gathered there of England's loveliest,
You look so dainty, so complete, so far from common folk
As if you'd never crossed the street without a Raleigh's cloak.

And yet I've seen you—often too—on a half-broken horse,
Pressing an old man kangaroo o'er fence and water course,
Galloping hard 'twixt low-branch'd trees, mid burrows, and ant heaps,
Pulling the colt up from his knees, or putting him at leaps.

And if they knew the simple things with which you're gratified,
And saw your hearty welcomings and freedom from false pride,

They'd never dream that you command all money can acquire,
And occupy a block of land as large as Lincolnshire.

I wish I'd Millais' art to trace you as you're sitting there,
With your bright summer-tinted face and crown of golden hair,
To catch the sweet simplicity and gallant confidence,
That mingle in your frank blue eye and argue innocence.

I like to see your elegance and fashionableness,
To see Australia meet France not blushing at her dress;
And like to think that when at rest and lounging as you please,
You can meet England's haughtiest and not look ill at ease.

Innocence need not be uncouth and Nature's not ill drest,
Nor is it any crime for youth to try to look her best,
It pleases most when wealth and grace accomplished and ornate,
Seek not with coldness to efface the pleasure they create.

ISABELLA VICTRIX.

Isabella, Isabella, I know an Isabella,
Blue-eyed and fair faced, with a coronal of auburn hair,
It was just a minute since, that 'neath a Japanese umbrella,
She floated in that hammock on the liquid summer air.

Isabella, Isabella, she is coy, Isabella;
For whom keeps she those lips that are as ruddy as the wine
From the presses of the hermitage of Hubert de Castella,
And as potent to the drinker as the port of fifty-nine?

Isabella, Isabella, as she slept, Isabella,
I stole on tip of toe to make her ignorance my bliss;
But she started up and fled, as if a cobra di capella
Had glided from the wall, and not a lover for a kiss.

Isabella, Isabella, had she stayed, Isabella,
She might have heard a tale that would have changed her young life's thread,
But the little witch divined that I had some such news to tell her,
And thought for both our sakes that it had best be left unsaid.

Isabella, Isabella, resistless Isabella,
Although she looks so tender and so girlish and so sweet,
She can echo the proud boasting of the hero boy of Pella,
That all the world he knew of lay subjected at his feet.

Isabella, Isabella, defiant Isabella,
So cruel to her prisoners but when besieged so brave,
We shall see her, when the conqueror predestined comes to quell her,
Holding her hands out for the chains, a captive and a slave.

Isabella, Isabella, she wounds me, Isabella,
And tramples on me, yet I could accord forgiveness
To my arch foe Isabella, if she would but let me tell her
A little tale I have by heart, and interpose a “Yes.”

THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST.

It's half-past six by us, P.M., so you will soon be wending
Your way up to the leeward edge with pointer and with gun,
For 'tis the glorious Twelfth to-day, of honour never-ending,
And we have not forgotten it beneath the Austral sun.

It's not so many years ago since you and I together
Were working, on this very Twelfth, the old Dumfriesshire Moor,
And treading with elastic step the fragrant crackling heather,
While Dick and Ben, with noses down, followed the grouse's spoor.

How grand it was for one, whose gun had lain since February
Upon the gun-rack, suddenly to see his pointer stop
And stiffen out his tail, the while standing erect and wary—
He waited for your readiness to put the covey up.

And grander still on drawing near to see the red grouse springing
Before his well-trained nose about as far as you could kill,
And get both barrels on their heads, truly and cleanly, bringing
A cock down right and left, stone dead with scarce a damaged quill.

And then the luncheon on the moor, with purple mountains sweeping
Behind each other, wave on wave, as far as eye could see,
And little tufts of moss and fern between the boulders peeping
Marking the brooklet's lair in case the ladies wanted tea.

Ethel had eyes as blue as were the August heavens above her,
And hair as bright and sparkling as the bumpers of champagne
Which we tossed off to her as toast—you could not help but love her,
She was so dainty in her grace—so gracious in disdain.

Mary was Vesta, tea-maker; Ethel was our Diana,
Ready to smile her sweetest thanks on any gentleman
Who chose to give her up his gun for half-an-hour and train her,
Hippolyta the Second and a modern Marian,

Dressed all in tweed, with kilted skirt and manly Norfolk jacket,
And curious eyes would note below a real shooting-boot
(But so well-shaped and tasteful that it seemed profane to black it),
Laced tightly to the ancle of her arched and slender foot.

Is Ethel there with you, besieged by just as many lovers?
Or has she cried Peccavi to some fox-and-game Bashaw,
And been transferred from running wild to strictly preserved covers,
Where poaching will be met with all the rigour of the law?

I'd like to walk with you once more, in your grand August weather,
Upon the old Dumfriesshire moor with pointer and with gun,
And to have another sniff at the fragrance of the heather—
I'd even like to see an adder coiled up in the sun

On a patch of warm dry peat by the edge of the brown water,
Or a hedgehog, or a stoat—it would look so like old times;
And I'd like to show Miss Ethel, if by herself I caught her,
That I have lips for something else besides repeating rhymes.

TO THE ENGLISH OF THREE CONTINENTS.

We are all children of the men who fought at Crecy,
We were all Englishmen when Shakespeare wrote:
We are all Englishmen, compatriots in esse,
Though called Australians, Yankees, and what not.

We are all English, and the centuries will find us
Living in homes with old familiar names
Of towns in England, or her battles, to remind us
That we, who now are pilgrims, have our claims

To those whom Westminster entombs in antique glory,
To Devonshire's sea-kings and Chaucer's Tales,
To Wiclif's Bible and the proud Armada story,
Alfred the Great and him who conquered Wales.

We are all Englishmen, and one in our devotion,
Whether the York we have be old or new;
And English if Boston o'erlooks the German Ocean,
Or has the broad Atlantic in her view.

We are all Englishmen, though the new Melbourne poses
Upon Port Phillip as a southern queen,
And the old Melbourne in sweet Derbyshire still dozes—
A fit handmaiden for a rustic scene.

We are all Englishmen, wedded in one great union
Of blood and language, history and song;
We are all English, and will cherish our communion
In face of all the world the world's life long.

THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER.

Grouse shooting has its glories: but for the First of September
Pleasant it was to wend his way back to familiar Kent,
And walk the fields and hopgardens, in which he could remember
Each rise and dip, and gap and gate, that met him as he went.

In that 12-acre paddock there he brought down his first partridge,
Before the season, mid the hoots of reapers looking on;
And on that knoll his grandfather fired off his latest cartridge,
The day that his long pilgrimage of eighty years was done.

That's the first gate he ever took upon the old grey pony;
To that oak copse his father oft to meet his mother crept,
And down the road that rounds the hill drove with a faithful crony,
To marry her at Harbledown, while all the “big house” slept.

There stands the hall where he was born, with chimneystacks and gables
In the Elizabethan style, and crown-glass window-panes,
And with a courtyard quadrangled by outhouses and stables,
All of red brick, suffused with brown by sun and weather-stains.

He'd like to go back there and have a walk with the old keeper,
Who taught him how to hold a gun, and set up the goshawk,
That was his earliest trophy—shot just where the edge grows steeper,
And hangs above the Roman road, almost a cliff of chalk.

He'd like to go back there and have a shoot with his old neighbours,
With those who shared his holidays, since holidays he had,
And were his mates and rivals in all country sports and labours
Upon the ancient manor, ever since he was a lad.

He would like a good stiff day, and his father to dispute his
Supremacy with bird for bird from dawn to fall of night,
In an undulating cornfield, where the speckled little beauties
Might rise from any rise one topped, a dozen at a flight.

Or to walk a field of turnips with his favourite Gordon setter,
Unheedful of the dew and the luxuriance of the “Roots,”
Until a shiver told him that he'd “got a thorough wetter,”
Above, and in between, and through his gaiters and his boots.

And to see his cousin Madge, looking most divinely pretty,
In her blushes and her smiles, and a gauzy dinner-dress,
Fingering the feathered spoil with a tender touch of pity,
To alloy her exultation, and enhance her loveliness.

She had not rose-tinged cheeks, her hair was russet and not golden,
Her eyes if blue at all, were not of the “hall-marked” sky hue;
Yet it needed not the eyes of a lover to embolden
One to match her with the wearers of the gold and of the blue.

THE BELLE OF THE BALL.

Yes! she was belle most certainly; there was no one to match her
For beauty or refinement or the slender elegance
That drew the eye instinctively to feast on her and watch her
Of all the fair and graceful girls that mingled in the dance.

She is so palely beautiful that I had almost dreaded
That she would pass unnoticed 'mid the sheen of brighter hues,
As in the woods the veiny white anemone imbedded
Amid the blaze of primrose golds and hyacinthine blues.

But no! she did not, it is true, glow like a rustic Phyllis,
With the contrasted blush and white a Perdita should claim,
But rather with the flushing of the flower Amaryllis,
Or pinkiness of fingers when they shade a candle-flame.

I watched her as she floated by in some soft pink enshrouded,
With crimson roses clustering on one side of her neck,
And felt a shrewd suspicion, and to myself avowed it,
That I might have been added to the bondslaves at her beck,

If I had been, as some men there, heartwhole and free of fancy,
With no queen of my own enthroned imperial in my love,
And no conjugal talisman against her necromancy
To purge the glamour from my eyes when they were lured to rove.

I love her as I love whate'er is noble, good, and comely,
A highbred horse, a livre de luxe, the blue of Austral skies;
I love her as I love whate'er is beautiful and homely,
The sweetness of the wallflow'r and the light of mother's eyes.

I love her in such fashion, that I love to do her honour,
To have her look as lovely and engaging as may be,
To set a crown of homage, from all whom she meets, upon her,
And make her young life joyous and from pain and trouble free.

A BIRTHDAY LETTER.

1881.

Dear sister, 'neath a northern sky and on our mother shore,
Another year is fleeting by of your appointed store;
To-day, in England, you will end a well-spent term again,
And so I snatch a quill to send a message o'er the main.

In other days I loved to see the smile upon your face,
To hear the laugh of girlish glee and note the kindly grace
Which welcomed with sincere delight each birthday offering,
Alike the jewel, and the mite which Poverty could bring.

To-day, beneath a southern sun, I dream of what has been,
Of dear old days that now are done, and each familiar scene;
Of tea upon the garden seat, beside the leafy limes,
And all the voices that did greet my ears in other times.

To-day between us roll and heave five thousand leagues of foam,
Yet 'tis not easy to believe that I am far from home;
For the same friendly English speech salutes the wanderer's ear,
And English hearts and hopes can reach this southern hemisphere.

Good-bye, dear sister! you shall be remember'd well to-night,
We'll drink your health with three times three in champagne beakers bright:
Thus ev'ry year, till by and by I meet you all once more
'Neath the familiar northern sky and on our mother shore.

TO AN INFANT.

Rest, little head, while rest you may,
Ere the dawn deepens into day;
Who knows, when twilight melts away,
What time will be for rest or play?

Rest, little head, ere yet the noon
Asserts the majesty of June;
The summer heat will follow soon,
When some must sweat and some must swoon.

Rest, little head; the eve will come,
And you begin to think of home,
And grow content to cease to roam
Here in the late December gloom.

A CHRISTMAS LETTER.

'Tis Christmas and the North wind blows; 'twas two years yesterday
Since from the Lusitania's bows I looked o'er Table Bay,
A tripper round the narrow world, a pilgrim of the main,
Expecting when her sails unfurl'd to start for home again.

And, steaming thence three weeks or more, I reached Victoria,
Upon her hospitable shore to make a few months' stay;
But month on month unnoticed fled, and ere the year had come,
I chose the land I visited to be my future home.

'Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows; our hearts are one to-day,
Though you are 'mid the English snows I in Australia;
You, when you hear the Northern blast, pile coal upon your fires;
We strip until the storm is past, while every pore perspires.

I fancy I can picture you upon this Christmas night,
Just sitting as you used to do, the laughter at its height:
And then a sudden, silent pause coming upon your glee,
And kind eyes glistening because you chanc'd to think of me.

This morning when I woke and knew Christmas had come again,
I almost fancied I could view rime on the window-pane;
And hear the ringing of the wheels upon the frosty ground,
And see the drip that downward steals in icy fetters bound.

I daresay you've been on the lake, or sliding on the snow,
And breathing on your hands to make the circulation flow,
Nestling your nose among the furs of which your boa's made;
The Fahrenheit here registers a hundred in the shade.

It doesn't seem like Christmas here with this unclouded sky,
This pure transparent atmosphere and with the sun so high;

To see the rose upon the bush, the leaves upon the trees,
To hear the forest's summer hush or the low hum of bees.

But cold winds bring not Chrismastide, or budding roses June,
And when it's night upon your side we're basking in the noon.
Kind hearts make Christmas—June can bring blue sky or clouds above;
The only universal spring is that which comes with love.

And so its Christmas in the South as on the North-Sea coasts,
Though we are starv'd with summer-drouth, and you with winter frosts.
And we shall have our roast beef here, and think of you the while
Who in the other hemisphere cling to the mother isle.

Feel sure that we shall think of you, we who have wandered forth;
And many a million thoughts will go to-day from south to north;
Old heads will muse on churches old, where bells will ring to-day—
The very bells, perchance, which toll'd their fathers to the clay.

And now, good night! maybe I'll dream that I am with you all,
Watching the ruddy embers gleam over the panell'd hall;
Nor care I if I dream or not, though sever'd by the foam,
My heart is always in the spot which was my childhood's home.

A WEDDING LETTER.

Dear Mary, I can picture you in the familiar aisle
With a lace veil of spotless hue shrouding your face the while
With new emotion just awake and eyes with dewdrops dim,
Trembling you promise to forsake all and to follow him.

And I can picture him, who reared us since our mother died,
With his hands' sun-burned back besmeared with tear-wet, by your side;
It is but six short years agone that we were all at home,
And lo! now, there is left but one, who hath not learned to roam.

We were like nestlings, who remain until their wings have grown,
Clinging together—but are fain, when feathered, to be flown;
One took a mate and with him flew, and one the world would see,
And one was sent out, and now you follow the other three.

Sweet be your hours of wedded life, such hours as had our queen,
Or Eleanor the loyal wife, who foiled the Saracen;
Sweet summer be your wedding day, and summer be your years,
And cloud and tempest be away from both their atmospheres.

Fair be your branches, straight of stem, and laden with ripe fruit,
And may new branches spring from them to keep the ancient root
From lying hidden in the earth, its very place unknown,
As others of forgotten worth in millions have done.

And now, good night, for night has come over our Southern climes,
Although the noonday sun at home still shines above the limes:
To-night it is your wedding morn, and on your wedding night,
Here, half-way, 'twixt Good Hope and Horn all will be morning bright.

A NEW YEAR'S LETTER.

Dear Brother, you can't think how odd it seems to wake to-day,
And find no snow upon the sod, and all the clouds away,
To have no mist upon the moor, no ice on waterholes,
And no poor people at the door waiting for soup and coals.

It really is a blithe new year to have a clear blue sky
Visible through the atmosphere, and the sun summer high,
To have no poverty and pain, no beggars starved with cold,
When the New Year comes round again to overtake the old.

For all that something seems to catch the smoothness of the gear,
When sights and seasons do not match the old months of the year,
The maytree ought to bloom in May, the roses blow in June,
And leaves begin to fall away when August days are done.

Do you remember, you and I made up our minds one spring,
To go out weekly and descry the time of blossoming,
Of all the common plants which grow in meadow and in wood,
When poppies first begin to glow and brambles are in bud?

It varied the monotony of a straight Roman road,
To scan both hedges with the eye for any bud that showed;
The nettles used to blossom first, the daisies followed soon,
And then a crowd of flowers would burst on ev'ry sunny noon.

These Romans were a prudent race, till someone interfered,
They put March in its proper place, first in the year not third:
'Twas better for the primroses to open with the year,
And at the old year's obsequies for no flower to appear.

It seems an incongruity to have one's summer time,
When the year's in her infancy instead of at her prime,
To have our roses burgeoning when yours have shed their leaves,
And not to enter on our spring till you have bound your sheaves.

But these are the Antipodes, and therefore one expects
To meet with eccentricities and curious effects,
We shouldn't like things half so well when we reach home again,
If they were as available on this side of the main.

WESTWARD HO!

A MAIL-DAY RHYME.

Westward Ho! the east winds blow athwart the Indian sea,
And westward ho! the ship doth go, that beareth news to thee.
But yesternight I dream'd I came unto my father's hall;
The quickset hedges were the same and the ivy on the wall.

The house stood open and I saw my sister on the stair;
She call'd my father to the door, and I embrac'd him there.
A brother and a sister came in answer to her call;
The quickset hedges were the same and the ivy on the wall.

They talk'd apace, and laugh'd apace, and loud the laughter grew,
And then they look'd me in the face and said 'twas bronzed in hue;
Then asked me of the strange south seas where I had been so long,
And of the swarthy savages that I had dwelt among.

So laughed we and so chatted we the sun adown the sky,
Then spent the night in jovial glee until the sun was high.
It was a dream. I stand to-day 'neath an Australian sun;
The bower-birds were out at play this morning on the run.

It was a dream; I was not there, nor aught of home I saw;
No sister stood upon the stair, no father at the door.
But westward ho the east winds blow athwart the Indian sea,
And westward ho the ship doth go that beareth news of me.

ON A BIRTHDAY CARD.

A birthday offering,
A little one I bring;
Yet do not it despise,
For it hath come from far,
From one whose pathway lies
Beneath the southern star.

It comes to tell you this,
That, though too far apart
For lip and lip to kiss,
Yet heart can cling to heart;
And therefore do I bring
This little offering.

TO THE FALLEN GUM TREE ON MOUNT BAW-BAW,

480 feet long.

Yes, you lie there in state unearthly solemn,
As if you'd been a heaven-supporting column,
Not a dead tree of leaf and foliage stript,
Gigantic Eucalypt.

Your brothers, standing still, look half-defiant,
Half in mute sorrow for the fallen giant:
I doubt if anything ere fell so far
Except a falling star.

How tall would you have grown in course of Nature?
How old are your five hundred feet of stature?
Can you remember Noah and the flood
When you were but a bud?

Standing beside your trunk, one almost fancies
That he beholds the Middle Age romances,
And that the stories travellers have told,
In books despised and old,

May not have been without some slight foundation,
Though they, of course, lost nothing in narration:
Herodotus is less and less ignored
As Africa 's explored.

What have you witnessed in your long existence
On remote ranges in the Gippsland distance?
Have you seen savage empires rise and fall,
And stories tragical?

Did some Black Dido, flying from her lovers,
Found a new kingdom, happy in thy covers,
Until a Maori Æneas came
And lit the cursed flame?

Or a dark Robin Hood devote his leisure
To stealing skulls, and take a savage pleasure
In making what blacks have by way of priests,
Uneasy at their feasts?

Or saw you earlier and gentler races,
Of nobler instincts and with paler faces,
Die out before the circling boomerang
And the black serpent's fang?

You look like a great chip of the creation,
A relic of the former Dispensation,
When men were forced to spend nine hundred years
Here in this vale of tears.

Yet to us, creatures of a day, it's soothing
To know that, as trees go, your years are nothing:
There's little in Australia but rocks
Of old age orthodox.

Lie there in fallen majesty, I love you.
May you lie there till the last trump shall move you,
Magnificent as Cheops in his crypt,
You dead King Eucalypt.

OUT WEST IN QUEENSLAND.

Coifi, the priest of King Edwin, likened the life of man
To the coming of a sparrow, with snow and stormwind wan,
Out of the frost and the darkness into the warmth and light
Of the great hall of the King's house upon a wassail-night.

And after a moment's sojourn, type of the life of men,
Into the frost and the darkness fluttering out again.
We sprang from the womb of darkness and she takes back her own,
And who knoweth whence we issued, or whither we have gone?

Like the brief flight of a sparrow upon a wintry night,
Out of the frost and the darkness into the warmth and light,
Is the advent of a stranger in the back blocks out west,
Here to-night and gone to-morrow, after food, roof, and rest.

Just riding up to the homestead upon a tired horse,
And asking for a night's lodging that's granted as of course:
A shaking of hands and supper, a smoke, a yarn, and bed—
Then saddle and ere the sun's up, the guest has gone, Godsped.

MRS. WATSON, A QUEENSLAND HEROINE.

[_]

N.B.—The passages in inverted commas are verbatim extracts from the diary—for the story, see The Sketcher.

Bury this woman as heroes are buried—
A daughter and type of the conquering race—
With unfixed bayonets and ranks unserried,
For she fought with the savages face to face,
And conquered. There's many a page in story
With heroines' names writ in characters fair,
But never a one that outshines in glory
The girl-wife of the fisher of Bêche-de-Mer.

Joan of Arc, had she not chivalrous Frenchmen
Impatient to follow wherever she led?
The Countess of Montfort, had she no henchmen?
And Hennebon Castle was battlemented.
Mary Ambree had a company merry
Of roystering English—one thousand and three—
And Grace Darling pulled in a good stout wherry
In her perilous feat on the wild North Sea.

This young wife-mother had little to aid her,
No foss, or escarpment, or rampart of stone,
To shield her from the bloodthirsty invader—
With a babe and two Chinamen left alone
In a wooden hut on a far-off island
Off the desolate northerly Queensland coast;
And the wild blacks swarmed from Delta and highland
To swell and to aid the beleaguering host.

She left her diary. Let it be printed,
Let the heroine tell in her own brave words
How one Chinese was speared and the other, sore-dinted,
Scarcely crawled to the sheltering weatherboards.
She fought, as her countrymen at Gibraltar
Fought the armies and navies of France and Spain,
And made the fierce savages reel and falter,
And, oft as they rallied, repulsed them again.

They fled; she knew that the flight of the foe meant
A ruse, or a pause, reinforcements to hail,
And that their retreat was but for a moment,
And that powder and shot must at some time fail.
So she filled an old tank up with provision
And water enough, as she thought for the while,
And taking the firearms and ammunition
Launched out on the deep for a fostering isle.

This woman came of a nation of freemen,
Accustomed to dare and to die on the wave;
And yet Britain's most adventurous seamen
Might well be excused if they were not as brave.
What wonder if he who sank in the Squirrel,
Or Davis, or Baffin, or Frobisher shrank
From defying the superhuman peril
Of crossing the sea in an old water-tank?

The story is pitiful: this brave woman
Who had tempted the sea (here forty miles wide)
Thus shipped, after routing the savage foemen,
When she came to her haven of shelter, died.
Eight days 'mid the waves in a worn-out boiler
(She had better by half have been killed at first):
And the only enemy that could foil her
Is confessed in her diary—“Dead with thirst.”

Not a drain to drink, yet she was not fearful,
But in pained and feeble handwriting had writ
That her baby “was better and more cheerful,
And condensed milk appeared to agree with it.”
Not even the steamer passing close by her,
Unheeding the signals she hoisted in vain,
Could take the heart from her or terrify her,
She noted it down, but she did not complain.

Oh, that a watch had been kept on that steamer!
Oh, how much has that captain to answer for!
Who was sent by God in time to redeem her;
He will surely be haunted for evermore.

Were she living who fought and wrought so well, sons
Might perchance have been born in our own far North
To match the Drakes, and the Cooks, and the Nelsons
Whom the Mother of Continents has brought forth.

THE TWO BIRTHDAYS.

My birthday has come round again—the sun is heaven high,
As suns in February are in the Australian sky;
The north-wind lays the waves to sleep upon Port Philip's breast,
And Nature, wearied with the heat, apes the uneasy rest
That sick folk have—too tired to move, yet not thereby refresht.

'Twas not thus when five years ago to man's estate I came,
The seasons, scenery, and sights and sounds were not the same,
For crisp against the frosty sky stood out the rugged stones
Of Oxford's gray old colleges and shrines of founders' bones,
While half a hundred towers swung sweet chimes of ancient tones.

This morning at the pitch of noon, as I was leaning back
On a cane lounge some trader bought while lying at Cuttack,
The glare and heat that filtered through the greenness of the blind
Laid a soft soporific spell of languor on my mind,
And nod by nod, against my will, to slumber I declined.

Forthwith before my eyes were drawn vistas of Oxford days,
My panelled room, with ceiling low and cushion'd window-bays,
And the great hall, with ancient glass and giant fireplaces,
And wainscot walls with portraits hung of notabilities,
Who had their share of glory in the dead old centuries.

And then the arching limewalk, with its summer coat of green,
And the broad lawns of levelled turf, with gravelled walks between.
'Twas 'mid the limes one day in June that Rosy first I met,
Dressed in a wilderness of lace and creamy sarcenet,
And with a saucy Gainsborough above her forehead set.

Sweet Rosy, she had eyes that danced to match her fitful moods,
Now they shot fire from their ports, now swam with swelling floods,
Now laughed, now sympathized—she'd change a dozen times a day,
And every change was chronicled in some mercurial way,
By the swift orbs that stood alert, as the red stag at bay.

Rosy and I had many a tiff, spent many hours together
In that delightful avenue, in June and joyous weather;
Now we were friends, and hovering most perilously near
To that sweet state when clasped hands cling, and mothers look severe,
Proportionately as one has or hasn't much a year.

Now we were foes at daggers drawn, and Rosy's pupils shone
With the grim light that nitre gives when on the fire it's thrown;
The while she fingered savagely the coil of gleaming hair,
That lay against her slender neck as beautifully fair
As were the locks, in story famed, of Arthur's Guinevere.

It was a dream: my studious feet tread Oxford stones no more;
This many a day I've stood upon a far-off southern shore,
Where frosts in June strike down the leaves from off the yellowing trees
And February reigns in blue over the heavens and seas,
And the North hath a burning breath and the South a cooling breeze.

Here daily ladies meet my gaze fairer than Rosy far,
And full of smiles as southern skies of cloudless mornings are—
Ladies whose free and daring life has bred a free brave grace,
Such as our ancestresses had—blue-eyed and fair of face,
Ere yet our Viking sires had left the cradle of our race.

Yet, somehow, none can exercise the same charm over me
That Rosy with her pouts and frowns wielded so royally:
A spring has dried up in my heart—the sun has left the skies
That tinged with magic hues whatever she set before my eyes,
And since the old tune died away I cannot harmonize.

THE WATCH TOWER.

Two children stood on a windy tower,
Watching the swallows that darted by;
Two lovers stood at a later hour,
Alone with the starlit sea and sky,
And made the grim tower a true lovers' bower,
When nought but night was nigh.

Do you remember, one lover said,
How I gazed o'er the seas afar,
And thought that my fortune would be made
If once I could sail outside the bar;
The swallows were darting around your head,
As darting still they are.

I used to pine in my ancient home,
And dream wild dreams of wonderful isles,
And long for long days upon the foam,
And fret at your simple loving wiles:
I would give worlds now could I cease to roam,
And linger in your smiles.

The maiden stood on the same old tower,
Heedless of swallows that darted by,
But dreaming of that happier hour,
With a tear-drop in her wistful eye,
And drooping her head like a summer flower
When autumn days are nigh.

The breeze that moaned through the lattices
Caught a waif of her luminous hair,
And fondled it for a love of his
On the lap of the afternoon air,
While she gave to her lover's lock a kiss
And a sigh to her care.

He winged the colour into her face,
(The wind, not the lover, I should say,)
And ransomed awhile her own old grace,
That sorrow had spirited away,
Until she stood like herself in the place,
Herself of a past day.

For he was bending a sail to shore,
And hopes would rise, and a heart would beat
With dreams of parting for nevermore
From the lover whom she was to meet:
But the ship that she looked on tacked and bore
Away with straining sheet.

The sail beneath the horizon sank.
And the breezes died away at night,
And the maiden's cheek and bosom shrank,
As ship after ship hove into sight,
And anchored and weighed and stood for the bank
At the mouth of the bight.

Till of a morn on the windy tower
The breeze caught her elfin locks no more:
She had sighed and sighed for that dead hour
Till all her sorrows and sighs were o'er;
But the swallows still darted round her bower
As they'd darted of yore.

A TRANSFORMATION.

How strange! She was but yesterday as other girls to me,
Just better looking, in a way, than most are that I see;
To-day she is the loveliest of all upon our earth,
The woman that I hold the best for beauty and for worth.

What was it that transformed her so?—what auburnized her hair?
What gave her cheek that fairy glow and made me thus aware
Of all the subtle loveliness that lurks about her face,
And forced my reason to confess the magic of her grace?

The casual eye would but detect a change of hue or shape
About the clothes with which she's decked, or the becoming cape
Of sables round her shoulders thrown and clinging to her throat,
Now that the autumn breezes moan and summer sheds his coat.

Is it the sable and dark green she wears that witches me,
Or the light that was never seen upon the land or sea?
I know not; all I know is this, that she who yesterday
Was nought to me, to-day matches in glamour with a fay.

As the bud opens into flower upon the primroses,
As butterflies in one short hour spring from the chrysalis
In all their pride, and brave it by unfolding to the sun
Their surcoats' fresh embroidery and plumy habergeon,

So burst she into beauty's bloom within a single night,
And from her chrysalis did loom as marvellously bright
As were the ladies of old song—Iseult of the white hand,
And Guinevere, when she was young, and Mary of Scotland.

Adieu! beloved and beautiful! I may not care for thee;
Not that I am in heart-lore dull, but that I am not free.
I have my own, a happy home—a loved and loving wife;
I can but pray that there may come to thee nor want nor strife.

MY “LONGFELLOW.”

When the news lightened o'er the sea which said
That Longfellow was dead,
I took his volume down from the bookshelf,
Made roughly by myself,
Brown on the title-page, bound more than once,
Full of notations,
Expressing full a dozen different things,
Those neat soft pencillings
Point out the lines my mother chose in turn
For me by heart to learn:
Those now faint underlinings mark the joy
That seized me when a boy
At some fresh touch of nature, or a shout
Of victory or rout,
In an Icelandic legend, or a tale
Quaint and fantastical,

Of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee,
Or rude mythology
Of the Red Indian, or glimpse of the life,
Averse to stir or strife,
Led by the Pilgrims in their western home.
And sometimes too I come
On pencil marks drawn downwards on a page,
Made at a riper age,
Significant of well-considered praise:
And, written in those days,
I see initials in a woman's hand,
Who came not to this land.
Let there be given to the cunning seer
Some portion of the tear
That splashed upon the book for the old love,
Like the wings of a dove
In her hair's sheen and subtlety of hue,
And with a depth of blue
Stolen from heaven in some Promethean wise
To glorify her eyes.
She grew as grows the willow in the spring,
Before it falls weeping;
But when the summer came she wept and drooped
Like a wild bird that's cooped
From soaring up to carol nearer heaven:
Sixteen years was she given,
And then the hand that lent her took her back,
As transient as the rack
That for a while a hill peak did enshroud
And then resought its cloud.

A NEW ARIADNE.

Yes, I suppose that I am happy,
But not as I should be
Had he been all my fancy pictured
When he was wooing me.

Not that he shows new faults, developed
Or disclosed one by one,
As we know one another better
Than in the days bygone.

No! he grows wiser, nobler, grander
Before me day by day;
I hear his sayings and his praises
In all men's mouths alway.

But in the dear old weeks of wooing
He was mine, wholly mine,
His time and thoughts and eyes surrendered
As though I were divine.

You envy me his fame, his wisdom,
His eloquence, his power,
His gift of song: I would you had them
And I but for one hour

Could have my husband, as I knew him
When we were plighting troth,
When I saw nought to take the fancy
Except his mien and youth.

You tell me that he sways a nation,
That all men hark to him,
That, when he smiles, the millions gladden,
And when he frowns are grim.

You tell me that men crown him poet,
That a few lines of his
Can call up tears or waken valour,
Just as their tenour is.

But you forget that he, who gladdens
The millions with his smile,
Must stint his home in smiles, and someone
Is sorrowful the while.

And you forget that all the feeling,
Which overflows in song,
If husbanded and meted duly
Might spread new life among

Those who are drooping for affection
In the drouth of neglect,
Or float the stranded bark in safety
Before she is shipwrecked.

You throng and hail the man that revels
In the glad consciousness
Of pow'r and praise; but who among you
Has thought for the distress

Of the girl-wife, whose whole devotion
Is centred in one man,
Who leans against the window watching
Until her cheek is wan,

And sees him not? She hears his glory
With mere contentment now;
She would rather have a day of kisses
Imprinted on her brow.

She would rather hear the simple phrases
Of lovers' yea and nay,
Pour from his lips than all the wisdom
That Solomon could say.

There's not a poem in creation,
Whose tunefulness could be
To her glad ears compared one moment
With “Nellie, stay with me!”

THE MANGY DOG OF BAGHDAD.

I was a queen's mate yesterday,
And now I am a castaway,
And left as an accursed thing
To the street-children's stone-throwing,
Lucky to be allowed to live.

Nothing was then too good to give
To tempt my jaded appetite;
To-day I scarce can get a bite

Of offal or a mouldy crust,
Foraged from out a heap of dust,
To still the gnawings in my breast.
Just when I need the daintiest
And the most wholesome food to keep
My failing strength and bring me sleep,
I am turned foodless, houseless, cold,
To die upon the damp hard mould.

Yesterday I had a queen's kiss,
Denied to great and fair princes,
Printed on my fastidious brow,
And fondling and caress enow
To turn the heads of emperors;
To-day none sees me but abhors
And shuns me as a leper's shunned:
So are queens' lives apportioned.
To-day she sits in linen fine,
Drinking th' intoxicating wine
Of wealth, power, and the Caliph's love,
Showered as the rich rain from above;
To-morrow a poor prisoner,
And happy if he give not her,
With wrists close-drawn above her head,
And shamefully disraimented,
The bastinado on her back,
Or have her not sewn in a sack
And into the broad Tigris cast.
Such may be Zara's lot at last,
Who bade them turn me in the street:
Allah will give her what is meet.
What shall be given her to-day
Allah ordains, let Allah say.

THE DAY OF THE NILE.

1st August, 1798.

The shades of night have fallen round us
Here in Australia;
The hour-hand verges upon seven
Of a midwinter day;

And I with wife and child am sitting
Beside a cosy fire—
A type of peacefulness and quiet,
And satisfied desire;

While, gorgeous in the sunset splendour
Of an Egyptian bay,
The might of England lies at anchor
Off Alexandria.

Eighty odd years ago this nightfall
Their wooden ancestry,
Off the same headland of Aboukir,
Fronted the enemy;

And, just as I sit down to dinner,
Were sweeping proudly in
To the red banquet that awaited
Their coming to begin.

Eighty odd years—and at this distance
I fancy I can hear
Their voices sink into grim silence
As they are drawing near.

And here, I feel, my wife is reading
My face with rueful eyes—
Trying to catch the thoughts that traverse
My dumb soliloquies;

While all my sight is filled with pictures
Of the black masts of ships,
And cannon poisoning the twilight
With their mephitic lips.

The shadows deepen; and the orgy
Waxes more loud and fierce,
As draughts of fire and ancient hatred
Inflame the revellers.

The night grows on; my eyes of vision
Regard a girlish face
And slender hand upon the pillow,
Drooped in unconscious grace,

While my broad inward eyes are spell-bound
In awed astonishment,
As in a chariot of lightning
The giant Orient

Shoots up to heaven, and the darkness
Drowns the unearthly glare,
While friend and foe desist to gape at
The pageant in the air.

The sweet gray orbs shake off their slumbers
And look on me once more,
Inviting confidence and pleading
A truce to that old war;

And I shake off my inward slumbers,
And, pressing the ripe lips,
Whisper to her that I've been dreaming
Of grand old-fashioned ships

That, in the century long buried,
Upon this August night,
Off the old castle of Aboukir,
Fought in the famous fight;

While yet the city which we live in
Was but a waste of sand,
And all the golden fields behind it
An undiscovered land;

And breathe a prayer for our sailors
Upon the battle-day,
Standing on England's iron bulwarks
Off Alexandria.

THE PILGRIM.

He grew aweary of the promised land,
For all its grassy downs and golden sand,
And fell to thinking of the ancient home
He left to seek his hap beyond the foam.

Not that the glory of our summer sun
Had lost its magic, or the pure ozone
Of Austral winter mornings ceased to send
A thrill of joyousness from end to end

Throughout his body, or that he was fain
To bid farewell to the brave hearty men
And fair engaging women, who had made
His sojourning so thornless and so glad.

But that he hankered once again to stand
Before the storied castles of his land,
And once again to drink in, face to face,
The ruined abbey's melancholy grace;

And that the gorgeous East and Gothic West
Beckoned with spells, whose magic he confessed,
Inviting him with his own eyes to see
The foughten fields of Flanders and the free

Imperial cities, and to wander down,
'Mid legendary keep and gabled town,
The windings of the Rhine from Alp to coast;
And that he would, ere all his lore was lost,

Explore the classic scenes of Rome and Greece,
And watch the shades of evening increase,
Standing by Egypt's giant monoliths,
Or reading Babylonia's stony myths.

And that he thought to climb, with untired feet,
Up Olivet and Zion, and the street
Of Rockborn Petra, and with eyes of youth,
Undisciplined to the sad lens of truth,
Look on the places where the Son of God,
According to the Arab legend, trod.

A CONFESSION.

(Written for a Lady's Character Book.)

My favourite virtue, I confess, is chivalrous devotedness,
My favourite quality in man, the manful genius that can
With iron will and eye sublime, up to the heights of empire climb;
Although in woman, as I think, gentleness is perfection's pink.
I'm happiest when I explore a new and fruitful mine of lore,
And my peculiarity is in the almost contrary
Nature of the diversions into which my odd fancy runs.
If my desire were granted me by Providence, I'd choose to be
The greatest of a great old race of a great country in a place
Hallowed by vast antiquity, and impregnate with history,
With high-born women, fair of face, and of brave condescending grace,
About me ever, and rare books, in cases quaint, for all the nooks
By gable or by chimney formed, and be by year-long summer warmed
Beneath a blue unclouded sky, and drink in all the subtlety
Offered to nostril, ear, and eye, by flowers and by harmony.
I hold the Stephanotis' bloom fairest for shape and for perfume,
And as to colour think that few quite match the iridescent hue
Of the red cactus. Of all men who now living I would fain
Be William of Germany, seeing what he has lived to see,
And looking back on eighty years of anxious watching, as the tiers
Rose slowly up before his eyes of the majestic edifice
Of German power and unity. And I would live in Italy.
Were I a novelist I'd choose to write like Thackeray, my muse
Should sing like Shelley, and my brush depict as Turner's, the rich hush
Of sunset, shrouding some dead town o'er wreck of greatness overthrown.
Nelson's my hero: heroine I've none like the Hungarian queen,
And of the folk of tale and song, Frithjof the valiant and strong,
And she who was a child of Heth to the stern Scotsmen of her kith
My deepest chord of feeling touch. Dainties I like not overmuch
But take some delicate delight in almond comfits and the bright
And subtly odorous Noyeau. Although I gladly would forego
All luxuries, for beef and beer. I hold the name of Mary dear

Above all names, in that it was my mother's name, and for that cause
It rings to me of motherhood, and all that is benign and good.
I hate coarse-voiced vulgarity. The character in history
I most admire is Pericles: of all peculiarities
The most excusable are those round which a halo genius throws.
I think the most delightful way to pass a perfect summer day
Is round a reedy mere to prowl and stalk the wary water-fowl.
My favourite apophthegm is this, “Truly the light is sweet, and 'tis
A pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun” and herewith all my tale is told.

WILTSHIRE.

I have been out in the forest to-day
Plucking wild strawberry fruits,
I have watched the merry dormice at play
By their holes in oaktree roots;
I have chased the squirrel at dawn and dusk,
And mark'd were the primrose grew,
While I trampled the empty acorn-husk
And gather'd germanders blue.

I have wander'd over the downs to-day
In the fragrant morning hours,
I was tracking the bee from spray to spray,
As it rifled honey flow'rs;
I heard all the song of the early lark
From a cloud above me shed,
And I saw the daisy shut from the dark,
The halo around her head.

I have been out in the city to-day,
And have seen the merry sun,
I watch'd the city children at play
When morning school was done;

They could not go into the budding wood,
Or paths by the corn-fields take,
To see the Bugle unfolding his hood
And the Pimpernel awake.

They'd little wan faces and weary feet.
And their very games were sad,
Outside the school-door in the dusty street—
The only playground they had.
A public-house next to the corner stood—
Perhaps their mothers were there—
And a funeral pass'd; could they be good,
Such sights and sounds in the air?

“Pretty ones, why aren't you out in the lanes?”
I ask'd of two little girls
With faces like those on church widow-panes
And heads all cover'd with curls.
“There are roses climbing over the hedge,
And tansies trailing below,
And blue forget-me-nots twined in the sedge;
You can watch the water flow.”

But when they summon'd up courage to speak
“We hate the country,” they said,
“Father used to get ten shillings a week,
And now gets thirty instead;
He used to come back in the ev'ning late
And go off so very soon,
And now his work doesn't begin till eight,
And stops in the afternoon.

“We hate the country,” the little ones said,
“The circus never comes round,
And you can't buy jumbles or gingerbread,
And sugar's so dear a pound:
We couldn't have half the ribbons and ties,
And we had no parasol,
And we went to the church on Sunday twice
As well as the Sunday-school.”

I gave them some pennies to spend on buns,
And walk'd up the street quite fast,
Wrapp'd up in my own meditations
And heeding nothing I pass'd:
I thought to myself there was something wrong
When children could talk like this,
And hate the green fields they were born among
And think a factory bliss.

There's nothing to weary the eye in trees,
And turf doesn't tire the feet,
One doesn't feel choked by the country breeze,
And hedges, are they not sweet?
I liked the new milk when I was a boy,
And loved blackberrying days,
And mightn't the children take some small joy
In making wild-flow'r bouquets?

The hedges are surely the place for buds,
The meadows for open flow'rs,
Little birds should sing away in the woods
In the merry morning hours:
Little children should grow, as the young trees grow,
Under the sun and the sky,
And their songs should go up as birds' songs go
That hover and sing on high.

But you cannot expect a man to speak
In the true poetic way
Of spots where he gets ten shillings a week
And works twelve hours a day.
The master has something to answer for
Who makes the country a curse,
And teaches the labourer to abhor
The beautiful universe.

I suppose it came of the primal sin,
That profit should go with pain,
That wealth should be made in the smoke and din,
And death dog the steps of gain;

For to have the loaf without the leaven,
And the rose without the thorn,
Was never, I think, vouchsafed by heaven
To a man of woman born.

THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER.

I.

You, sitting in your ancient hall, before a beech-log fire,
Think that the elder should have all—of course you do—you're squire;
I, sitting on a three-rail fence, beneath a Queensland sun,
Think that the law shows little sense to give the younger none.

Nell wouldn't know me, I suppose, were she to see me now
Thus lolling in a linen blouse and bearded to the brow;
I didn't wear a flannel shirt when I was courting her,
Or buck-skin pants engrained with dirt and shiny as a spur.

I daresay that she pictures me in patent leather boots,
A tall white hat (an L and B), and one of Milton's suits—
That was the Charlie whom she knew before the old man died;
I wonder if she'd take this view if she were by my side.

How beautiful she looked that night!—she seldom looked so fair;
And how the soft wax candle-light show'd up her auburn hair!
She was a bit inclined to tease, to stand on P's and Q's,
To “Keep your distance, if you please,” until I told my news.

Then she rose up and took my hand and look'd me in the face;
And when in turn her face I scann'd, I saw a tell-tale trace
Extending from the brave blue eyes along the dimpled cheek,
The while she told in simple sighs the tale she would not speak.

She never let me kiss before, but now she gave her mouth
So frankly, that I almost swore I would forswear the South—
The sunny South of prospect vast—and hug the barren North,
Had she not bid me hold it fast, and, weeping, sent me forth.

So here I am—a pioneer, working with my own hands
Harder than any labourer upon my brother's lands,
Far from the haunts of gentlement in this outlandish place;
I wonder if I e'er again shall see a woman's face.

I couldn't stand it, but for this, that, when I first came out,
I used to see the carriages in which men drove about,
Who tended sheep themselves of old 'neath Caledonia's rocks,
And now were lords of wealth untold, and half a hundred flocks.

I laid this unction to my heart, that, if a Scottish hind
Could play so manfully his part, I should not be behind:
And so I slave and stay and save, and squander nought but youth:
Nell sometimes writes and calls me brave, and knows but half the truth.

Do you suppose that old Sir Hugh, who won your lands in mail,
Show'd half the valour that I do in sitting on this rail?
He tilted in his lordly way, and stoutly, I confess;
But I stand sentry all the day against the wilderness.

There isn't much poetical about an old tweed suit,
And nothing chivalrous at all about a cowhide boot;
Yet oft beneath a bushman's breast there lurks a knightly soul,
And bushmen's feet have often press'd towards a gallant goal.

So here I am, and, spite of hope, I hope in long years more
That I shall save sufficient up to seek my native shore.
And so I slave and stay and save, and squander nought but youth;
And if Nell said that I was brave she only told the truth.

II.

And is it true, or do I dream? is this the dear old hall?
These the old pictures? Yes! I seem to recognize them all.
That is my father in his pink upon his favourite hack,
I wonder what would Nellie think if she knew I were back?

That is my brother—he is changed, and heavier than he was
When years ago the park he ranged with me on “Phiz” and “Boz.”
His figure is a trifle full, his whiskers edged with grey;
And yet at Oxford he could pull a good oar in his day.

The photo in that frame is Nell—why, I gave Dick that frame;
And doesn't the old pet look well? I swear she's just the same
As when I left her years ago to cross the southern foam.
I wonder if they've let her know that I'm expected home.

How well the artist coloured it; he caught the sunny shades
That ever and anon would flit across her auburn braids.
But no!—that isn't quite the blue that shone in Nellie's eyes;
Their light was nearer in its hue to our Australian skies.

White suits her best—she wore a white of some soft silky weft
Upon that memorable night, the night before I left;
Just such a graceful flowing train then rippled as she moved;
I'd like to see her once again, the lady that I loved.

I wonder what I'm staring at; this is a real dresscoat;
A veritable white cravat is tied about my throat.
I've had a dress-suit on before, and yet, I'm sure, I feel
Just like an awkward country boor ask'd to a Sunday meal.

I can't bear sitting here alone, it seems so strange and sad,
Now that my father there is gone, and I'm no more a lad.
'Twas here he nursed me on his knee in that old high-backed chair;
I'd give ten thousand down to see the old man sitting there.

What was that footstep?—not old John's? his boots have such a creak;
I'd almost swear I knew the tones, and heard a woman speak;
The steps come nearer, and the door—what is it stirs my heart?
Why should a footstep on the floor cause every nerve to start?

A lady scanning with her eye a letter in her hand,
Bending her way unconsciously almost to where I stand.
I think I know that writing well: of course—why it's my own,
And she who reads it thus is Nell.—Together and alone!

III.

A lady in her bedroom stands before a faded carte,
Wistfully folding her white hands, her sweet lips just apart.
Yes, he is back, she said at last, I thought he'd never come;
Yet now when all these years are past since first he left his home,

It seems as if 'twas yesterday on which I bade him go.
He never would have gone away had I not forced him to;
And yet eleven years have flown:—I did not hear him come,
And went to read his note alone in the big dining-room.

I don't know if I laughed or cried, my eyes were full of tears,
To find my lover by my side after the lonely years.
He took my hands, we did not speak for full a minute's space;
I don't know who was first to break the silence of the place.

Charlie is alter'd: he was once blasé—and little more—
Who thought it fine to be a dunce, and everything a bore;
Who wore the closest-fitting coats of any in “The Row,”
And patent-leather button'd boots—a kind of Bond-street beau;

Yet capable of better things when out of Fashion's swim,
Or I, who scorn mere tailorlings, should not have borne with him.
But Charlie's heart was of good stuff, and of the proper grit;
Men always found it true enough when they had tested it.

He is much alter'd;—when I saw his dignified dark face,
I knew what changes had come o'er his life in that wild place.
I read the story in his eyes, I heard it in his voice,
The glad news that she ought to prize, the lady of his choice.

He must be more than dull of soul who in the open West
Sees leagues on leagues of prairie roll, and is not soul-impress'd;
Who knows that he may hold for his as far as he can see
Into the untamed wilderness from top of highest tree;

Who feels that he is all alone, without a white man near
To share or to dispute his crown o'er forest, plain, and mere;
With nought but Nature to behold, no confidante but her:
He must be of the baser mould or feel his spirit stir.

I'd rather marry him than Dick, though Dick is an “M.P.”
Lord of the manor of High Wick, a “D.L.” and “P.C.”
“Right Hon.” before your name, I know, is coveted by all,
And one needs courage to forego a gabled Tudor hall.

I always wish Dick would not seem so like a well-fed dog,
And on his life's unruffled stream float so much like a log;
The world has been so good to him that he has never known
How hard it sometimes is to swim for some poor shipwreck'd one.

But Charlie's very different, he's seen the real world,
And where no white man ever went his lonely flag unfurl'd;
He went to slave and stay and save, and squander nought but youth;
And when I said that he was brave I knew but half the truth;

For there in intermitttent strife, with hostile natives waged,
He spent the best years of his life in hum-drum toil engaged;
Or galloping the livelong day under a Queensland sun,
After some bullocks gone astray or stolen off the run.

He's handsomer, I think, to-day, although he is so brown,
And though his hair is tinged with grey, and thin upon the crown,
Than in the days that he was known at “White's” as Cupid Eorte,
And in good looks could hold his own with any man at Court.

Well, he has come and asked again that which he came to ask
The night before he crossed the main upon his uphill task.
I answer'd as I answer'd then, but with a lighter heart.
Who knew if we should meet again the day we had to part?

IV.

'Neath a verandah in Toorak I sit this summer morn,
While from the garden at the back, upon the breezes borne,
There floats a subtle, faint perfume of oleander bow'rs,
And broad magnolias in bloom, and opening orange flow'rs.

A lady 'mid the flow'rs I see, moving with footsteps light,
And when she stoops she shows to me a slipper slim and bright,
An ankle stocking'd in black silk and rounded as a palm,
Her dress is of the hue of milk, and making of Madame.

I wonder is that garden-hat intended to conceal
All but that heavy auburn plait, or merely to reveal
Enough to make one long to eatch a glimpse of what is there,
To see if eye and feature match the glory of the hair?

That is my Nellie—she's out here as Mrs. Cupid Forte:
We came to Melbourne late last year; I could not bear the thought
Of snow, and sleet, and slush, and rain, and yellow London fogs:
An English winter, I maintain, is only fit for frogs.

The night when first again we met—alone, by some good luck—
I ask'd if she repented yet the bargain we had struck?
She answer'd that she was too old, that what few charms she had
Had faded in the years that roll'd since we were girl and lad.

And all the while she was as fair as ever she had been;
Years had not triumphed to impair the beauties of eighteen.
The same slight figure as of yore, the same elastic gait,
As she had had ten years before, were hers at twenty-eight;

And had her girlish loveliness lost aught of its old grace,
And had there been one shade the less of esprit in her face,
I had no calling to upbraid, and tell the bitter truth,
For whom she let her beauty fade and sacrificed her youth.

Look at her as she stoops to pull that rosebud off its briar;
Do you not think her beautiful as lover could desire?
Heard you that laughter light and sweet that little snatch of song;
Do they sound like the counterfeit of one no longer young?

Here 'neath the clear Australian sky I lead the life of kings,
'Mid everything that tempts the eye or soothes the sufferings;
Wealth, and a woman kind and fair, fine horses and fine trees,
Children, choice fruits and flowers rare, and health and hope and ease.

A MOSS ROSE OF ERIN.

Four willows burgeon in a row,
Beneath two oleanders blow;

While trellised on a wire-net fence
Sweet peas breathe forth their frankincense.

Four roses by the window sill
The chamber with their fragrance fill;

Outside nasturtiums on the ledge
Give it a green and golden edge.

Inside she stands, a servant girl,
The daughter of an Irish churl;

And yet the bloom is not more sweet
On the rose trees of her retreat,

Or the nasturtium sunnier
And fuller of lithe grace than her;

The oleanders, pink and white,
Are not more grateful to the sight

Than her fair face with blushes dyed
At finding love so near her side.

Pause by her, Love, for yon sweet-pea
Is not more innocently free,

And knows the world as well as she:
Nay, pass on, Love, and let her be.

Transplanted hence, she might not bloom
As now in her own humble room.

A richer soil, a softer air
Her native graces might impair;

Art could not add a single charm,
And cultivation might but harm.

Moss-rose of Erin, stay thou still
Where thou wert set by nature's will.

EVE.

She is like a summer eve,
Rosy-cheeked and fair,
Which the setting sun did leave
Wreathed with golden hair.

Hers are eyes as soft and clear
In their amber light
As a sunset-tinted mere
Ere the sun sets quite.

She is gentle in her ways
As the cooling breeze
That, breathed nightly from the bays
Of the tropic seas,

Scarcely stirs the wakeful palms,
Or the ocean-swell
Where the equatorial calms
Exercise their spell.

But as summer storms are wild
When the thunder wakes,
Ruffling the aspect mild
Of still leaves and lakes;

And as tropic rains downpour,
Fiercer than the hail,
Threshing ear and fruit and flower
With a watery flail,

So she has her storms and showers;
But, when they have gone,
As you see the leafy bowers
With fresh glory on

After rain, and clearer skies
Than were blue before,
Brighter are her tear-washed eyes
When the storm is o'er.

Then she's like a summer eve,
Calm and cool and sweet,
Which the rain just past did leave
Freed from dust and heat.

AFTER TRAFALGAR.

The Lament of Lady Hamilton.

And is he dead: is Nelson dead,
The gentle and the brave?
Has the sunlight of England's might
Set in its ocean-grave?

Yes, he is dead! God spared him to us
Until their flag was low,
Until our shore for evermore
Was proof against the foe.

He came, as comes the rain in summer,
To make the parch'd fields smile,
Or as a sail that wreck'd men hail
Upon a desert isle.

He was a meteor sent from heaven
To cross the tyrant's path
As a forecast, ere hope was past,
Of overtaking wrath.

And, like a meteor, his passage
Was brief as it was bright,
As if such glare we could not bear
With feeble human sight.

He died, as died on Pisgah Moses,
Just when his task was done;
Like Moses, too, he might but view
The guerdon he had won.

He passed, as erst had pass'd Elijah,
'Mid thunder and 'mid fire,
When he had seen the evil queen
Quail at the presage dire.

This to his country: but to me,
His more and less than wife,
The sun that shone has set and gone,
The summer left my life.

He was the dawn that fill'd my heaven,
The star that lit my night,
The goodly tree that shaded me
Against the fierce noon-light.

He was my king, my Alexander,
My seaman Pericles,
And but for him my fame were dim
And my cup thick with lees.

And what if he looked on my beauty,
And said these cheeks were fair;
Or vow'd my kiss to him was bliss,
And smooth'd each wayward hair.

Was not Aspasia's chiefest glory
The love that some call'd sin?
And Rosamond, was she less fond
Than Eleanor the Queen?

I would not have our love forgotten
Be it or crown or crime;
If it were wrong, 'twas not less strong
Than others' of old time,

Whose names are monuments to virtue,
Griselda and Elaine,
With him who died at Juliet's side,
And her of Allemaine.

But he is dead, and would to God
That I were as they are
Whose death-long sleep is in the deep
Off stormy Trafalgar.

A PRAYER.

I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast given
So much to me of this world's good,
So little of the bitter leaven
With which the loaf of life's imbued.
Yet wealth is nought, nor pow'r availeth,
And happiness is not for me,
If but in this respect it faileth,
To have my darling safe with me.

There's no one loves a clear blue heaven
Or summer-noontides more than I;
I gladly changed the starry seven
For the Cross of the Southern sky.

No one more fain in spring's young hours
Wanders in forest or in field;
But what grace can the trees and flowers
To me without my darling yield?

I always have loved dogs and horses,
To guide with firm but facile rein
The uncomplaining friend that courses
Beneath one's saddle o'er the plain;
To pat the faithful friendly collie
That eyes me every time I move;
But these would fail to soothe me—wholly—
Could I not have her whom I love.

And dear to me are Art and Beauty,
In their Protean forms pourtray'd;
And oft a true disciple's duty
To Ruin's plaintive charms I've paid.
I love rich hues in blended tangles,
And subtle strains delight my heart;
But hues are harsh and music jangles
When she and I have chanced to part.

There's an elixir found in glory
That compensates for years of strife;
To have my name go down in story
Has been the lodestar of my life.
But fame is as the flow'rs that perish,
And glory's golden crown is dim,
If she I swore to love and cherish
Is not vouchsafed to me by Him.

I pray Thee, merciful Creator,
To let my darling stay with me;
I pray Thee by our Mediator,
Who died Himself to set us free.
And Thou, who rais'dst up Jairus' daughter,
Let her but sleep and rise up heal'd,
Touch with thy saving hand the water,
Guard her with goodness as a shield.

A SEA PICTURE.

Life has had sunshine and blue skies for me,
With no more palpitation on its seas
Than needs must rise and fall with any breeze,
That fills our sails, and wafts us merrily,
As here and there we try where the fish be,
And lends such natural motion to the bait
Wherewith the patient fisher lies in wait,
As lures the hunch backed schnapper: Narrowly
Have I missed sunken reefs from time to time
And sailed close under basalt cliffs, and seen
Threats of white squalls up the horizon climb,
Which passed to right or left: and then at e'en
The star of my good fortune shone sublime
To guide the helm and argue heaven serene.

TO THE MAIL STEAMER.

O stately mailship, weighing for the north,
Carry this message to my home for me:
Tell them that I would fain and gladly forth,
With thee northwestwards o'er the Indian sea.
O stately mailship, tell them that my eyes
Followed thy foamy track across the bay,
And followed it in such a wistful wise
As if my sight would follow it away.
Tell them, O stately mailship, that my thought
Started with thee, but took so swift a flight,
That, ere thy circling screw the waters caught,
It had the chalk cliffs of my home in sight.
And tell them, stately ship, that, when I come,
I will stay longer than thou stay'st at home.

ON A NEW-BORN BABE.

What is the secret of this bud
Of pink and simple babyhood,
That thrusts its head above the soil
Into this world of joy and toil?

We presage little of the shoot
Which rises from the hidden root,
But that leaf and stalk will follow
With the coming of the swallow.

And what its aftergrowth will be,
Whether flower or stately tree,
Only the Pow'r that made it knows;
We can but watch it as it grows,

And, noting each unfolded leaf
The bud detaches from its sheaf,
Call back those of trees and flowers
Which we knew in other hours,

Saying that sweet carnation
Had such a budding as this one,
And yon fair lily in its youth
Just such a soft-upspringing growth;

Or that the pine, so tall and strong,
Grew in this wise when it was young,
And the oak that rules the wild wood
Was as this one in its childhood.

What will this bud be, sweet or strong,
As the years hasten it along?
Will it be delicate and fair,
Or rear its boughs into the air?

Will it be rifled of its bloom
To decorate a gilded room,
Or with broad trunk scorning danger
Flout the rising tempest's anger?

I would that this small bud you see
Just as a moss-rose bud should be,
As sweet to scent, as full of dew,
As beautiful in shape and hue;

And as the lily, free from stain,
And fresh as hedgerows after rain,
And as the daisy, ever-blooming
Radiant and unpresuming.

I would that this small bud you see
Should grow into a linden tree,
Should put forth tender leaves in spring,
And after burst out blossoming;

Should give in summer heat a shade
Beneath its leafy colonnade,
And each year send out new branches
In green fragrant avalanches.

And, if its fibre stouter be,
That it turn out a brave oak tree,
Late in the leaf, in increase slow,
But match for all the winds that blow,

Standing in green old age alone
When all its mates are dead and gone,
Type of constancy and greatness
Grander for its very lateness.

IN MEMORIAM: C. Le F.

Born at Grasmere, emigrated to Australia, killed in Afghanistan.

Wandering over the Cumbrian mountains,
Herding his flocks on Helvellyn's breast,
Watering sheep at the hill-side fountains,
The high young spirit could find no rest.

Galloping over Australian meadows
On the fierce steed that he loved the best,
Only the flickering gum-tree shadows
'Twixt him and the sun, yet he found no rest.

Under the sky on the Afghan mountains,
With a foeman's bullet in his breast,
Dead for a draught of the hill-side fountains
To quench his fever—he lies at rest.

LONGFELLOW IS DEAD.

A voice was wafted o'er the seas, which said
That Longfellow was dead;
And straightway from three continents arose
Such hum of many woes

As rises from the nations when their great
Have bowed the head to fate.
This is he, who, born an American,
Was yet an Englishman,

And gloried in the oneness of our race,
Though severed by the space
Of all the ocean highways of the world.
To-day should be unfurled

By all of English speech, drooped half-mast high,
The flag he loved to eye,
Charged with the Stars and Stripes: he was as dear
To men at home and here

As in the great Republic—all his song
To England doth belong,
As much as Milton's: for these were two sides
Beyond th'Atlantic's tides,

As there were in the great Rebellion.
And what if he took one
And we the other? 'tis no more than when
One bard cursed the King's men,

And others satirized the Parliament.
This soothsayer was sent
With magic words to charm away the scars
Left by the great old wars

Our fathers fought in fratricidal strife;
And throughout all his life
Was fusing back the pieces into one
Pan-Anglic Union.

He used to boast that we were one in days
When Shakespeare wrote his plays;
And we can boast that in these latter hours
All his own songs are ours.

We claim as ours the “Old Clock on the Stair,”
And the “Two Locks of Hair.”
The “Psalm of Life,” and the “Hymn to the Night,”
And “God's Acre” delight

The dwellers in the old home in the North,
And those she has sent forth
To make an England here. The “April Day,”
“It is not always May,”

“The Reaper and the Flowers,” “Weariness,”
“The Belfry of Bruges,”
And “Haunted Houses” are a legacy
To all of us who be

Of the same tongue, as well as those whose land
Bore the magician's hand,
That touched these heartstrings. When we two were young,
Was not his simple song

Our sampler of all song? As we grew old
We failed not to strike gold
Whene'er we plied our picks. As ages roll,
His fame from pole to pole

Will be as evergreen as it is wide,
The while that side by side,
As was his wish, the Englands, old and new,
Uprear in all men's view

The noblest epitaph of later days
And monument of praise,
“Brothers of the same lineage and tongue,
After estrangement long,
United by the words he spake to both
In language of their youth.”

MEMENTOS.

O cool south wind,
Blowing from icebergs and the world of sea,
Yet you remind
Me of my northern home, and bring to me
With your crisp breath
Whiffs of the breezy spring and the wind flow'r,
That blossometh
In Kentish woods in March's budding hour.

And you, ye waves,
Ye, too, hail from the ice and Southern Pole;
The tide that laves
My home knows but of you as soul knows soul,
Alike in kind,
But moving in its own and distinct sphere.
Yet, as the wind,
You waft me memories of north-lands dear.

O threatening sky,
You are not beautiful: but when there be
Dark clouds on high,
They conjure up remembrances for me
Of my old home
And dear ones drawing in to the hall fire:
And with them come
Mists of regret and rain-drops of desire.

I love the sun,
Blue heavens, soft still air, and sea in calm:
When summer's gone
I feel, as in a northern clime, a palm
Transplanted from
The south. And yet, when clouds or cold appear,
Or chill sea foam,
I welcome them as if old friends drew near.

GONE HOME.

[_]

[Frederick, Bishop of Sydney, born and buried at Baslow, Derbyshire.]

Shakespeare, his life's work over, fell asleep
Where his own Avon, broad and slow and deep,
Lazily washes, with its waters brown,
The outskirts of the little low-built town
In which he first saw light; whither he came
Oft, from the crush of work and flush of fame,
To snatch a summer holiday among
The sights and sounds he loved when he was young.
Here, when he saw the shadows of his end
Sloping, before the darkness did descend
Upon his eyes, he set himself to win
A quiet twilight-converse with his kin;
And, when the night on gentle wing did come,
Lay down beside his sires in their long home.

John Milton, journeying threescore years and more,
Mostly 'mid darkness, evil days, and war,
Both in high places and in low estate,
Had gone no further off than Cripplegate
(Starting from Bread-street) when his knees grew slack.
And Spenser, born in London, coming back,
Ere he was wearied out, to Westminster,
After his hope-wreck, bowed his sad head there;
And Warren Hastings died in Worcestershire.

Surely there is no holier desire
Than that our bones should rest in the same earth
With the dear bones of those who gave us birth,
Tolled by the bells that fell upon our ear
When first we learned the meaning of “to hear”;
Outside the church whither we went to pray
Upon that memorable Sabbath day
When we were first thought “old enough to take.”

Is it not meeter, for our Mother's sake,
That when we reach the measured term of men
We should return unto the dust again
Where from the dust we sprang?

And so he lies,
After long sojourn 'neath Australian skies,
In his own Derbyshire; if the dead hear,
He hears the ceaseless plashing at the weir
Of the pent Derwent; if the dead can see
In their new life where their old bodies be,
He'll know the gray church by the river side
Where, in old days, in his life's morning-tide,
His father urged the villagers to heaven.
How happy he who, in his life's late even,
Ere darkness fell, was given once more to roam
'Mid old associations of his home!
With what joy must he, e'en with weary feet,
Have climbed again the causewayed winding street
That led up from the parsonage unto
The sweeping moorlands, where the heather grew
And bloomed for miles in August, till he stood
Upon the breezy edge from whence he could
See over Chatsworth! How he must have loved
To stand upon the bridge, where he had roved
In boyhood, and once more watch the brown trout
Between the stepping-stones dart in and out
In the clear waters of the river seen
Like flames that flicker through a crystal screen!

Must not his eyes, in exile many a year,
Amid the newness of our hemisphere,
Have revelled in the time-transfigured walls
Of hoary Haddon's legendary halls?

Would he not turn from Haddon to the tower
Where the Scots Queen beguiled the weary hour
With prayer and broidering and tapestry;
Or watching the huge carp that floated by
Down in the moat, the monarchs of their race,
Yet done to death by frogs in no long space?
She must have moralized, as oft she saw
The humble reptile, with his feeble claw
Blinding and killing off the royal fish,
And feasting on their torture and anguish.

And now he rests. Nor shall the palm-tree wave,
Hearse-like, her feathery plumes above his grave;
Nor shall the bushman walk his tired horse by,

And slouch his hat over his aching eye,
To seek relief from the fierce glare of sun
Upon the stone that bears his name thereon.
He has gone home; his native ash-trees weep
Over the sod 'neath which he lies asleep;
And the north country's ivy-mantled oak
Stands by, as witness that his own kinsfolk
Are with him after all his pilgrimage.
How oft must he, when parching to assuage
His throat's drouth in “a dry and thirsty land,
Where is no water” 'mid the golden sand,
Have wished that he had never left the shore
Of the sweet sparkling Derwent! Nevermore
Shall they be parted. Could he but have seen
In those faint hours—a moment's space—the green
Of his own Derbyshire, he would have risen,
Like a giant refreshed, from out his prison
Of thirst and fever, to renew the fight.
He will have cool moist moist all his long night,
Pressed on his weary temples to allay
The heat and drouth and throbbings of his day.

SOLOMON'S PRAYER.

I KINGS VIII.

O Lord, shouldst Thou withhold again
From the sick earth the kindly rain,—
Making the grass and flocks to die
And the life-giving rivers dry:
If t'ward this house we turn our face,
Hear Thou in heav'n, Thy dwelling-place,
And when Thou hearest, give Thy grace.

Should there be famine in the land,
Or fever stalk with burning hand;
Should the blight wither fruit and leaf,
Or the rust devastate the sheaf:
If t'ward this house we turn our face,
Hear thou in heav'n, Thy dwelling-place,
And when Thou hearest, give Thy grace.

Should we be stricken in the fray
And into bondage led away;
Should we for strangers have to toil,
Or should our cities be a spoil:
If t'ward this house we turn our face,
Hear Thou in heav'n, Thy dwelling-place,
And when Thou hearest, give Thy grace.

NELLIE (aged Nine).

Weep not!
Call her not dead. She was only nine years old;
Her hair was like a cataract all of gold;
Faced was she like the cherubim from the first,
Perchance as a foretoken that she would burst
The bonds that held her down from heaven ere long
She left off singing in her life's matin-song.
Weep not!

Weep not!
She passed from one to another happy home:
Her little feet had not the leisure to roam
Off the footpath into the brambles of life;
She had no time to taste the sorrow and strife
That damp and mildew and rust a woman's years,
With schoolgirl's and lover's, wife's and mother's tears.
Weep not!

Weep not!
She is not dead, but asleep. Who would not sleep
Rather than work and weary and waste and weep
Here in life's fever, faction, fear, and fret?
Her cheeks and lashes will never more be wet:
He called her back ere her heart had learned to ache;
He loved her much, and took her for her own sake.
Weep not!

TO THE AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN.

You have bearded the lion in his den,
You have singed the original cricket
Upon his own hearth, and beaten his men
On a genuine English wicket;
And so the Australian kangaroo
Has a right good right to be proud of you.

That you've had your even share of the luck
We'll allow, argumenti gratia,
But you won the great match by downright pluck,
And accordingly Australasia
Accords such a welcome to her Eleven
As for peaceful triumph never was given.

Let us pray that if ever Fate commands
Us to step into the arena,
With foils without buttons on, hearts and hands
Be forthcoming without subpœna
To uphold the name of the kangaroo
As the Australian Eleven do.

May we have a Massie as bold and quick
In our van to dismay the foeman,
A leader like Murdoch to strike or stick,
And yield, like our Murdoch, to no man;
And another Horan to lay about him
Like Tommy, however the foe may “scout” him.

And no lack of “Palmers” if in extremis,
Or of Boyles to plague the Egyptians,
Or Garretts to fly to if pressed the team is;
Or of men to take all descriptions
Of balls which may come at them, quite as coolly
As Blackham, who even out-Pooley's Pooley.

May we have a Banner-man stern and staunch
In stonewalling as little Sydney,
And a giant, his thunderbolt to launch
O'er the field, just of Bonner's kidney;
And a dauntless Mac, to strike like a man
When our men are falling fast in the van;

And all-round men such as Giffen and Jones,
And a “demon” to reinforce us
In case we should be over-matched for once
And the foe beginning to course us,
To come as Spoff like an angel from heaven
To help us to beat the English Eleven.

To speak in plain English, we pray for this,
That if in the struggles before us
The tempest of warfare which ravages
The Old World no longer blows o'er us,
We may show the same skill and dash and pluck,
And if we do this we may laugh at luck.

AMBITION.

Should he then always have to read of others
Sailing amid the palm-isles of the East?
Of no more venturesome or valiant brothers
Piercing the veil, and seeing the high-priest
Of Nature in her holiest of holies,
Deep in a tropic forest, or beside
N'yanza lake, or where the ocean's roll is
Broken by the Amazon's prodigious tide?

Should he then always have to read of others
Playing the leading parts in history?
Of no more masterful or sapient brothers
Ruling vast empires, dealing destiny
To politics and commerce, creeds and races,
And laying down a daily rule of life
To millions with pale and dusky faces—
Judges of right and arbiters of strife?

Should he then always have to read of others
Crossing the path of godlike womanhood?
Of no more gifted or attractive brothers
Winning submission, love, and gratitude

From some fair girl—her snowy bosom panting
With sweet emotions, fraught with innocence,
And with a look of the blue heaven haunting
Her blue eyes as if they had issued thence?

Should he then always have to read of others
Basking at ease in the warm rays of wealth?
Of no more prudent or industrious brothers
Living like gods, while he impaired his health
And sacrificed his sleep, forewent his leisure,
Hobbled his hobbies, quenched his impulses,
And caught at best a fleeting glimpse of pleasure
Just for existence—for mere bread and cheese.

He would die, knew he not that the hereafter
Had for him somewhere golden gifts in fee,
Long sunny days of exercise and laughter,
And balmy nights sweetened with love and glee.
He knew not whether he in wealth should revel,
Or rule a land, or hostile armies spoil;
He only knew that man must find his level
If he lives long enough and shirks no toil.

THE NEW LOVE.

She leans upon the balcony that overlooks the gardens—
A slender girl, with golden curl and eye that laughs and speaks,
Dressed in the pertest of resuscitated Dolly Vardens,
With roses on her “Patience” hat and roses in her cheeks.

I've passed beside her home, en route for office in the morning,
For months and never seen her there: yet now I never pass
Without seeing her encastled 'mid the jessamine adorning
And hedging in her watch-tower with its bloom-starred leafy mass.

When they meet within a ball-room she gives him all the dances
She dares venture and one more, and is e'er on the qui vive
For a warm grip in the Lancers or telegram of glances,
And an interchange of whispers when daylight bids her leave.

She will linger over supper, will feel hot if he wills it,
And wander on the terrace, or detect a sudden chill
If he's querulous of cold: he but speaks and she fulfils it,
Though she to others is a very goddess of self-will.

She sketches in advance every movement of her morrow,
In case he can accompany, and throws out gentle hints
For his fellowship, and tells him in confidence each sorrow
That on the smoothness of her life has left its rugged prints.

She is gracious when they meet, and is tender at their partings,
And blushes when she speaks of him, and, when she blushes, smiles,
Spite of a morbid terror lest her heart's delights and smartings
Should be laid open to the light for all her simple wiles.

She will laugh with him and chatter from dawn to dewy even,
Noting no more of the hours than the blades among the grass
That they tread on as they roam, or the clouds above in heaven,
Until the dusk reminds them how the golden minutes pass.

But is this rapture lasting? She has been as lost to others,
Has gripped other hands as warmly, has lifted her kind eyes
To other eyes as tenderly; you have had elder brothers
In the graces, favoured lover, which you now monopolize.

Take warning, if you love her: now she looks for your caresses.
But, when the newness has worn off, will cast you on one side,
And take you up about as soon as one of her old dresses,
Or the rose that in the heat last night upon her ball-dress died.

FALLEN ASLEEP.

(TO SOME ORPHANS.)

God took your mother to Him. Do not weep;
For so He giveth His beloved sleep.
And sleep she needed, after all her pain;
She left you, but to welcome you again
After your own probation term is done.
You have your task to finish, as this one,

Who had not lost all her youth's golden crown
When the Lord, well pleased, took her for His own.
O children, do not weep!
For so He giveth His belovèd sleep.

She passed into the day from a long night,
As we woke up into this morning bright;
Her night was dark and painful, but her day
Is fair as Austral mornings are in May.
And Time will heal your wounds, as it healed mine;
For I, too, lost a mother as benign
And tender and engrossing as was yours,
And grief refused to pass, save as the hours
Pass—imperceptibly.
Weep not! for, flow'r-like, she was born to die.

My mother lies beneath a far-off sky,
Where the wild channel beats incessantly
Upon the Sussex cliffs. I cannot have
E'en the poor joy of looking on her grave;
I cannot strew the violets on her breast;
I cannot sit where her palms, crossed in rest,
Are symbols of the pure humility
With which she learned to live and learned to die.
I may not even roam
Up the sad road that leads to her last home.

But you can plant white lilies in the spring
Over your love, and see them blossoming
With each returning spring—a parable
Of her reflowering who loved them well.
And you can to her side for comfort creep,
And sit close by her where she lies asleep.
You will not be far parted, even here
While in the body pent. Be of good cheer,
And, children, do not weep,
For so He giveth His belovèd sleep.