In Cornwall and Across the Sea :: :: University of Virginia Library

Past midnight had we watched the southern moon
Illumining the long dark points of land
Towards us stretched for miles on either hand,
And the broad bay still as a salt lagoon
On South Australian wilds; and now too soon
The morn had come. Yet I leapt up and scanned
With eager eyes the panorama grand,
When I was roused, a full eight hours ere noon,
By the loud grating of the anchor chain;
For Melbourne rose before me, silver-veiled
From the dark wood of masts, which fringed the main,
The port to which five thousand leagues I'd sailed,
And greatest city of the southern sphere,
Though she has not yet reached her fiftieth year.

112

II

I stood on deck still gazing eagerly,
Till some one came and pointed out to me
The landmarks, pier-lipped Sandridge by the sea,
The Scots' Church, the Cathedral-towers hard by,
The great dome looming out against the sky
Where the world's exhibition was to be,
And the blue hills of Dandenong, so free
And flowing in the distance. Presently,
Ere seven bells had struck, a sailing boat
Hove alongside and, sitting in the sheets,
(Even now a hot wind blew), in thin silk coat
I spied my host. How happy he who meets
His welcome at the threshold. Timely greeting
Is the best earnest of a welcome meeting.

113

III.

And my own Father's brother was my host,
Though forty years had flitted since he went
First forth from his ancestral home in Kent
To what was then the wild Australian coast.
And, though his home and kindred he had lost,
Not vainly had his exiled years been spent,
For in a corner of our Continent
A nation had been born, and he could boast
That none of her distinguished sons had done
More in the moulding of her destinies
Than he, a steadfast man whom everyone
Knew and respected—even enemies,—
Leader of men in every fierce debate
Though only few months leader of the State.

114

IN MEMORIAM.—SIR CHARLES SLADEN, K.C.M.G.

[_]

[Born at Ripple Court, Dover, 1816. Premier of the Colony of Victoria in the Crisis of 1868. Buried in the Cemetery overlooking the Sea, at Geelong, where he had resided for forty years, 1884.]

'Tis meet that he who dies away from home
Should sleep beside the sea which links and parts
His grave and ancient churchyards, where the hearts
Of those, who gave him birth, are laid in tomb.
'Tis meet, that when a strong man yields to doom
His rest should be 'mid those for whom he fought,
Amid the monuments of what he wrought,
And in some place to which all folk may come.
And therefore thou wert laid upon the hill
O'erlooking the blue stillness of the bay
Outside the city, where it was thy will
In thy long sojourn forty years to stay,
Far from the snowy cliffs which saw thy birth
On the most famous island of the Earth.

115

II.

Thy birth was in the zone of pines, thy death
Far from the cherry crofts and fields of corn
And hop-clad hillsides 'mid which thou wast born;
Far from the Severn stream that wandereth
(Past stately hall and bleak Salopian heath,
With here and there a salmon in a pool)
Where thou wert bred, at Philip Sidney's school,
Far from that other stream, that rivalleth
The classic Isis in world-wide renown,
Where thou didst make the study of the law
And the bright page of history thine own,
And from the great metropolis, which saw
Thy happy wooing hours and studious days
While thou wast conning Justice's dark ways.

116

GORDON'S TOMB.

I made a pilgrimage to Gordon's tomb,
And found him buried in a graveyard wild,
By trivial sights and sounds all undefiled,
A sanctuary where field-flow'rs might bloom
Unapprehensive of their general doom
Of being pulled by every wanton child,
Or harrowed out and evermore exiled
For a crude, formal garden to make room.
A broken column with a laurel wreath
Marked where he lay; the murmurs of the sea
He loved in life forsook him not in death;
The locust and the marsh-frog and the bee
Mingled their notes in one melodious breath,
And near him blossomed a young wattle-tree.

117

II.

I cried out, surely this is as should be,
The wild bard 'mid the wild flow'rs slumbering
In a lone place, where wild birds go to sing,
In earshot of the everlasting sea.
Surely he would not sleep so easily
(If there is after-life and ghosts can wing
A flight to where their bones lie mouldering)
Had he been hemmed about with ceremony,
With monuments of pride and gilt-railed beds
Of far-fetched shrubs and plants. Where now he lies
The wild flow'rs of the new land rear their heads,
And some we used in the old land to prize,
The scarlet pimpernel with sleepy lids,
And brier with bloom so delicate in dyes.

Written in the Cemetery at North Brighton, Victoria, over the tomb of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the poet of Victoria, born at Fayal in the Azores, and, like the author, educated at Cheltenham College.

118

MELBOURNE.

JULY 1884.

Queen city of the South, electric spark
Illuminating all our Continent,
Thy motto is of conquest not content,
Thy rays are wide-spread through the primal dark
Of our mysterious north, thou stamp'st thy mark
On territories of immense extent,
And with potentialities up-pent
Within them as immense. Hark thou, O hark,
The fairy bells are ringing to thy night
Chimes of a day of wondrous brilliance:
Begins to dawn thy future broad and bright
Over the hills, and that which will enhance
Thy splendour, now is reddening the sky,
In token of a rich noon drawing nigh.

119

THE SOUTH-SEA VOYAGER.

[Written on the P. And O. Steamer “Ballaarat,” out on The Southern Ocean Between Midnight and Dawn.]

Under the starry southern sky,
Over the waters wide we fly,
The wavelets hiss around our bow,
Crested with foam deep-blue below,
To match the clear night overhead,
And the bright crescent moon hath spread
A belt of silver from our side
To where the sky and sea divide.

120

Over the spacious southern sea
A south-east breeze blows merrily;
It fills the great black sails on high,
Standing out gaunt against the sky,
It lightly flecks the sea with foam
And speeds the good ship to her home,
With siren music round her bow
To lull to sleep the heads below.

Long after midnight I arise
And pace the deck with wondering eyes,
Revelling in the tropic air
Though slumber reigns supreme elsewhere,
Save on the Bridge where, looming black
Against the clear sky at her back,
The watch their lonely vigil keep
That others may in safety sleep;

121

And in the throbbing engine room
Where ceaseless the huge pistons boom,
Driven by steam whose fires are fed
By swarthy blacks in Nubia bred;
And forward, where a few Lascars
Crouch silently beneath the stars,
Waiting on their commander's lip
To do the working of the ship.

And first I raise my eyes on high
And gaze toward the southern sky,
To trace the starry-cross, then t'ward
The Hunter's gleaming belt and sword
I looked on in my native north
With child-eyes ere I wandered forth,
And lastly on the southern moon
So bright but doomed to waning soon.

122

The stars, the moon, the clear-dark sky
All lift the gazer's thoughts on high;
Surely the planets and the wind
Veil some omnipotence behind;
All surely would in chaos end
Did not some power their motions bend;
One cannot raise one's eyes at sea
And yet ignore the Deity.

Then I look downward, and the sea
Appals with its profundity,
One hundred times as deep as are
The highest masts on men-of-war,
And then its melody and hue—
So heavenly sweet so heavenly blue—
Its monsters and its marvels fill
My being with a mighty thrill.

123

Verily those who live on land
See not the wonders of God's hand,
But those who go down on the sea
In ships—who know the ocean's glee
When zephyrs blow, and know its wrath
When the South-Westers cross its path
And wind and water in their fray
Make mighty barks like aspens sway.

I sought my bunk again and dreamed
Of where the orange blossoms gleamed
Around my manhood's happy home,
Then flew in fancy o'er the foam,
To where the lime-trees in the spring
My childhood with soft green did ring,
Then mingled in confusion fair
The quick-set hedge and prickly pear.

124

Oh what a medley is my life—
With now a mother now a wife
For a Madonna—now the foam
Now terra firma for my home—
Now scorching sun, now cold and rain
To guard against—now groves of cane
And palm around me waving, now
Harebell and berry-laden bough!

But life—where'er—has charms for me,
Whether on land or on the sea,
In town or country, moor or wood,
In social throng or solitude,
Whether upon an Austral plain
Or in old Oxford once again,
In native London or Ceylon
The same fresh, happy, eager one.

125

THE TROPICS.

Love we the warmth and light of tropic lands,
The strange bright fruit, the feathery fan-spread leaves,
The glowing mornings and the mellow eves,
The strange shells scattered on the golden sands,
The curious handiwork of Eastern hands,
The little carts ambled by humpbacked beeves,
The narrow outrigged native boat which cleaves,
Unscathed, the surf outside the coral strands.
Love we the blaze of colour, the rich red
Of broad tiled-roof and turban, the bright green
Of plantain-frond and paddy-field, nor dread
The fierceness of the noon. The sky serene,
The chill-less air, quaint sights, and tropic trees,
Seem like a dream fulfilled of lotus-ease.

126

II.

Strange is it that imaginative men
Should thirst so for the tropics? Kingsley passed
To Western Indies with a glad “at last,”
And seldom poet but has turned his pen
To paint their glories longingly: thrice fain
Was I, from childhood's earliest days, to cast
My lot where calm blue tropic waters glassed
The feathery palm and glossy-leaved plantain,
To watch the gay-clad natives with mild eyes
Carrying quaint wares or plying some quaint trade,
To gaze where domed and gorgeous temples rise,
And lounge all day in the delicious shade
Eating rich tropic fruits, and witnessing
Some strangely fair or unfamiliar thing.

127

GUARDAFUI.

Written off Guardafui.

A week ago, we left the verdant shore
Of Asia's pendent jewel, Taprobane,
Palm-shaded to the margin of the main
And with rich fruits and foliage teeming o'er.
To-day we stand at Afric's Eastern door,
Thee, Guardafui, home of the hurricane
And heat and mist, whose grim slopes entertain
No single leaf. Thou seemest evermore
Like a huge giant, watching the approach
To Egypt's treasures, suddenly transformed
By Genies, whom thou lettedst not encroach
Upon thy trust, into a stone, yet warmed,
With faithful rage, whenever ships intrude
Upon thy once scarce broken solitude.

128

ADEN.

Written off Aden.

Gibraltar of the East, dark sentinel,
Holding a shield over the waterway
That floats ships to the cradle of the day
(Which was the cradle of the arts as well)
From the red west where shines the magic spell,
Which once illumed the workshops of Cathay
And India's temples with a magic ray
Of skill and science, we can scarce excel
With all our boasted knowledge, thou art fair,
Seen in the distance with thy lofty rock
Twisted into grotesque similitude
Of mosque and castle in the evening air,
Though thou art but a parched, pestiferous block
Of barren stone, by nature unsubdued.

129

AT SUEZ. May 1884.

Written at Suez.

Idly the water ripples round the hull
Of the great ship, detained in quarantine,
And yet not wholly wasted will have been
Our day in Suez Harbour, beautiful,
Had it no memories time can not annul,
The well that Moses found, the very scene
Where Israel crossed the water-walled ravine
Formed by the rolled-back sea, and Pharaoh, full
Of foregone victory, perished in the deep.
So fairly do Arabia's hills and sand
Mingle their rose and gold, where pilgrims creep
From Cairo down to Mecca, on one hand,
And on the other Egypt's in their hue
Are dyed so gloriously dark and blue.

130

THE DESERT.

Written on the Suez Canal.

Scorched rocks and sand stretching for leagues away,
A few dwarf heaths, scant-leaved and choked with dust,
Such was the land when Moses led his host
In flight from Egypt, such is it to-day;
Although at noon may oft be seen a bay,
Tree fringed, which leads the traveller to trust
That he has reached the palm-begirt sea-coast,
And that his parched and weary limbs shall play—
When a few hours, a few more miles are o'er—
In the clear waters mirrored silver-fair,
Only to find an ever-stretching shore,
Ever-receding sea. The mirage there,
Is it not type of many a glittering hope
That turned to rock and sand when we came up?

131

THE CANAL.

(SUEZ TO PORT SAID.)

Written on the Suez Canal.

We sailed along the narrow waterway
Which links the dawn-tinged east and busy west,—
A puny streak of water at its best,
E'en if it had not run through banks of clay.
Yet like the seal of genius it lay
Upon the desert visibly impressed,
E'en did not mighty steamers without rest
Press on, where all was land the other day,
Like barges towing on an English river;
And when night overtook us on the lake
Before Ismailia, we had not ever
Viewed sunset fairer, so each crimson flake
Was mirrored on the water, and the eve
Round the strange town such radiance did weave.

132

FIANCEE.

Written on the Mediterranean.

Only a farce on shipboard it was true,
And yet your genius is not oft excelled
E'en by the Muse's daughters who have held
The stage in thrill, and so your beauty grew
Upon your audience, that they loved you too.
Sweet were you, when you scornfully rebelled
Against your ‘Uncle's Will,’ when you repelled
Your forced fiancé—doubly sweet when you
Confessed your passion. Soon the time must come
For you to play the same part once again
In life, to let dark eyes and wistful roam
Over a manly face, held close, to rain
Kisses like dew, to lay both tiny hands
In a strong grasp and go where Love commands.

133

MALTA.

Written off Malta.

I.

Bluff island of so many memories
Since the Apostle, shipwrecked on thy shore
Gave thy rude folk a name for evermore
For kindness, and grew godlike in their eyes
By shaking off the snake, which did arise
Out of the fire. I pictured o'er and o'er
The ecstasy, with which I should explore
Thy knightly church, where the crusader lies,
The halls where the grandmaster of St John
Ruled like a prince, the walls of la Valette
(The jest and trophy of Napoleon)
And mighty bastions the English set
Upon thy rocky brows—to see the work
And waste of French and English, Knight and Turk.

134

II.

These and much more I thirsted to have seen,
And rose at earliest daybreak, full of hope,
Only to see the yellow flag run up
In token that we were in quarantine.
We caught some straitened glimpses of the scene
Even from the ship's deck, with its narrow scope
Narrowed yet more by deck-house, screen and rope.
We even rowed (to say that we had been
On Malta) to the Lazaretto. So
'Tis oft in life—some castle in the air,
Some city of the fancy, which did glow
Through our existence, gloriously fair,
Is shut off by some tyrannous command
Forbidding us to foot the promised land.

135

CARTHAGE.

Written Abreast of Carthage.

At sunset we left Malta. Ere noon fell
We passed Cape Bon, a lofty-crested cape
Blue in the morn but indistinct in shape
Scarce known itself, but who hath not heard tell
Of Carthage? what high heart but loves it well?
And Carthage lay behind the water-scape,
Carthage still eloquent of Dido's rape,
Hannibal's vow and Hanno's citadel.
My heart was stirred to think that where we sailed,
Punic and Roman triremes oft had clashed,
Until the youngest Scipio prevailed,
And on one evil day to ruin crashed
The glorious fabric reared by Tyrian hands
With sea-borne spoil from all discovered lands.

136

GIBRALTAR.

Written off Gibraltar.

I rose at dawn and rising from the main
Beheld the three peaks of the famous rock
Which once withstood four years the surgeand shock
By sea and land of banded France and Spain.
Grim were the heights from which the red hot rain
Fell on the ships, igniting where it struck,
And grim the mighty cannon trained to block
The entrance to the straits. I looked again
And saw the keep a thousand years ago
Built by the Moor, with honourable scars
Inflicted on it in long Spanish wars
With Englishman and Arab. A proud glow
Thrilled me, beholding where my countrymen
So mightily endured, and not in vain.

137

TARIFA.

Written off Tarifa.

Two bells had struck when we Tarifa passed,
Tarifa eloquent with memories
Of Arab knights, and with its fortresses
Drenched with staunch English blood and now at last
On the Atlantic were we, heading fast
For England. Favourable was the breeze
And blue the skies and mirrored blue the seas
And a spring sun a glittering halo cast
Over the battered walls and ruined keep
And quaint old Moorish houses, once the scene
Of high Moresco pomp and chivalry,
But widowed now and slumbering by the deep
Beneath the sun of Africa serene,
Unwakened save when the great ships forge by.

138

TRAFALGAR.

Written on Trafalgar Bay.

Cape Trafalgar! O Bay of Trafalgar,
What Englishman can look unmoved on thee
While being borne on shipboard o'er the sea,
Where that October morn was seen afar,
Issuing in all the pride of naval war,
The banded might of France and Spain to be
Shattered in Nelson's crowning victory
Ere darkness fell. O Cape and Bay ye are
Not grand or lovely, but ye illustrate
A truth as old as time, that humble things
Can be ennobled by endeavours great
Into a majesty unmatched by Kings.
Such is the halo heroism throws
Round every barren point on which it glows.

139

UPON THE S.S. “BALLAARAT.”

OFF USHANT.

Dedicated to the Hon. J. B. Watt of Sydney.

O stately ship fast speeding to thy port,
Our home, for six bright weeks of sunny weather,
We have had many pleasant hours together
Since we embarked—voyagers of either sort,
Old Colonists returning to the land
They left long since to win an independence,
And young folks, born Australians, in attendance
Longing to see their Fathers' native strand.
We shall not leave our ship without a sigh,
In which were born so many loves, hopes, fears,
And friendships sure to last for many years,
Or the blithe officers, who brought us by
Australia, Asia, Africa, to rest
Safe in our dear old island of the west.

A P. and O. Steamer.

140

AT PLYMOUTH.

At midnight we made out the Eddystone:
An hour ere dawn, majestical and slow,
We passed the iron fort, which daunts the foe
From Plymouth Sound, and dropped our anchor down.
At sunrise we took tender for Drake's town,
And walked at early morn upon the Hoe,
Where Drake his bowls would finish ere he'd go
To rock right to its base the Spaniard's throne
And smite his ships. We walked and looked once more
Upon the long black ship which o'er the waves
Of Indian and Atlantic oceans bore
Us safely home to look upon the graves
And mansions of our fathers, and to greet
Friends whom for years it was not ours to meet.

141

ICHABOD.

For forty years had aged Eli sate
Judging the tribes of Israel in the gate,
When God foretold to Samuel the doom
On Eli and his race about to come.
Early and late the man of God had prayed
And every precept of his Lord obeyed,
Except to lead his children in the path
By which they might escape their Maker's wrath:
And now the measure of his pilgrimage
Drew well nigh to an hundred years of age.
The aged man heard from the young child's lips
The doom which should his father's house eclipse,
And, as the quick tears of his woe outpoured,
He bowed his head and cried, “It is the Lord,
“Let him do whatso seemeth to him good,
And let His will by me be understood,
His be the will, mine the submissive mood.”

142

To Shiloh on the even of the fight,
Whereon the Philistines did Israel smite,
With his clothes rent and earth upon his head,
There came a man of Benjamin, who said,
“Israel before the Philistines hath fled;
Hophni and Phinehas thy sons are dead;
The Ark of God is taken.” With bowed head
The old man heard that both his sons were dead,
His people by the heathen undertrod;
But when 'twas told him of the Ark of God,
Stricken with grief, he fell from where he sate,
And brake his neck beside the judgment gate.

143

Meanwhile the wife of Phinehas his son
Was great with child, her waiting wellnigh done,
And when she learned that Israel had fled
And that her Lord and her Lord's sire were dead,
And of the taking of the Ark of God,
She bowed and travailed, murmuring, “Ichabod,
The glory hath forsaken Israel,
The Ark of God is taken, and they fell,”
And when the womenfolk who looked thereon
Said, “Fear not thou, for thou hast borne a son
In place of sire and husband who are dead,”
She answered not nor heeded what they said,
But named the child her mournful ‘Ichabod,’
Because the heathen had the Ark of God.

144

TWO YEARS OLD TO-DAY.

[Written upon the Second Birthday of the Author's Son at Struan, Toorak, Victoria, Nov. 25th, 1883.]

Two years old to-day!
And the sun ripples over the meadow
Rich with the breath of growing hay,
And there is not a sign of a shadow
On either flower-spangled scene
On the field with its azure germanders
And long grass stalks between,
Or the golden-haired infant who wanders,
Prattling his wonder merrily
Under the blue Australian sky.

145

Two years old to-day!
What of him in the march of the hours,
When twenty springtides trip away,
And the grass has been mown and the flowers
Faint with the early summer's heat,
And the banks upon which they were blowing
Are dust with trampling feet?
Golden-hair will have done with his sowing
And bare his sickle now to reap,—
God grant he may not have to weep.

Two years old to-day!
What of him in the march of the years,
When forty summers flow away,
And his mates have some reaped in their tears,
And some will have to reap no more,
And he owns to the scorch of the summers,
And has unbarred his door
To the little fair-headed new-comers,
And had himself to find the flowers
To brighten them in childish hours?

146

Two years old to-day!
What of him in his autumn and even,
When sixty years have slipped away,
And the shadows draw over his heaven,
And he looks back across his life,
Saying, “This day was good, and that glory
Was worth those years of strife,
And my name shall be written in story,
And as the founder of my race
My children's children I shall grace?”

Two years old to day!
What of him at the fall of the night,
When eighty years have ebbed away,
And the golden hairs melted to white
Upon his last begotten son,
And his children of their lives are saying,
The done and the undone,
Since their golden-haired infancy's maying
Down in the flower-spangled glade,
Ere it was mown or in the shade?

147

AN OLD ROMANCE.

A bar of an old-fashioned waltz,
A glance at a faded dress,
What is it that wakes in my heart
These echoes of tenderness?

When that was the waltz of the hour,
That dress in its pride and glow
Of shimmering azure and pearl,
A seven of summers ago,

Sweet eyes used to gaze in my eyes,
Light fingers would clasp my own,
And a soft voice fell on my ears
In a tremulous undertone.

148

The face and the fingers I touch,
The voice in its music is here,
But Romance is a delicate moth
That lives—just the sweet of a year.

149

THE VALSE.

He asks her a question; she answers yes,
With every grace in her graciousness,
And rises to yield him her slender form
Sweetly submissive and chastely warm,
Smiles as she rises and lifts soft eyes,
Gladdening when he would have her to rise,
Takes his hand firmly and leans on him,
Letting the rest of the room grow dim.

150

He only has asked for her hand to valse;
Her seeming submission and warmth is false;
Once after a valse, as she sat and fanned
The flush from her fairness, he asked her hand;
She rose with a motion of tender grace,
Yet did she not look him as now in the face,
But, drooping her lashes, besought him to go
Graciously—gracious even in no.

Her fingers in his have a touch of fire
To kindle the glow of the old desire;
The waist in his arm so submissive and slim
Awakes an electrical thrill in him;
He cannot encounter the tender eyes
Without piecing the broken reveries,
Or list to her voice in an undertone
Without dreaming of her as his yielded own

151

Remembers she yet, when she yields to him,
So trustfully, fingers and body slim?
And does she remember, when, free from all wiles,
She offers him one of her own frank smiles?
Or feel, when she ushers her kind replies
With a pleading glance from her soft dark eyes,
How she kindles the flame of the sacrifice
Which is laid on her altar at such a price?

Fair maid, he would dance his whole life through,
Had he such a partner for life as you!
Fond man, she would dance not with you again,
Did she know that it brought back the old sweet pain.
Yet cherish your secret and you may hold
Her waist in your arm, as you held it of old,
Press her hand, whisper—the vision is false,
It is not your love she accepts, but the valse.

152

THE GENTLEMAN-DROVER'S GOOD-BYE.

I.

Good bye, Old Chum!
We have, oft and on, been a lot together,
Under scorching sun, and in stormy weather;
Even in the blaze we would often revel,
In the stormy days we defied the devil,
Took what might come.

II.

Good-bye a while!
When we two once more shall be found together
Goodness knows. We are birds of one wild feather,
Here to-day and off once again to-morrow,
With just time to laugh or, instead of sorrow,
Grimly to smile.

153

III.

Until we meet,
Put on face as good for whatever weather,
As you know you would were we two together:
Don't believe I said single word against you:
Don't believe I did what may have incensed you:
Friend-trust is sweet.

IV.

Good-bye once more!
Friends like we two are soon must drift together
In the world somewhere, come what may in weather,
If we only make both our minds up to it,
You your oath may take we shall somehow do it,
No long time o'er.

154

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS.

She was the Queen of Hearts: there were some few with beauties rarer:
This one had hair more golden-tinged; that one had bluer eyes;
This was to the unheeding gaze unquestionably fairer;
That was more graceful, as she moved, or wittier in replies.

But she was beautiful enough to dazzle in a measure,
With clear eyes blue enough to haunt a lover with their hue,
With grace sufficient not to jar upon one's sense of pleasure,
As she moved to you and light arch wit which on the hearer grew.

155

Her crown was gentleness: her grace was graciousness unfailing,
Soft smile or glance for everyone in all her court of friends,
Her majesty a loftiness through her whole life prevailing,
Which could not for a moment stoop to meaner thoughts or ends.

156

THE SIGH OF THE SHOUTER.

Give me the wealth I have squandered in “shouting,”
Scattered in sixpences, paid by the pound,
Ladled out glibly—no grudging or doubting,
Never a thought of the use to be found?

Where are the hours that I wasted so gaily,
Drinking and laughing in front of the bar—
Hours that I spent in mere indolence daily
Heedless of how it my future might mar?

Gone, as the sun of the summer has vanished;
Woe with the winter is hurrying in,
Woe for the waste that can never be banished,
Gone is the glitter, but stayeth the sin.

157

TO G. E. MORRISON, Esq.,

AN EXPLORER OF NEW GUINEA.

[_]

[A College Friend of the Author's at the Melbourne University.]

When first I read romances as a boy,
In playtime often used I to devour
Stories of savage warfare by the hour,
And wild adventures filled my soul with joy.
As I grew older they began to cloy,
Because I came to feel the sceptic's power,
And look on tales of scalp and arrow shower
As scarce less shadowy than the tale of Troy.
But, when to Austral shores I winged my flight,
Once more I stood upon enchanted ground,
Adventure in its heyday still I found,
One term at college missed a friend from sight,
And heard that he his life had wellnigh lost,
Exploring on the wild New Guinea coast.

158

II.

You should not be a disappointed man
Although you did not light upon success:
You had not failed, had you adventured less:
Wiser—as well as nobler—is the plan
To greatly dare, albeit you may scan
Too high a goal, than yield in idleness
To drudge on in the calling you profess,
Doing what men of smaller compass can
Better maybe than you. The while you deem
That you were born to do His higher work,
And to do petty labour were to shirk
The task allotted to you in His scheme.
For he who hath five talents doeth ill
If he doth what one talent could fulfil.

159

III

We do not say that he has wholly failed,
Who much has dared though little has he wrought,
If, odds against, he gallantly has fought,
And over adverse circumstance prevailed.
For veterans 'twere something to have sailed
Into a savage land so thickly fraught
With pest and peril, as the shore you sought
And penetrated, (until spear-impaled
By lurking foemen), when you scarce could call
Yourself of man's estate. More stir and strife
Have you imported into your brief life
Of two and twenty summers than befall
Most people in a life-time. So much won
Advance upon the bright path you've begun.

160

AT WINDSOR, NEW SOUTH WALES, IN WINTER.

There's a reek from the stalks of the Indian cern,
As they stand in their blazing sheaves,
There's a freshening breeze from the uplands borne,
And a rustle of pelting leaves,
Which will bound in a moment across the lea,
Like the flattest of pebbles thrown
For a duck and a drake on the summer sea
By the children at Brighthelmstone.

Were it not for the smoke from the stalks of corn
And the scent from the orange trees,
And the White-Gums, whose sober-hued tresses scorn
The chill and the toss of the breeze;
Were it not for the Wattle with golden plume,
And the She-oak with plaintive moan,
I could fancy that I was beside the tomb
Of my mother at Brighthelmstone.

161

Yes! the trees, which are shedding, are English trees,
But they grow not in English land,
And the wind has the breath of an English breeze,
But it tastes not of Sussex sand,
And the heavens in winter had ne'er the hue,
And a sun such as this ne'er shone,
And the scent on the orange bloom never blew
In the gardens at Brighthelmstone.

It is, merry the glow of an Austral morn
And the sun of its winter sky;
And the green of the burgeoning Indian corn
Is a glory on earth to eye;
But as oft as I wander and weave my song
On the balmiest day, alone,
For a moment I wish that I roamed along
On the beaches of Brighthelmstone.

162

COOPER OF TUMUT,

A HERO.

[_]

[A True Story of the Australian Bush.]

A hero as gallant as he of Khartoum,
Though one met his rescue and one met his doom,
Was Cooper of Tumut, a six-year-old child,
Left lonely on guard in a New South Wales wild.

The township of Tumut stands sweet on the river,
In the serest of summers an oasis ever;
But our poor little hero lived deep in the hush
Surrounding the settler far back in the bush.

A little one ailing and tossing in bed—
Its father was working far off for its bread:
Its mother was nursing a babe at her breast,
With five little children to rob her of rest:

163

Her husband was working far off for their bread,
The little one ailing and tossing in bed:
With the babe at her breast and her six-year-old child,
In search of assistance, she plunged in the wild.

The track through the forest from clearing to clearing,
If trampled not often is aye disappearing;
The gum-branches falling, the heaths that upspring,
So wanton is nature—a veil on it fling.

At eve in Australia the darkness is swift,
The shadows o'erwhelm like the snow in a drift,
And ere she had come to her neighbour's, the night
Had brought her to bay in the midst of her flight.

The night it was stormy; the thunder-cloud showered
Its tears on the three, as for shelter they cowered
In a hole by the root of the tree that was nighest,
Defying the lightning which shivered the highest.

164

A day and a night with no morsel of food—
No breast for the babe—she must feed it with blood—
Her own, or the child's, or, the faithful to death—
The dog's, who would loather lose master than breath.

The dog must be slaughtered: he flies not away,
But welcomes the hand that is stretched out to slay:
This truest of Christians endures to the end
With the love that would lay down its life for a friend.

Oh! many the morn that the children would rush
With the dog as sole escort to roam in the bush:
He'd bark for sheer gladness as outward they trooped,
And brought up the rearguard as homeward they drooped,

With his tongue hanging roguishly out of his mouth,
Perhaps in dog-laughter, perhaps for the drouth,
With a dignified march that declared without doubt
That he'd frisked off the spirits with which he'd set out.

165

He feared not to battle the deadly black snake,
That the little one wished in his fingers to take,
(When out in the forest with “Laddie” alone)
As it flashed in its sleep on a sunny flat stone.

What wanted the dingo found dead at the door,
With Laddie beside him half dead in his gore,
Which Father and Mother away for the night
Had found when they came to their children at light?

The friend of the children, the guard of the house,
Whom kindness could conquer, no teasing could rouse,
Must end up his life of devotion with death:—
If his blood might give baby an hour more of breath.

He died as he often had perilled to die,
For their lives that he loved—mild reproach in his eye,
That the hand which now wielded the gum-log that slew
Should be that he had licked with attachment so true.

166

The babe could not live upon loyal-heart's blood,
As it lived on the milk it was used to for food,
The slaughter availed not: the baby still died,
And the mother toiled on with the child at her side.

Three days and three nights and the baby was dead.
She bore her dead babe and her little one led,
And, fed with the flesh of the friend that had gone,
The little one still struggled manfully on.

Four days! And the noontide glared down from the sky,
The merciless sun of Australia was high:
The stout little spirit could struggle no more,
And downward he sank on the forest's rough floor.

But stronger than Hagar the mother, who left
Boy and babe by the water still full in a cleft
From the rain of the thunder, till aid she had found
For the child on its bed and the child on the ground.

167

Two days more she wandered, unsheltered, unfed
Ere she came to the Chinese who gave her his bread,
And ran for a digger, miles further away,
To help him to succour the child left astray.

They hasted, but camped on the mountains that night,
For long ere they neared him they lost the day's light,
And when they did reach him, this six-year-old child
Had been three days alone without food in the wild,

Three days all alone without food in the wild,
This stout little hero, this six-year-old child,
In peril of serpents, in peril of dogs,
No roof and no pillow but sky and dead logs.

O singers of battles, no hero sing ye,
Who'd the soul of the Spartan more truly than he;
This six-year-old child in Australia's bush
Would put half the soldiers of story to blush.

168

For there was the little one after his fast
Of a week in the bush, when no morsel had passed
His lips, save the dog's flesh before he was left
By his mother afaint near the pool in the cleft.

For there was the little one lying—ah no,
But sitting up, spite of his want and his woe,
By the little dead baby with vigilant eyes
To guard the poor body from hawks and the flies.

A hero as gallant as he of Khartoum,
Though one met his rescue and one met his doom,
Was Cooper of Tumut, this six-year-old child
Who stood as a sentry three days in the wild.

Envoy.

He eat and was rescued: mayhap in the years
He will live and will die in the simplest of spheres,
This child who has shewn in six years from his birth
A valour unpassed in the annals of Earth.

169

A BALLAD OF WATTLE-BLOSSOM.

[The National Flower of Australia.]

When winter is over and summer not come,
When the North wind forgetteth to freeze or to sear,
When the tempests, which shout in September, are dumb,
Nor the drouth, which we dread in December, is here;
When the children are out in the prime of the year
To gather a glory of tint and perfume,
Though the Waratah, Rose, and Epacris are dear,
Yet it's hey for the Wattle with gold for its bloom.

170

When summer in splendour and swelter hath come,
And the creeks are all dry and the grass is all sere;
When the picknickers roam in the forest for gum,
Which wells from the Wattle in carbuncles clear;
If little they gather when no one is near,
The sunny young girl, whose shy glances illume,
And her sunburnt and stalwart and staunch cavalier.
Yet it's hey for the Wattle though gone has its bloom.

When the shy-glancing maiden has wandered from home
To the land, where her forefathers hunted the deer,
Where the sky without cloud and the sea without foam
Are a sight for the Gods, and Decembers are drear;
When she sighs for the sunburnt young squatter not here,
And picks from his letter, just brought to her room,
The blossom he plucked in the prime of the year,
Then it's hey for the Wattle with gold for its bloom.

171

Envoy.

When children are out in the prime of the year
To gather a glory of tint and perfume—
When shy-glancing maiden meets staunch cavalier,
Then it's hey for the Wattle with gold for its bloom.

172

LIGHT AND SHADE.

[Written at Old Government House, Parramatta, New South Wales.]

Beneath an Austral winter sun,
A worn man and a little child
Roam in a garden, overrun
With creepers and with beds gone wild;
The one with sallow sunken cheek
And doubled back and wasted hands
And hollow voice and motions weak
Telling of years in tropic lands,
The other revelling in wealth
Of careless joy and glowing health.

173

They both are idle: one doth pause
Since now his day for work is done,
The little laughing child because
His day for work hath not begun:
They play together—the worn man
Finding the infant's tricks and talk
Able to exorcise and ban
The doubts that dog his daily walk,
The wondering infant glad to find
One so unoccupied and kind.

The worn man sought the gentle clime
Of this delightful, genial land,
Feeling that else in no long time
He would be gathered to God's hand.
The little sunny child was born
In this same sunny continent,
As full of morning as this morn,
In which the warmth and cool are blent
In that proportion just, which gives
Health and delight to all that lives.

174

THEMISTOCLES

TO THE PEACE PARTY AT ATHENS, BEFORE SALAMIS.

Sirs, you've lived somewhat longer than we have,
And are so much the nearer to the grave,
And, if you can win these few years of peace,
Think that your pilgrimage on earth may cease
In your old selfish indolence and ease
Beside your vines and olives and fig trees.
But we are young and are not fain to live
Upon such welcome, as the Hellenes give
To those, who have no portion or estate,
But within strangers' walls do congregate.

175

WORDSWORTH'S “TWO VOICES.”

[Written at Waverley, Geelong, Victoria.]

“Two voices are there: one is of the sea
One of the mountains:” so the Poet sung,
Who lived the hills of Cumberland among,
And gave their names, O Liberty, to thee,
But they have a significance for me
Sweeter than liberty, less steeped in wrong,—
Home—for I too in days when I was young,
Lived on those Cumbrian hills.

And, though there be
Five thousand leagues of sea between us set,
Oft as the peaks of distant hills I've scanned,
I've dreamed of Easdale's mountain-coronet,
And when upon the ocean's brink I stand,
I see in it a chain of blue and foam,
To link me, long drawn out, with my old home.

176

POETS.

[Dedicated to George P. E. Scott, Esq.]

He is a poet, who lays stone to stone,
As well as he who builds the lofty rhyme:
We have stone poems dating from the prime
Of Athens, and three thousand years have flown
Without the ivy of oblivion
Loosing one fragment from the pile sublime
Reared on Troy's ashes in the elder time
By the blind islander. The Parthenon
And Iliad are ideas alike in kind
But told in divers forms. It matters nought
What the material moulded to the mind,
If the result matches the artist's thought.
One builds a stately pleasure-house in rhyme,
And one a poem writes in stone and lime.

177

THREE GRACES.

[C—, I—, and E—.]

One hath sun-brown, one gold, one auburn hair;
Each hath blue eyes, and each the damask cheek
Of pink and white, the profile of the Greek,
The graceful form, the foot that treadeth air,
The worship of the beautiful and rare,
Swift intellect, simplicity antique,
Courage against the strong, and for the weak
Soft pity: each is feat and frank and fair.

One hath the spell of music in her fingers,
And one the art of Raphael, the third
That witchery of voice which oft-times lingers
In memory years after it is heard;
And all—to a fair edifice fair dome—
Are useful, homely women in their home.

178

B. A.

Free,
To go for a scud on the sunny sea!
The study at morning and midnight done,
The scribbled old books on the sofa thrown,
The ink-pot left open to choke with dust,
With an old J nib in it stiff with rust,
And a red and blue pencil, in need of cutting,
Sticking out of a drawer too full for shutting.

Done!
And now I am free for a bask in the sun,
Or reading a legend of ancient birth
Of men, who have long since mingled with earth
On the shores of the Mediterranean,
Or to watch how Irene toys with her fan
To eke out a story, as old as Adam,
When Monsieur Moustache is with beautiful madam.

179

All!
Are you sure that my “scout” will not give me a call,
To be up with the lark and retrieve the work
That overnight pleasure had made me shirk?
May I chat over lunch and have out my sleep,
Without having one eye on the clock to keep?
May I once again act as if I was human,
And venture to look on the charms of woman?

Yes!
That vision has passed in its hideousness:
Henceforth, without favour or fear, I can
Look the world in the face, and stand up a man:
For no tyranny crushes the heart and soul
With its cruel exactions of time and toll,
Like that which determines os much our station
In life—our arch-bogy—examination.

180

THE BARBED ARROW.

They tell me he is light of love,
And cares for no one well,
That wont his fancy is to rove
Like fawns upon the fell.
I know not this, I know not aught
Save that we are apart,
And oh! I would that I had caught
The key-note of his heart.

'Tis not that we have plighted troth;
We never spoke of love,
But just the glad converse of youth
With laughter interwove.
'Twas thus, they say, he used to talk
With many another maid,
Amid the glory of a walk
By morning in the glade.

181

Alas it is not morning now,
And he is not with me;
And yet I am his own I vow
Whosever own he be;
If he has loved so many well,
Loved by so many been,
Does it not prove him loveable
Although it prove my teen?

O voice of youth and mirth come back,
And wear his own dear form,
To haunt the old familiar track,
With friendship's rays once warm,
Though other maids were there before
And others on me press,
O suffer me to make one more
And spare me one caress!