THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 JAMES DALLY 
 
 OLD AND RARE BOOKS 
 
 Oatlands, Tasmania 
 Telephone Oatlands 90 
 
 I
 

 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR 
 
 AND OTHER VERSE
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR 
 
 AND OTHER VERSE 
 CHIEFLY AUSTRALIAN 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HENEY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LT^ 
 1890
 
 (7/te rights of translation ami of reproduction art
 
 PR 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY COUNTRYMEN 
 
 THE AUSTRALIANS, 
 
 IN THE HOPE THAT THOSE INTO WHOSE HANDS IT MAY COMF, 
 
 WILL RECOGNIZE IN IT 
 
 SOME FAITHFUL STUDIES OF LIFE AND LANDSCAPE 
 
 IN PORTIONS OF OUR COMMON COUNTRY 
 
 EVEN YET SO LITTLE KNOWN. 
 
 1361941
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THE writer asks that in the perusal of this work 
 it may be borne in mind that, living in Sydney, he 
 has not had the valuable opportunity of revising 
 in the printed sheet lines which he knows in 
 manuscript only. 
 
 It may also be necessary to state that all the 
 names of " runs '" or stations employed here are 
 chosen for metrical reasons alone. This explana- 
 tion is made to prevent a possible, if improbable, 
 annoyance.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68 ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 THE SHEARER ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 FOUND DEAD ... ... ... ... ... 23 
 
 AT THE TANK BEFORE DAY ... ... ... 27 
 
 THE BOUNDARY RIDER ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 PIONEERS ... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 AT THE GROOM'S HUT ... ... ... ... 41 
 
 IN THE LIGNUM ... ... ... ... ... 44 
 
 MOONLIGHT ... ... ... ... ... 47 
 
 DROUGHT ... ... ... ... ... 49 
 
 Au PRINTEMPS ... ... ... ... ... 52 
 
 MAY IN Two LANDS ... ... ... ... 54 
 
 ETERNAL NATURE ... ... ... ... ... 57 
 
 FOR AN ANNIVERSARY OF ALL SAINTS ... ... 58 
 
 SONNETS ... ... ... ... ... ... 62 
 
 To THE POET ... ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 THE FAIRY STORY ... ... ... ... ... 73
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 TRUTH ... ... ... ... ... ... 77 
 
 IMPRESSION ... ... ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 AD MATREM ... ... ... ... ... 79 
 
 NOCTURNE ... ... ... ... ... ... 80 
 
 REVE ... ... ... ... ... ... 82 
 
 INFELIX ... ... ... ... ... ... 83 
 
 BUTTERCUPS ... ... ... ... ... 84 
 
 TOKHRYSE... ... ... ... ... ... 85 
 
 ART'S PATIENCE ... ... ... ... ... 86 
 
 ARCADY ... ... ... ... ... ... 87 
 
 A PETITE ... ... ... ... ... 89 
 
 ABSENCE ... ... ... ... ... ... 90 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE CONTINGENT ... ... 91 
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR ... ... ... ... 94
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 TRAMP, tramp, tramp, along a verandah and turn ; 
 Tramp, tramp, tramp, whilst the rain falls thick and 
 
 long, 
 Only another forced the world-old lesson to learn, 
 
 Fate the race is not to the swift, the battle to the 
 strong. 
 
 These are the lands that were his, farther than vision can 
 
 pierce, 
 Here where he treads, the home he had made for his 
 
 bride ; 
 All of it passed to another, and therefore his anguish is 
 
 fierce, 
 
 Gone his ambition, his hope, lost is his purpose and 
 pride. 
 
 A man of the mould of men, tall and sinewy, straight, 
 Made for endurance, for toil, to win and to hold 
 
 alike stout ; 
 Young, but his lowering face showed stress of the mind's 
 
 sad freight"; 
 
 Inattent paced he, but now and then stopped to stare 
 out. 
 
 B
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 Sombre and lonely the scene in the fall of a wild wet 
 
 day, 
 
 Far off the hills and faint in a cold and a misty hue ; 
 The slant lines of the rain broke over the shallow grey 
 Of the claypan wide where tussocks of canegrass 
 grew. 
 
 Another man stood at his side, fell into step with him, 
 
 paced 
 Up the verandah and down, silent, respecting his 
 
 grief; 
 
 You that are master to-day where I am a master displaced, 
 Listen to me while I tell a story bitter and brief. 
 
 Youngest son of a soldier, poor for place and services he, 
 Pure in his name and his fame and the well-earned 
 
 honour of men, 
 At manhood he, hating his calling, refused a commission 
 
 for me ; 
 
 " Then send me from England," I cried, " and set me 
 no trade of the pen." 
 
 In England no longer we heard from the sallow Australians 
 
 returned, 
 Nuggets and cradles and claims, but stations and cattle 
 
 or wool ; 
 
 So a new chum I came, my colonial experience learned 
 On a Victorian run years of labour and jollity full.
 
 A SQUA7TER OF '68. 
 
 One morn, my mail in my pocket, unthinking I rode 
 
 away 
 From my out-station and read, till one gave a blow to 
 
 my heart, ' 
 And I rode I knew not where, seeing him in the North 
 
 that lay, 
 
 Repeating, " The Governor's dead," as if so the pain 
 might depart. 
 
 Then I went back to my people;. in spite of their wish 
 
 I should stay, 
 Chose my lot in the South, where I seemed to have a 
 
 career. 
 In Melbourne, when I returned, they said, " Up North 
 
 is your way, 
 
 Fair country and cheap for a start ; you won't get any- 
 thing here." 
 
 It was the Riverine country the Victorian stockmen 
 
 possessed, 
 And over the Murray they swarmed with teams and 
 
 horsemen and herds. 
 
 We were too late in the choice ; for, ever ahead of the rest, 
 Hired bushmen took up the land, traversing the desert 
 like birds. 
 
 I and a partner worked the couple of blocks we had 
 
 chose. 
 
 Fortune was with me then ! The blacks were few in 
 our bound,
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 Seasons were good, cattle thrived, the market steadily 
 
 rose, 
 And then I went home, and the love of my life I found. 
 
 Tired of partnership when I came back we sold ; with 
 
 my share 
 I bought the right from a man who held this land as 
 
 in fee. 
 
 He never saw it. I heard it was very far out, but fair ; 
 * Bought it and came out ; and made it just what you see. 
 
 You drove up to the 'Change in a coach that rattled along, 
 Making the pace on a road a new chum couldn't mis- 
 take ; 
 You took your meals in hotels, and thought the bill rather 
 
 strong ; 
 
 Slept, or smoked, or yarned ; took the ribbons, as if 
 'twas your break. 
 
 Mine was a different trip, when I came my country to 
 
 find, 
 I and a white man beside, and natives to help us to 
 
 track, 
 Not an ounce our horses bore that might have betn left 
 
 behind 
 
 Rations, water, clothes, and arms for the treacherous 
 black. 
 
 Find, mark you ; that is the task I had to do first. 
 
 The directions said : At Chidowla strike out fair for 
 the North ;
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 Thence for each mile worth less were our lives by blacks 
 
 and by thirst. 
 Into a white man's grave we went as we rode forth. 
 
 Then for the landmarks few the bushmen before us had 
 
 seen, 
 Mallee here, a dried lake, stony ridges, a water-hole 
 
 there ; 
 That once found we camped, and soon the boundaries 
 
 clean, 
 
 In our minds more distinct than in our rude tracings 
 were. 
 
 Now I went back, and in the nearest township I hired 
 Driver and team, and drovers to bring some stock on 
 
 the road, 
 Heaped up the team with stores, and led it myself, 
 
 inspired 
 
 By fear of mischance our lives should depend on that 
 load. 
 
 You new squatters that come, pockets with money well- 
 lined, v - 
 And enter where earlier men have toiled and given 
 
 their years 
 You who come in and praise or blame with indifferent 
 
 mind, 
 
 Little you know their labour, the cares and the age-y 
 making fears.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 When I came in, what I bought was the grass right on 
 
 hundreds of miles ; 
 Xot a rod of a fence, not a house, not even a road or 
 
 a track, 
 Not a hoof; as for men, better none, for versed in all 
 
 craft and wiles, 
 
 Thievish and cruel and false, to each of those miles a 
 black. 
 
 They killed or scattered my cattle, as if in devilish fun 
 Speared or sweated my horses, the wretches ; that was 
 
 not all ! 
 
 The best of my men with the mail a regular gauntlet run, 
 Came back only to die ; death after on sight to the 
 , Myall. 
 
 Their blood on themselves ! Bullet for spear I repaid, 
 
 A black for a beast I exacted all over my run ; 
 They understood very soon the white man's wrath, and 
 
 afraid, 
 
 Skulked where the least or the safest mischief was 
 done. 
 
 Spite of all thrived the cattle ; mustering came in its time ; 
 A proud man I when I turned my first draft out for 
 
 the South ; 
 This was more than a step I had gained in my patient 
 
 climb, 
 
 My hopes were at last in view, sweet as drink at lips 
 black in drouth.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 I was content as I rode, the cattle straggling ahead, 
 My dogs trotting beside, but out of the reach of my 
 
 whip ; 
 Heavy bearded and brown where once I was clear white 
 
 and red, 
 
 Booted up to my knees and grimed to my cabbage- 
 tree tip. 
 
 That all came off, as soon as I sold my cattle and trod 
 The broad flags of Collins St. East and squatter with 
 
 squatter sat, 
 
 Up in the plains Trida's lord, on all my acres a god, 
 In Melbourne a gentleman, too, and no forgetting of 
 that. 
 
 Year after year I came back to a place that was changing 
 
 fast. 
 Little I spent on myself, but much I bestowed on my 
 
 land; 
 The bushmen and I rode up the boundaries right to the 
 
 last, 
 
 And fences followed our horses, there to this hour 
 they stand. 
 
 Here where I talk who through years did all as I say, 
 Tents took place of the gunyahs made of branches 
 
 and leaves ; 
 Next came a hut, now the kitchen, where fell the tents 
 
 one day, 
 
 Then this house, mine once, rain spouting from roof- 
 tree and eaves.
 
 8 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 All the place changed from the spot I had squatted 
 
 upon 
 Yards stretched out in the plain, and a garden with 
 
 alleys of shade, 
 Huts for the men, and tracks that plunged in the scrub 
 
 and were gone, 
 
 I made it and loved it as men love that they only have 
 made. 
 
 Often I reined in my horse as the homestead rose to my 
 
 sight, 
 Rude another might think, but never to me was it 
 
 rude; 
 Here had I taken my ground, here was the heart of 
 
 my fight, 
 
 Here had I striven and won from Nature not to be 
 sued. 
 
 But it was lonely yet, in spite of perpetual toil ; 
 Empty and silent rooms but made me more longingly 
 
 think 
 Of my promised bride of her who, waiting on English 
 
 soil, 
 
 At my sole word would have come, her life with my 
 life to link. 
 
 When next I visited town the talk was of nothing but 
 
 sheep. 
 
 " Increase on increase," they said ; clear profit and 
 certaiu the wool.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 listened, discussed, and inquired j earnest my thoughts 
 
 were and deep ; 
 Loth was I ever to change, but this change with 
 
 promise was full. 
 
 Yet long I revolved, debated, long I doubted, at last 
 Fatally clear seemed the gain ; for that I made choice 
 
 of the sheep, 
 Here must I wait for the present, I said ; no great 
 
 change is fast ; 
 
 But speedily as I might the cattle from Trida I'd 
 sweep. 
 
 Such a muster was that, the last one Trida should see, 
 From scrub and hill and glen we drove beasts brand- 
 less and wild, 
 And every hoof we lifted, till of big stock Trida was 
 
 free, 
 
 When we came back resounded the bleat of the 
 strange sheep mild. 
 
 I was deep in the debt of a bank, for I bought when 
 
 prices were high, 
 And, like a desperate gambler staking his all on the 
 
 dice, 
 I threw for a fortune or ruin but only fortune seemed 
 
 nigh, 
 
 England and home, and love and marriage, worth the 
 risk thrice.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 There is some blind, deaf chance that changes the lot 
 
 of men ! 
 All my cattle had thrived, disaster came with the 
 
 sheep ; 
 Yet fair was hope, too fair; we are wise the past in 
 
 our ken. 
 
 I threw and I lost ; 'tis a cur who stays to whine and 
 to weep. 
 
 Vain in the thirsty soil was scooped the tanks' yawning 
 
 bed; 
 Vain in the blind sand creeks the dam breast-works 
 
 rose high ; 
 For sudden and fierce came drought, the irregular rains 
 
 instead ; 
 
 As of old, the earth was iron, as brass was the sunlit 
 sky. 
 
 Oh that season ! God, in the years that are yet to be 
 
 mine, 
 Shall it ever fade from my mind like the spell of some 
 
 cruel dream ; 
 Shall ever mine eyes forget the curse of that changeless 
 
 shine, 
 Mine ears be deaf to a cry, as of agony supreme ! 
 
 The day came up in the East, calm and triumphant 
 
 and clear, 
 
 And moved with seldom a cloud from dawn to the 
 dim twilight ;
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. II 
 
 Over the plain swept tides of heat, the sky-line came 
 
 ever more near, 
 
 The dead air wavered, and pulsed to the aching of 
 the sight. 
 
 Sweet with a fatal charm were the languorous hours of 
 
 night, 
 
 Low and large burnt stars through a faint and lumi- 
 nous haze, 
 While soft slow passing airs brought fragrance wild and 
 
 light, 
 
 And morn seemed loth to lead one more of those 
 mad fierce days. 
 
 Yet ever the morning came, morning and noon and eve, 
 Ever the thirsty heat and the day-long blinding shine, 
 Ever the anxious night with its hopes and its fears 
 
 aweave, 
 
 And slow to pass were its hours that brought me no 
 anodyne. 
 
 Sometimes I lay in a hammock, my face to the starry 
 
 sky, 
 With a prayer that was half an oath, I saw the dense 
 
 clouds go, 
 And day came dull, and at dawn lo ! heaven to earth 
 
 was nigh, 
 
 From hillock to hillock around hung rain-clouds dark 
 and low.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 But a strong wind blew from the west, with an April fall 
 
 of rain 
 The masses o'erhead would move and by night the 
 
 heavens be clear, 
 
 And the day come up the east in his pride and his dis- 
 dain 
 
 Of the hopes that were foredoomed with his blaze 
 to disappear. 
 
 And again a wind from the west with a lurid pomp 
 
 would blow, 
 
 And hide the world in a pall of tawny dust and red, 
 Perchance to pass with a dole like tears on the earth 
 
 below, 
 
 But coolness came with the night, and sleep to a 
 weary head. 
 
 Day after day I mounted, rode out in the bare hot 
 
 plain, 
 
 With an aching in my eyes for the ruin I should see ; 
 Alone I rode far out, with an anguish ever in vain ; 
 And the face of that desert cursed was a thing to 
 dread and to flee. 
 
 As I rode the mirage grew, it shifted, it rose and fell, 
 Waves gleaming in leagues of lake, in the air the 
 
 palms asleep. 
 And I tossed my clenched hand out and cursed the 
 
 thing of hell, 
 
 For under my eyes on the earth I saw but perishing 
 sheep.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 13 
 
 Around the miry edge of the shrunken and filthy pool, 
 And in corners of the tank stood dead and the living, 
 
 fast; 
 To his victim fluttered down the crow like a loathsome 
 
 ghoul, 
 A shudder cruel to see through the living corpses past 
 
 We dragged the living out, but the bleating wretches 
 
 came, 
 Tortured by thirst, at night, and perished before the 
 
 day, 
 Till the tanks gave life no longer, but pits as of death 
 
 their name ; 
 
 And when I approached, for despair I turned me 
 another way. 
 
 Ride where I might, no escape; death and agony 
 
 everywhere ; 
 Heavily rose from their feast the hated and sated 
 
 birds ; 
 Death strewed the sands with his prey, and tainted the 
 
 stagnant air, 
 
 Festering carcasses now were pick and choice of my 
 herds. 
 
 Or under the clumps of bush, at the slender butts of the 
 
 trees, 
 
 Wearily halted the wreck of my flocks, too faint to 
 retreat,
 
 14 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 Contorted some lay like dead, some upright though on 
 
 their knees, . 
 
 Motionless most, but some as from habit seemed still 
 to eat. 
 
 The luck never changed for me. I stood it as long as 
 
 I dared. 
 Where could I turn? All I had, all I was, here 
 
 wasted and spent. 
 
 Man after man I paid off, held on and deeper de- 
 spaired 
 Till, " dried out " ourselves, I abandoned the station 
 
 and went. 
 
 U/t& tuv^l^ ftna#* 
 
 It was a season of ruin, I was but one of a crowd ; 
 
 On my retreat to the South I halted at places I knew, 
 Welcomed by men hard hit like myself, but dogged and 
 
 proud ; 
 
 Some of them came out right at the end, 'twas only 
 a few ! 
 
 To me the bitterest part of the whole bitter business 
 
 begun, 
 When like a schoolboy I told my tale to the Managers' 
 
 board ; 
 They gave me a longer credit, and bade me return to the 
 
 run 
 
 When the drought passed, and work and wait till 
 success was restored.
 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 15 
 
 At the first news of a change I sped to the Station 
 
 again, 
 Vast was the toil required the work of the drought 
 
 to undo ; 
 But the season was good, we worked man and master 
 
 amain, 
 
 Ere the year was out sheep grazed and prospered the 
 paddocks through. 
 
 None, unless he had witnessed the change that came 
 
 on the land, 
 Could be persuaded such difference a season might 
 
 make ; 
 Dense in new growth the bush, herbage was deep on 
 
 each hand, 
 
 Claypans were wide-spreading meres, a tank was hid 
 in a lake. 
 
 v_y 
 
 Trust never returns to him who has suffered from 
 
 trust ; 
 When the fat sheep ran at the tread of my galloping 
 
 horse, 
 
 I saw at each bush its dead, I saw the waterless crust 
 In the forsaken tanks cake around each hideous corse. 
 
 Yet ever the months went by, and they brought to me 
 
 favour and grace, 
 
 Till it seemed there yet was hope of freedom to win 
 at the last ;
 
 1 6 A SQUATTER OF '68. 
 
 Under my eyes all thrived, soon knew I a happier case, 
 When under the shearers' blades the thick fleece fell 
 so fast. 
 
 Tier heaped on tier of bales it rose till the shed was 
 
 full, 
 And a deep impatience was mine, so long the bullocks 
 
 delayed. 
 I grudged the tardy beasts every mile they should drag 
 
 my wool, 
 
 And their drivers every meal, each halt, every camp 
 they made. 
 
 Premonition perhaps ! One night a glare disturbed my 
 
 repose, 
 Through my sudden stupor rang the cries of the men 
 
 outside, 
 Their cries and the roar of flames on the quiet midnight 
 
 rose, 
 
 And the stench of the singeing wool spread out 
 through the cool air wide. 
 
 It was a terrible blow, because I had felt so secure ; 
 That clip meant respite for me, and a lessened debt 
 
 at the bank. 
 
 Surely, I held in my heart, misfortune can never endure ; 
 Give me but time, and I'll prove my luck is not 
 blank. 

 
 A SQUATTER OF '68. 17 
 
 There did seem a promise ; as came and sped the 
 
 following years, 
 The seasons held good and the flocks made a steady 
 
 increase, 
 So that I heard, as a man his reprieve, the click of the 
 
 shears, 
 
 And reckoned the yearly returns from the heavy masses 
 of fleece. 
 
 Judge if my heart was not light as that debt perceptibly 
 
 fell, 
 Think what I had at stake my pride as a man in my 
 
 power, 
 Pride to conquer for her who here in the future should 
 
 dwell, 
 
 And hear with pity and love of my dark and triumph- 
 ant hour. 
 
 Then came a dry season, a nothing ; the bankers' de- 
 mand 
 v Followed with eager speed, to surrender the station 
 
 or pay; 
 You know the rest, for you bought ; and I am here at 
 
 command, 
 
 To hand the run over, and go to hell, if that is my 
 way.
 
 THE SHEARER. 
 
 THE August day is ended, and the moon is full and 
 
 bright, 
 And the world itself seems sleeping in the cold, impassive 
 
 light; 
 At the river's edge the trees are, white above, dead black 
 
 below ; 
 On the water, like a dream flood, stealthy ripples come 
 
 and go. 
 
 a Clear and keen with frost the air is, sharp each outline 
 meets the eye, 
 Sheds and pens and paddock, plain and bush, all 
 
 silent lie, 
 And a subtle thrill of sadness warns the gazer thus to 
 
 see 
 
 How the night dwarfs men and labours, to the world how 
 short-lived we. 
 
 Dawn shall blush, and morn come, and the sun flame 
 
 down the west, 
 But the hours shall pass unheeded as a vain voice o'er 
 
 his rest ;
 
 THE SHEARER. 19 
 
 For these young eyes which this morning saw the sky 
 
 begin to burn 
 Lost the magic of the daylight that to them cannot 
 
 return. 
 
 In the hut the meal is over, and about the big bare room 
 They were sitting who but lately took the dead man to 
 
 his doom, 
 On a plank beneath the window, with their faces to the 
 
 blaze, 
 Leaning outwards smoking, old hands tell of him and 
 
 vanished days. 
 
 Do you mind, Jim, one is saying, how he joined us at 
 
 a shed, 
 Four years back upon the Lachlan ah yes, it was Be- 
 
 rembed ? 
 There was rain about the district, and the fellows mostly 
 
 stuck 
 At the shanties on the roadside till the weather changed 
 
 for luck. 
 
 But the boss was in a hurry, and he started us to shear, 
 For he meant to go to England when the clip was off, 
 
 that year ; 
 When a youngster, he that's lying in the harness-room 
 
 to-night, 
 Said he'd work a pen, and got it, and we took to him on 
 
 sight.
 
 20 THE SHEARER. 
 
 He was just that sort of fellow you must either like or 
 
 not, 
 
 Good at any game you started, he cared very little what ; 
 Run a hundred yards, or wrestle, sing and dance and 
 
 play, or fight, 
 Thrum -a fiddle, yarn or pledge you, heart and hand 
 
 together light. 
 
 He could shear, too, and his tally, he the youngest of 
 
 the board, 
 Made the ringer stare a trifle when he saw the numbers 
 
 scored ; 
 From his flying right hand fell all day the thick wool 
 
 fold on fold, 
 Burry, black, and matted outward, but inside as bright 
 
 as gold 
 
 Day by day we saw him bending on the floor above his 
 sheep, 
 
 Saw the sweat on face and shoulders, heard the shear- 
 blades clash and leap, 
 
 Then a white shrunk thing went bleating forth, to join 
 the mob again, 
 
 Not a patch of blood and tar her creamy fleece to stain. 
 
 That was how we met him, when the shed at last cut 
 
 out, 
 On and on he came amongst us, and since then each 
 
 year about,
 
 THE SHEARER. 21 
 
 Sure as shearing, he rejoined us, from down Wagga way 
 
 he came, 
 Like him once, and like him always, for he ever was the 
 
 same. 
 
 He was this, whate'er his faults were, white man through 
 
 to friend or foe, 
 Fair as daylight, true as heaven, seldom to a mate said 
 
 "No;" 
 Shared his camp with whom he trusted, shared his purse, 
 
 his swag, his all, 
 Never made his kindness burden, put his gifts beyond 
 
 recall. 
 
 And he drowns in dead back-water, where the men go 
 
 down to swim, 
 With a dozen friends around him, who would give their 
 
 lives for him. 
 Not a sound until we missed him ; some one said then, 
 
 " Is he drowned ? " 
 Dived and searched the muddy shallow ; in the hut lies 
 
 all we found. 
 
 Even now the tools are speaking of the coffin in the shed, 
 There, ere night has gone and morn come, we shall help 
 
 to lay him dead. 
 Where the station graves are scattered, there'll be one 
 
 more newer heap, 
 Haply at next shearing none will heed who there may 
 
 sleep.
 
 THE SHEARER. 
 
 It is best as it has happened ; many ways have we to 
 
 die; 
 Some are bitter, few are tempting, in the end, alike we 
 
 lie 
 Under heaven that lifts above us, or where skillion roofs 
 
 are low, 
 Oft outwearing strangers' patience, oft our own, before 
 
 we go. 
 
 Once his cheque is spent, a sick man to the saddle climbs 
 and turns 
 
 Forth his face into the desert, where the road he scarce 
 discerns. 
 
 Falls with hideous forms around him ; well for him if life 
 be fled 
 
 Ere the eagles, grown emboldened, settle round the help- 
 less head. 
 
 They who fall so, linger little ; for myself, I hold it 
 
 worse, 
 From the corner of a shanty hear the fellows laugh and 
 
 curse, 
 
 Living o'er the past eternal, yet forgot the sick man lies, 
 And, his comrades still carousing, turns his face down, 
 
 and so dies.
 
 FOUND DEAD. 
 
 TO-DAY the trooper returned; in his officer's hands he 
 
 placed 
 All the remains of a man who met his death in the 
 
 waste 
 A swagsman travelling to reach the homestead of old 
 
 Retreat, 
 Had got off the water and died, naked and mad with 
 
 the heat. 
 
 Here are the photographs five, not for nought had they 
 
 borne 
 Many a summer's heat, now faded and shrivelled and 
 
 torn. 
 This was his own, said the trooper ; the inspector takes 
 
 up a card, 
 Another of his, but altered ; between them his life had 
 
 been hard. 
 
 First was a man of the English type, stalwart and fair 
 
 and young, 
 Telling in all its lines of one from ancestry sprung,
 
 24 FOUND DEAD. 
 
 Pleasant in mouth and eye, graceful in contour and line, 
 Steady of gaze, but frank an athlete, strong and yet fine. 
 
 Years older the other seemed, with a countenance 
 
 bearded and spare ; 
 
 Under a broad-leafed hat the eyes had a moody stare. 
 Yet there was sadness, too, a something of shame and 
 
 of pride, 
 Ashamed to confess what the handsome face might not 
 
 hide. 
 
 Who does not know it? Who has not seen it? the 
 
 change 
 That takes a man, and produces what subtly and ever 
 
 estrange ; 
 The new chum breaking apart from his English tradition, 
 
 his caste, 
 And mad with the new wild life, makes progress, too fast 
 
 to last. 
 
 The rest of the cards were women's ; here, in the first, is 
 
 a face 
 
 Calm and high-bred and old, with age's dignity grace ; 
 Softness it had, never weakness ; strong with victorious 
 
 years, 
 And her face is the mould of that the fierce sun 
 
 blackens and sears ! 
 
 And this is a girl's fair face, but kinship between them is 
 
 none. 
 Life had lessoned the elder, for this it scarce was begun.
 
 FOUND DEAD. 25 
 
 Kindness and infinite trust, goodness, purity, youth, 
 Writ in this sweet face were, the living witness of 
 truth. 
 
 Faded by sun, not by age ; warped by the blaze on the 
 
 plain, 
 Frayed! By fingers that held whilst eager eyes over 
 
 again 
 Conned and studied, as if with intent to remember for 
 
 aye 
 All the freedom and grace that in those lineaments lay. 
 
 An imperious face, this girl's ; the gazer's her large eyes 
 
 held, 
 And challenged a homage thence by her charm and her 
 
 will compelled ; 
 On her lips no laughter lived, neither smile nor frown 
 
 was there, 
 But a force to take men's hearts by grace of womanhood 
 
 rare. 
 
 She had lived and loved ; it was writ in no blemish, in 
 
 no stain. 
 Hers was that beauty which grows completer with joy 
 
 and with pain, 
 Not that which seeks and is sought, and giving back 
 
 flame for flame, 
 Burns into darkness swift and lends to dishonour a name.
 
 26 FOUND DEAD. 
 
 Piece, then, the tale who will, let them censure, ignore, 
 
 let them say 
 For a girl's sole sake he has cast himself and his life 
 
 away ; 
 Nothing to give you more had life, you had love which 
 
 is all men crave ; 
 Comrade unknown, may earth be light on your unmarked 
 
 grave.
 
 AT THE TANK BEFORE DAY. 
 
 IN the air the stars are dusk, yet the slow approach of 
 
 day 
 
 Makes a wan dawn in a hand's-breadth of the sky, 
 And the twilight like a mist seems to melt and fade 
 
 away; 
 Darkness yonder, only dimness is anigh. 
 
 Here few nights bring dewy cool, and the dawn air dry 
 
 and hot, 
 
 Holds the senses like a languor long and deep, 
 Seeing, hearing, thinking nought; past and present all 
 
 forgot, 
 Thus to wake, to lie, is as a dream of sleep. 
 
 Through a dry smell of the earth from the piny bush 
 
 around 
 
 Slow faint savours as of incense rise and spread, 
 Out afar the hills loom dark, with dim lines their mass is 
 
 crowned, 
 And pale the stars together blench o'erhead.
 
 28 AT THE TANK BEFORE DAY. 
 
 Beyond the pallid mirror of the water in the tank, 
 Shapes 'twixt earth and air in twilight came and went, 
 
 Silent, ghost-like, swift, save that as they rose and sank 
 In the sullen hush a heavy noise was sent.
 
 THE BOUNDARY RIDER. 
 
 THE bridle reins hang loose in the hold of his lean left 
 
 hand; 
 As the tether gives, the horse bends browsing down to 
 
 the sand, 
 On the pommel the right hand rests with a smoking briar 
 
 black, 
 Whose thin rings rise and break as he gazes from the 
 
 track. 
 
 Already the sun is aslope, high still in a pale hot sky, 
 And the afternoon is fierce, in its glare the wide plains 
 
 lie 
 
 Empty as heaven and silent, smit with a vast despair, 
 The face of a Titan bound, for whom is no hope nor 
 
 care. 
 
 Hoar are its leagues of bush, and tawny brown is its soil, Jf 
 
 In that immensity lost are human effort and toil, 
 
 A few scattered sheep in the scrub hardly themselves to 
 
 be seen ; 
 One man in the wilderness lone; beside, a primeval 
 
 scene.
 
 30 THE BOUNDARY RIDER. 
 
 Firm and upright in his saddle as a soldier upon parade, 
 Yet graceful too is his seat, for Nature this horseman 
 
 made; 
 
 From childhood a fearless rider, now like a centaur he, 
 And half of his strength is gone when he jumps from the 
 
 saddle-tree. 
 
 Back from his sweat-wet hair his felt is carelessly placed, 
 Handkerchief at his throat, sagging shirt round a lank 
 
 firm waist ; 
 True to the set of strong loins the belted moleskins are 
 
 tight, 
 Plain from forehead to stirrup a virile vigour in sight. 
 
 Yet scarce more than a boy, but the long blaze not more 
 
 sure 
 Has left on the countenance spare a hue that shall ever 
 
 endure, 
 Than the life of the plains has set reliance and courage 
 
 there, 
 Constancy, manliness frank in a young face debonair. 
 
 He should be no less who rides for ever each spacious 
 
 bound, 
 
 Better than human speech he knows the desert around. 
 He journeys from dawn to dusk, and always he rides 
 
 alone, 
 The hue of the wilderness takes, as his mind its 
 
 monotone.
 
 THE BOUNDARY RIDER. 
 
 He hears the infrequent cries, shrieking or hoarse and 
 slow, 
 
 Sheep bleating, the minah's scream, the monologue of the 
 crow ; 
 
 He rides in a manless land, and in leagues of the salt- 
 bush plain, 
 
 Seeks day after day for change, and seeks it ever in vain. 
 
 In his hands his life each morn as he swings to his 
 
 leathern seat, 
 Woe to him if he falls where as water the plain sucks , 
 
 heat, 
 
 Alone in a vast still tomb, cruel and loth to spare, 
 Death waits for each sense and slays whilst the doomed 
 
 wretch feels despair.
 
 PIONEERS. 
 
 WE sat in the deep verandah, the dark was close around, 
 The last soft chords of a nocturne even yet seemed to 
 
 sound, 
 The stars were low and splendid, the night was full of 
 
 peace, 
 A summer day had ended and its cares and toils did 
 
 cease. 
 
 Unnoticed upon us silence stole and we sat as dumb, 
 It was that hour when mem'ries out of the far past come ; 
 The present fades ; about us scenes, faces, voices nigh, 
 Long years since gone ; forlornly we wake and unthink- 
 ing sigh. 
 
 I thought as I rode this morning across from Yandama 
 
 here, 
 Said one, that this day to me is that I should hold most 
 
 dear; 
 
 Fifteen years ago now, but it comes back clear as to-day, 
 My first brush with the Myalls far out up the Cooper 
 
 way.
 
 PIONEERS. 33 
 
 A lad just out from home, in Brisbane the first week met 
 A cousin in town on a spell he manages Thargo yet ; 
 He pressed me to come back with him ; I went in the 
 
 hope to see 
 This life of the bush on hearsay I thought to be wild and 
 
 free. 
 
 Out back I had much to learn, to forget a great deal 
 
 more, 
 But I wasn't a new chum long though the teaching was 
 
 curt and sore ; 
 Dressed, lived in the station way, and found what there 
 
 was of work, 
 Soon to be liked all round as one who never would shirk. 
 
 So I stayed, I liked both the life and the fellows about 
 the run ; 
 
 For the life there was plenty of work and after good- 
 natured fun. 
 
 Health, youth we had, and freedom, there in a world our 
 own, 
 
 The happiest days of my life I see now they are for ever 
 flown. 
 
 Oh, it was life ! no matter if hundreds of miles away, 
 Stretched bush or plain or scrub that was under our 
 
 single sway ; 
 Where hardly a white man's gaze had rested before, we 
 
 rode, 
 There was none could bid us stay as far as the stock 
 
 tracks showed. 
 
 D
 
 34 PIONEERS. 
 
 A clerk in an office in Brisbane can pull out his maps 
 
 and tell 
 
 Each feature of that vast run as if he knew it quite well ; 
 But we we gave it those names he speaks so fluently 
 
 now, 
 Years before him we knew it, and no easy lesson I vow. 
 
 Look from the topmost height (and not very high at 
 
 that), 
 Strain eyes, add plain to plain, and flat astretch beyond 
 
 flat 
 There was not a house, save one, not a road that was 
 
 more than a track, 
 To an English county a white, no women save gins of 
 
 the black. 
 
 In the heart of it all we lived a life that was hard yet 
 free ; 
 
 In the saddle all day, at night no wooers of sleep were 
 we; 
 
 Such is the school whence come men silent, impassive, 
 grand, 
 
 Thews and endurance of iron, souls even fate to with- 
 stand, 
 
 A draft of young cattle the boss had sold, and agreed to 
 
 send 
 To a station forming out west, the farthest, and called 
 
 " Land's End."
 
 PIONEERS. 35 
 
 There seemed no peril, save me the party were bushmen 
 
 tried, 
 Yet only am I alive, and this is the way they died. 
 
 A week we were out, camp was made and watches were 
 
 set one night, 
 Although the country was new we had seen no cause for 
 
 affright ; 
 In the scrub, a water-hole close, our fire blazed open and 
 
 clear, 
 Out on the plain hard by the cattle fed without fear. 
 
 It was after midnight I rose at the call of him who 
 
 turned in, 
 Saddled my horse and mounted, rode out the watch to 
 
 begin. 
 Like this 'twas a night of summer, a late red moon sank 
 
 slow; 
 Through the plain from all around long shadows seemed 
 
 to grow. 
 
 Soon she set, the few stars left were pale by her parting 
 
 light, 
 Blank darkness settled upon me, vainly I strained my 
 
 sight ; 
 Time stood still, and a chill came, dawn before, in the 
 
 sullen air, 
 The silence was full of evil, uneasy the whole herd were.
 
 36 PIONEERS. 
 
 Listen ! my heart stopped sudden in grip of a dead cold 
 
 fear, 
 Heard never before, by instinct I knew the thud of the 
 
 spear ; 
 
 Silence lasted a moment, a maniac chorus rose, 
 Gibberish and shrieks infernal, the paean of ambushed 
 
 foes. 
 
 'Twas hell. My mare stood shuddering till the spur 
 
 sank in her side, 
 In that instant the cattle scattered, towards camp I 
 
 made my ride. 
 About it the devils swarmed, as I rode the long spears 
 
 flew, 
 The naked bodies I felt as their ranks my horse broke 
 
 through. 
 
 From my mates was never a sound ; I doubted not as 
 
 they slept, 
 Beneath the terrible spears to death and awaking they 
 
 leapt. 
 I dared not cooey and wait, my life was an instant 
 
 flight. 
 To pause would make me the aim; in this murk the 
 
 blacks had sight. 
 
 Yet revolted my soul at leaving. Had sound come then 
 
 or a sign, 
 By my mates I had stood to death, and their fate had 
 
 chosen for mine.
 
 PIONEERS. 37 
 
 With a plunge through the dying fire the hoofs spurned 
 
 brands aflame, 
 In a whizzing rush around sped spears with a random aim. 
 
 Silent God, the wise brute ! with a leap superb my 
 
 horse 
 Rose, and a frightened shudder flew through each 
 
 muscle's course, 
 At her throat clung a supple savage, both his long arms 
 
 upthrown, 
 The jerk displaced and he sank beneath us I heard 
 
 him groan. 
 
 Another hung by the reins, a cruel weight on her head ; 
 I slacked, he dropped, but recovered, and held by the 
 
 mane instead. 
 In a thought I unbuckled a stirrup, and brought down 
 
 the iron fair, 
 Smashing the guessed-at face, and over him flew the 
 
 mare. 
 
 Life, life ! And the gallant brute she went like a thing 
 
 inspired, 
 
 And settled down in her stride as if with my spirit fired. 
 I turned my head at a rise, and the Myall crew behind, 
 The leaders with firesticks, came the flying traces to find. 
 
 " They mean it, old girl," I said ; " well, they'll need to 
 
 make up for the start." 
 She knew, and reefed at the reins \ I'd have kissed her 
 
 out of my heart
 
 38 PIONEERS. 
 
 With sudden agony smote, the flesh tore along my back, 
 A ghastly pause, and I heard a sharp and a splintery 
 crack. 
 
 In the scrimmage a light spear struck ; but I heeded it 
 
 not at all, 
 Knew it not till at the neck a bush broke the thin shaft 
 
 tall. 
 
 With a foot of barb in my side, I rode I knew not where, 
 But the desert was mercy's self, with the Myall only 
 
 despair. 
 
 Clammy and cold and wet, the shirt grew stiff on my 
 
 side, 
 And as it held it stanched the gush of the blood. I had 
 
 died 
 In the saddle of weakness sheer had it lasted, yet dared 
 
 not wait ; 
 Hell's thirst was in my throat but if caught, like hell 
 
 my fate. 
 
 As I rode the dawn had broke, the morn was fair and 
 
 cool, 
 Yet I would the dark might last, while I lay at a desert 
 
 pool. 
 The water I found, and dismounted to drink ; when I rose 
 
 again 
 I staggered and feU with weakness, spite of the life.' 
 
 draught ta'en.
 
 PIONEERS. 39 
 
 At length I sat in the saddle, by many an effort won, 
 Myself too spent to guide, gave head to the mare for her 
 
 run; 
 The way unknown, yet to me 'twas the same whether 
 
 wrong or right, 
 But life was fair, and I trusted to keep it in all despite. 
 
 For pain could I not sit up, on the pommel I crouched 
 
 down low, 
 And swung like a drunken man, as the mare swung to 
 
 and fro ; 
 My head swam, and before me stretched ever a blood- 
 
 blurred mist, 
 The ground beneath one instant was firm, then 'twould 
 
 spin and twist. 
 
 With me are vague dreams still of that ride in delirium 
 
 spent, 
 And what is the dream, what real, I know not, so are 
 
 they blent. 
 
 Until 'twas all forgot I think it was not all pain, 
 And ever a something drove to a goal I should attain. 
 
 The stockmen, across whose path some kind fate bade 
 
 me go, 
 Told how in the early dusk came neighing a lame horse 
 
 slow, 
 Spent with fatigue ; and on it hung, with a dead man's 
 
 What seemed a dead man first, a spear in one rigid hip.
 
 40 PIONEERS. 
 
 Neck and hands were flayed by the scrub through which 
 
 he passed; 
 
 At the face they lifted up with pity they stood aghast ; 
 Blood and the horse's spume, dust and a sick man's 
 
 sweat, 
 Deepened the agonized look in unconscious features set.
 
 ( 4' ) 
 
 AT THE GROOM'S HUT. 
 
 SKY and plain are filled with glare, the air is hot and 
 
 still, 
 Yet wherever vision rests, the heat waves throb and 
 
 curve, 
 
 Far out, moving slowly on as if some magician's will 
 Compelled them, high red pillars misty bend and 
 swerve. 
 
 Amongst the hoar grey bush stray gusts of wind, and 
 
 fling 
 
 Into the hot air dust that spins like a dervish dance, 
 And lengthens and sways and leans in red loose ring on 
 
 ring, 
 
 In ghost-like silence glide through the plain, retreat, 
 advance. 
 
 Yonder the whirlwind spun, but now the horizon is clear, 
 And a white sea, waveless, lies leagues out by a white 
 long shore,
 
 42 AT THE GROOM'S HUT. 
 
 Masses of verdure rise out of that placid mere ; 
 
 But a quick distortion comes for one lake behold a 
 score. 
 
 Empty sky, silent plain, whirlwind, mirage, blinding 
 
 light- 
 Sad the vast landscape is, as if brooding on races 
 
 dead; 
 Gaze and gaze, see nought around that gives to the mind 
 
 respite 
 
 From a sense of menace fierce, by a power hid and 
 dread. 
 
 Stood a woman in the doorway of the groom's hut at the 
 
 change ; 
 Frankly stared at us, who waited for a new team in 
 
 the trace ; 
 At her breast her baby slumbered, and it seemed of all 
 
 most strange, 
 
 Even here the dearest witness of the hope of all our 
 race. 
 
 Love suffices. Love, that bids a woman cling to man 
 
 and trust, 
 Follow him into the desert, bear his burdens, soothe 
 
 and aid ; 
 Live as lonely as the landscape, and forget the distance 
 
 thrust 
 
 'Twixt her kin and this bare dwelling, wait the future 
 undismayed.
 
 AT THE GROOM'S HUT. 43 
 
 Make a home of this poor gunyah in the wind-swept 
 
 empty plain, 
 Out of poverty extracting all that makes the hut a 
 
 nest, 
 For the sake of some rough bushman, e'en to her a 
 
 churlish swain, 
 
 With maternity transfigured when his babe lies on 
 her breast
 
 IN THE LIGNUM. 
 
 ~\ 
 
 WHEN summer reigns in a land drought-smitten 
 
 The channels red are agape with thirst, 
 And the grey low flats where his hand has written 
 Sentence, shrink like a face accursed. 
 
 And ever are silent of all sweet voices 
 
 The crow's harsh note or the swan's wild scream, 
 
 The shrill alarm of the ducks, and noises 
 Of parrots, mix like a sick man's dream. 
 
 The eye is filled with the colours pallid, 
 Bush-grey, glaucous, or pale dull green, 
 
 Faint as if summer long and calid 
 Blended all to a dreary mean. 
 
 Up from the bare ground white and rotten 
 The lignum is black in a desolate plain, 
 
 Dead of despair in a place forgotten 
 Of sweet cool air and of gentle rain.
 
 IN THE LIGNUM. 45 
 
 From dawn to dusk of the long day's shining, 
 
 Dark to dawn of the hot long night, 
 Blackened and blasted with hopeless pining, 
 
 Withered and broken as if by spite. 
 
 A wind comes over the bare plain moaning, 
 
 Creaking amongst the twigs it dies, 
 As if in penitence still atoning, 
 
 Strewn for ever pale ashes rise. 
 
 This is the mourning, the lamentation, 
 Requiem office for unshrived dead 
 
 Men that strayed in this desolation, 
 Fell or slept, and the faint life fled. 
 
 Daily the hawk and the dog comes nightly, 
 With iron beak or with snarling fang, 
 
 Scattered and torn the long bones whitely 
 Glare or glimmer where dead wands hang. 
 
 The night is dark, low slow winds dreary 
 
 Fill with whispers the empty plain ; 
 They seem the voice of the world grown weary, 
 
 In a perpetual sad refrain. 
 
 Shivers and groans the thin bush ever, 
 
 Things impalpable vex the gloom ; 
 This is their home where man stays never, 
 
 Save in the grip of his bale and doom.
 
 46 IN THE LIGNUM. 
 
 Day brings nought of the bright day's gladness, 
 Light shows only what night possessed ; 
 
 Ever the emptiness, loneliness, sadness, 
 Ever a threat that is half expressed. 
 
 Sun or star or the cold moon beaming, 
 Changes never this solemn waste, 
 
 Where yet a spirit, a lost soul dreaming, 
 Looks for ever but cruel faced.
 
 ( 47 ) 
 
 MOONLIGHT. 
 
 FAINT but clear across the breadth of plain and wood- 
 land 
 
 Sound the evening bells afar, 
 
 Slow, but with a sweet persistence, gathering fulness 
 That no careless echoes mar. 
 
 Night, long since close following on the steps of day, 
 hath come, 
 
 And the white moon in the skies 
 Puts on slowly splendour with the growing of her light, 
 
 In her pale arms darkness lies. 
 
 Each side of the narrow river stand the rows of lofty 
 trees ; 
 
 All their leafy height is still ; 
 
 Half across the voiceless waters fall their shadows black 
 and sheer ; 
 
 These the ripples slowly thrill. 
 
 On the other, every branch like silver upon ebon chased, 
 
 And as moveless seems to be, 
 Fair and white, like bodies of the Dryads come to sight, 
 
 Gleam the smooth trunks tall and free.
 
 48 MOONLIGHT. 
 
 Oarless we float onward, and a shimmering wake astern 
 Noiseless breaks the surface clear ; 
 
 Onward far we see the line fantastic by the shadow traced, 
 Calm as on a windless mere. 
 
 Only sounds a hollow plashing of the waters past the 
 boat, 
 
 Heavy beat of wings in air, 
 Now and then accented by the screaming of night birds, 
 
 Like a cry forced from despair. 
 
 And the muffled flight of ducks that, though soft, the 
 stillness hears, 
 
 Or a crane's sharp choking cry ; 
 
 But for these the night were silent as a dream, and so 
 unreal, 
 
 Wrought like it of mystery. 
 
 Day has hopes, ambitions, cares and struggles and 
 delights, 
 
 Languor only has this night ; 
 
 We, like gods of all things heedless, being of all things 
 lords and free, 
 
 Calm as if Time ceased his flight
 
 DROUGHT. 
 
 NOON heat in air and silence and the glare 
 Of hazy shine across an empty land, 
 And in the vault intolerably filled 
 With unkind light scarce a slow eagle flew ; 
 No other life there seemed. What else would hold 
 Such[splitude with dreary sameness cursedT) 
 Where went vague breaths of heat by fits and ceased, 
 Spent with the burden of themselves, and out 
 Far 'gainst a white horizon rose the waves 
 Of heat that crossed and swayed and interchanged 
 Like the sick fancies of a fevered brain ? 
 Of aught the eye might stay on and forget 
 Heaven's glaring front and the lost verge of earth 
 There was none, but dead whiteness of still leaves, 
 With a salt hoar upon their misshaped face. 
 If such forbidding landscape changed, perchance 
 We rode across a grey soft plain wherein 
 At every stride the horses sank, and forth 
 Hanging the still air through a powdery dust 
 Rose, and the spurning hoofs tossed as we went 
 Dead clusters of sere leafless thorns that held 
 Loose in the rotten soil that gave them birth, 
 
 E
 
 SO DROUGHT. 
 
 When a monsoon-like rain these level plains 
 
 To shallow meres that quickly vanished, changed. 
 
 Where the plains ceased low underwoods commenced, 
 
 Of growth diverse and name, now thin, now thick, 
 
 So that their olive heads high as the saddle showed, 
 
 And spread a floor of tangled branches far. 
 
 Apart and singly stood infrequent trees 
 
 With tall straight trunks, and limbless to the crown, 
 
 Thence dropping long their pendulous thin twigs. 
 
 Poor and infantile seemed man's handiwork 
 
 In that extent of desolation soft ; 
 
 And Nature seemed to scorn, for banks of soil 
 
 Up from the cisterns thrown her wilding growth 
 
 Hid not, but far across the plain they showed, 
 
 And all around tramped by the thirsty flocks 
 
 Bare as the mid-street of a city was, 
 
 And here and there bestrewn with whit'ning bones 
 
 Of sheep that weakened^ with long 1'amme felT " 
 
 Frg ttuay rft\]]A tastf th,p water 1 or tOO faint 
 
 ReacHEtFit, and in the marshy margin sank, 
 
 While carrion-crows drew round, and would not wait 
 
 Their eager feast. Down at an ominous depth 
 
 A pool of mud unrippled lay ; poor stead 
 
 For that clear fluid no man knows to praise 
 
 Till at life's peril he has known its want. 
 
 Yonder what comes, hid in a pall of dust 
 So thick and high an array might beneath
 
 DROUGHT. 51 
 
 Have formed? Slow, slow, not massed, but in small 
 
 groups, 
 
 Strong with the strong, and in the rear the weak, 
 Dragging with toil e'en their thin drought-spent forms, 
 Brown as the dust their wool ; in dull faint eyes, 
 In the quick panting sides, the halting march 
 Or blind instinctive stumble towards the pool, 
 Half purposeless, the characters of death. 
 
 Where in this land accursed may eyes find rest ? 
 
 There surely out against the western sky 
 1 Sheets of blue water where the wavelets rise 
 ! And vistas of great trunks with breadths of shade, 
 
 Lawns and fair islets, green slopes in the sun, 
 
 And single palms high in the blue still air. 
 
 Damned semblance of a paradise that flies, 
 
 Mocking the intolerable day with dreams 
 
 Of happier lands that with their soft charm make 
 
 The burden of this landscape all too grim ! 
 
 Tis the mirage ! Ghosts of all fair far scenes, 
 
 Made of what men here long for but not find, 
 
 Some desert Afreet daily conjures up 
 
 To curse with that we dare not hope to have, 
 
 The hideous present we cannot escape.
 
 AU PRINTEMPS. 
 
 HE knows not all the bliss of life who ne'er 
 Has spent days in this blossoming wilderness 
 And made himself companion of the hours, 
 Drunk in the air with wild keen scent surcharged, 
 Filled eager eyes with all the series strange 
 Of landscape and its harmless denizens, 
 And heard the subtile music which no ears 
 Can wholly catch unless the soul be free. 
 
 Here where the year so gradually fades 
 That seasons merge and all the months are kind, 
 Even here has Spring her gentle characters, 
 And through a lawny land, in bush and grass, 
 Heralds her coming with a thousand signs 
 Her own the world around. The light is soft 
 Where softer shadows from the heavens cast 
 Chase not that shine away along their path. 
 Blowing like streamers of a fairy march 
 Out from rare tracery of the grass spears tall, 
 The dainty gossamers wave lines of light 
 That lead the gaze upon a flowery road, 
 Set with blue-bells all dancing in the sun, 
 Gold cups and daisies, lavender and white, 
 And chalices of virgin white that lift
 
 AU PRINT EMPS. 53 
 
 Their spotless lips to lilac buds that burst 
 In a sweet shower from boughs of piny green, 
 That as the wind bends down their clustered blooms 
 Fill it with evanescent faint perfume. 
 
 In yonder copse what lustre of bloom gold, 
 Like sunshine meshed in their grey olive boughs, 
 From humbler beauties lifts the long gaze there ! 
 And here dropped from a dense dark growth of leaf, 
 Curved like an Eastern krees, and crimson red, 
 Hang the wild fuchsia buds. There is no place 
 Where the wild sward has not some flowers among 
 Its tufted grasses with young seed spikes crowned. 
 Even the grey old groups of salt-bush hoar 
 Put on their only grace of leaf and bud, 
 And the low hop shrubs with rare burgeon stand 
 Blush pink and white and faint soft green, that shows 
 Shape, almost hue, of flowers, but lacks the name. 
 
 Such charm there is, and such a subtile bliss, 
 Even the loneliness of these wide plains 
 Takes on allurement, and no longer he 
 Who threads this maze of nature without man, 
 Feels grow upon him strangeness and a sense 
 Of some high power, too superb to be kind, 
 That charged the sunlit air and fragrant earth 
 With such a careless might that none resist ; 
 For now no longer proud, no longer cold, 
 All-working Nature in a sweeter mood 
 Makes even the clods grow sentient, and the world 
 Move to her ends by paths of ease and charm.
 
 ( 54 ) 
 
 r 
 
 MAY IN TWO LANDS. 
 
 THAT first long day of summer in the north, 
 Filled with all grace and all delight of sense, 
 And with shy mysteries of Nature filled, 
 Who shall forget? 
 
 Not these far plains are glad 
 In all the hours that part the twilights twain 
 With such a sacrament of song. 
 But when with slow course and a radiance faint 
 The late morn makes her ascent up this way, 
 How few the strains that greet her and how weak ! 
 Ere she came here what lands of pleasantness 
 Fell in the westering progress that she made, 
 What busy scenes of life those long leagues held, 
 And the kind ways and works of labouring men ! 
 Sure some quick sense of contrast makes her pause 
 When at the verge of all this west she stands. 
 What wonder if her way be fleet across 
 The grey and lonely plains where, ashy white, 
 As touched with hoar of an unthawing frost, 
 The low clumps of the salt-bush never end, 
 Mixed with the dim dull-blue bush and the green 
 Of cotton ! And between the frequent knolls 
 
 V
 
 
 MAY IN TWO LANDS. 55 
 
 a 
 
 The fine brown sand is blown in ripples short. 
 
 Often a wide expanse is seen where growth 
 
 Is none, level and wind-swept like a place 
 
 Set for some secret revels fit for feet 
 
 That blast all life and where they tread destroy. 
 
 Seldom a tree lifts up its welcome head 
 
 Above the level grey, but many a shrub 
 
 Shows a bright green in little copses dense. 
 
 Sometimes far seen against the distant sky, 
 
 The long and winding belt of river gums 
 
 Marks where beneath th' inconstant waters flow, 
 
 Or, it may be, in happier seasons flowed. 
 
 These gnarled, dark mighty trunks still prove 
 
 Where once the turbid waters poured their tide 
 
 Out on the thirsty plain, and islanded 
 
 Each bushy clump amid an endless flood. 
 
 Agape and red, like mouths drought-stricken, stretch 
 
 The deep and crooked billabongs, wherein 
 
 By torment of long days of ceaseless shine 
 
 The very earth to shapes uncouth and strange 
 
 Is forced, like a dumb creature agonized. 
 
 As if to part one plain from one alike 
 
 Low ridges run, and their loose sand faint reo\ 
 
 Relieves the eye amid the dense dark pine 
 
 Or greener hop. Oft, too, a lonely mere / 
 
 Spreads its bright mirror to the day, save where 
 
 Beneath the sombre lignum sleeps its tide 
 
 Clay-stained, and on its smooth expanse wild broods, 
 
 Not without fears, disport and feed and watch ; 
 
 Or, conscious of their safety out afar,
 
 56 MAY IN TWO LANDS. 
 
 The black swans move but with the moving wave, 
 While from the hither shore the plaster's wails 
 Come on the faint wind cool. 
 
 And soon the night 
 
 Gains with quick progress on the fading day. 
 Amid the gold and purple, crimson, pink, 
 And splendid white in airy dome on dome, 
 The faint shine of the evening star shows pale, 
 Till the short twilight passes like the day, 
 And the soft dimness of the night is pierced 
 With a long gleam across the vault and shine. 
 There is no wind, and earth like sky is still, 
 Till strange with silence, by the distance faint, 
 Yet kind in all this solemn hush of eve, 
 The tinkling music of some horse-bells sounds. 
 Nearer the strong flame of a campfire sways 
 Where long fantastic figures seem to flit 
 Unholy, in the shrinking wreaths of fire. 
 
 The night has made him captive who stands here ; 
 Which way he turns, lo, silent shrouded forms 
 Awaiting stand. The implacable stars glare down ;. 
 A moaning comes along the hollow plain, 
 And halts and sobs and dies. A choking gasp 
 Makes even the air accomplice in some crime. 
 Now like a soul lamenting in the gloom, 
 Untimely freed, screams, each remoter, sound 
 By rustling wings pursued in dreadful flight, 
 Earth and the air are haunted : night is theirs.
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 ETERNAL NATURE. 
 
 THE sunlight lies across the red sand plain, 
 The salt-bush glisters the haze beneath, 
 In the pendulous boughs of the leopard-wood 
 The minahs flutter and scold and scream. 
 
 What a lie is life, with her fair sweet mask 
 That hides a skeleton's mocking grin ! 
 
 She alone is constant ; it is we who err, 
 
 Cursing her changeless with our changing moods. 
 
 Hoar plain, sun, haze, and darting birds, 
 
 The first man saw it with a fearless mind, 
 
 But we tormented with enigmas gaze, 
 
 We whom the silence and the days accuse.
 
 r 58 ) 
 
 FOR AN ANNIVERSARY OF ALL 
 SAINTS. 
 
 TO-DAY the Churchmen around their altars 
 
 Gather in one triumphant prayer, 
 All lives incommemorate singly 
 
 Saints of ages and everywhere. 
 In their lips are your names unspoken, 
 
 In their legends your faithful toil 
 Has no separate praise, forgotten 
 
 The service that wrought your soul's assoil. 
 
 But the Church remembers her servants only, 
 
 And strictly stated in prayer and creed 
 Are clauses and terms of the heavenly covenant 
 
 By which they have won the awarded meed. 
 My count of all souls is of wider reaching ; 
 
 Out through the centuries past and near 
 I number the saints of humanity, heedless 
 
 Of creeds they hallow, of gods they fear. 
 
 O teachers, confessors, O virgins, martyrs, 
 Because ye were these is your fairest fame ; 
 
 Whate'er the temptation ye met and vanquished, 
 Because ye vanquished is all your claim.
 
 FOR AN ANNIVERSARY OF ALL SAINTS. 59 
 
 What is't to us if ye thought of Nirvana, 
 
 Painfully treading the road of cares? 
 What if the dream of the Christian's heaven 
 
 Lifted your hearts before you there ? 
 
 Manhood is nobler than any religion ; 
 
 Earth, not heaven, has dues and cares, 
 And life a magic to take men's strivings, 
 
 And rise by them as on hidden stairs. 
 There, where one age by painful effort 
 
 Places her flower of men and waits ; 
 There, though slowly, shall come the many 
 
 Cowed no longer by frowning straits. 
 
 Thus by suffering and constant yearning, 
 
 Transmitting itself into noble deeds, 
 Our race receives as its choicest treasure 
 
 The life of its noblest sons ; for creeds 
 Outgrown and passed by our forward hasting 
 
 Have been the sacred eternal gain 
 Bequeathed to us down from unknown martyrs, 
 
 From lives forgotten of toil and pain. 
 
 It is not words which our eyes uncaring 
 
 See in the lines of hymn and prayer, 
 But aspirations of souls imprisoned, 
 
 Voices forced from out lives of care, 
 All mystery and passion and holiest fervour, 
 
 Purging itself of all sordid dross,
 
 60 FOR AN ANNIVERSARY OF ALL SAINTS. 
 
 Summarized into a phrase of longing, 
 Pulsing yet with its first pathos. 
 
 Yet life has need of all service lowly, 
 
 Nor always asks for a shining creed ; 
 In that long road we must tread together 
 
 Occasion comes for the humble deed. 
 Once in a century wrongs unchallenged 
 
 Flaunt their strength and the meek truth spurn, 
 Then comes the hero the hour is calling, 
 
 And justice and truth to mankind return. 
 
 But down in the ways where the crowd is thronging, 
 
 Where many faint, and where many fall, 
 Deeds are done which the saints might envy, 
 
 Unrecorded in fame's roll-call ; 
 Ye who can spare from your toil and striving 
 
 Any effort to help the weak, 
 Ye too belong to the tale of great souls, 
 
 Yours is their praise though ye did not seek. 
 
 O not unthanked, O not forgotten, 
 
 Though no lips utter your earthly names, 
 Are the deeds or words which make life sweeter, 
 
 The thoughts that once were as beacon flames. 
 The cause ye suffered to hold and strengthen 
 
 May be the jest of a later age ; 
 The truth that was dearer than any attainment 
 
 May now belong to a rearward stage.
 
 FOR AN ANNIVERSARY OF ALL SAINTS. 61 
 
 But the consecration of chief ideals, 
 
 The pure contagion of generous lives, 
 The good that out of a just cause widens, 
 
 Grace and truth that are his who strives, 
 These are the gains earth's proud ones number, 
 
 Won by the patience of souls divine, 
 Who wrought in palace or hut or prison, 
 
 In street, in market, in cell or shrine. 
 
 With what passion of awe and pity 
 
 Our souls were moved if the veil were rent, 
 If from the nameless tombs of the ages 
 
 The nameless dead told how they were spent, 
 And the debt that time and his fame gaze over, 
 
 Were shown in the record of lives of shame, 
 And we saw how settled on ranks of martyrs 
 
 Rise hither the steps by which this race came !
 
 62 ) 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 I. 
 
 OFT have I read with pity for his loss 
 Of him who strove through all his youthful years, 
 And farther on than youth, if he might gain 
 Some far-off goal, and reaching to it died. 
 
 Yet his is not a failure worse than that, 
 
 To win where triumph is the tragedy, 
 
 To strive with all youth's passion and man's will, 
 
 Trusting a promise fair and fairer yet. 
 
 Till life and opportunity all past, 
 
 Present and future but a paean's space. 
 
 To enter in the hard-won citadel, 
 
 And face a grinning idol on the throne ; 
 
 To let the true pass to embrace the false, 
 
 And choosing know too late how ill the choice.
 
 SONNETS. 63 
 
 II. 
 
 THE New Year like a veiled woman stands, 
 Nought of her face we see, not yet we know 
 
 What lies within the gift of hidden hands, 
 Nor if those eyes or threat or promise show. 
 
 With maskless face but grasp too full the year 
 Departs who took or who denied, or wrought 
 
 Those prayers vouchsafed by gods unkind. We fear 
 Or hope no more, since we see all she brought. 
 
 Though we may move not Fortune, nor elude 
 Her messengers, we can resolve to bear 
 
 Her ills with patience when we must submit, 
 
 And deem her favour but a wayward fit 
 
 Count all inconstant What she gives, let's share, 
 
 But stand alone and tranquil when she's rude.
 
 64. SONNETS. 
 
 III. 
 
 SHY bird that in the quiet night apart 
 
 Dost mourn perhaps fled love or summer's end, 
 
 Whose passionate brief notes so often start 
 And cease as sudden, as if grief did lend 
 
 A voice to grief, and ere her sorrow's told 
 Bade the low tale to cease as being vain, 
 
 Remembering faith wins back no love once cold, 
 And the remembrance of lost love is pain ! 
 
 Are ye too scorned if constant or forgot, 
 
 Or loved awhile and then are quite forsaken. 
 
 So know ye the most cruel human lot 
 
 To give love's wealth where not a thought is taken, 
 
 To serve a deity too high to need 
 
 Service or praise, too cold to know or heed.
 
 SONNETS. 65 
 
 IV. 
 
 IF Fame were the applause of any crowd, 
 
 Who would descend to earn it, who would crave 
 
 And to have paid its price of labour proud, 
 And to those senseless voices be a slave, 
 
 Seeing how apt and loud the swift applause 
 That follows some poor tumbler in a ring, 
 
 The well-mouthed rant of some new paltry cause, 
 Jest or a careless song, or folly on the wing ? 
 
 Fame lives not in an idle tongue's report, 
 An idle mind's esteem ; but in kind thought, 
 
 In the regard and well-based love of those 
 That will not make their object vulgar sport, 
 Nor love him less if more or less -he wrought 
 
 So he is great, not what he does or knows.
 
 66 SONNETS. 
 
 V. 
 
 HE whom his art possesses with delight 
 To breathe a soul of grace in words alone, 
 
 Stays not to ask if he hath caught aright 
 
 That which the fashions of an hour will own. 
 
 It is enough if his deep dream be shown, 
 E'en if he fail to limn its fulness bright ; 
 
 He is content if its faint music's tone 
 Be held, if not its diapason height. 
 
 For she that is a mistress ne'er possessed 
 
 Bids him who serves her seek none other praise 
 
 Than hers, and eyes which never give back love 
 
 Through their austerity may light to prove 
 His labour worthy who though single stays, 
 
 And bends where her unworshipped altars rest.
 
 SONNETS. 67 
 
 VI. 
 
 ONE asked : What worth is service and where owed ? 
 He who gives youth and what to youth belong 
 Deserves some fairer guerdon than a song, 
 
 If strenuous won, by idlesse proud bestowed. 
 
 That mistress sole of thy devoir doth sit 
 
 Throned far above or thought or heed of thee, 
 And careless hears or scorning silently 
 
 The timid suit to plead that racks thy wit 
 
 So many suitors hath she and so high, 
 
 So rich in gifts of grace and power and pride, 
 ^So strong by consciousness of their desert, 
 
 Barest thou think thy feeble songs and curt 
 Can move her favour from those others tried 
 
 And of her hierophants approved and nigh ?
 
 6S SONNETS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 CEASE the vain quest, he urged ; swift pass thy years ; 
 Thou art not destined to attain that band 
 Who, differing each from each, in glory stand 
 
 By favour and desert and trial peers. 
 
 Is nothing worth thy suk thou mightest gain 
 
 Love and soft vows and kisses, vouchsafed prayers, 
 Binding thee to thy race with tender cares ? 
 
 Heed how thou dost that kindly debt disdain ! 
 
 Else, spent by selfish years and selfish toil, 
 
 Thou in thine age shalt be the unreverend spoil 
 
 Of work once thy delight, thy torment now ; 
 
 And failed of fame, of happiness, thy brow 
 
 Shall put on ashes to announce thy shame, 
 
 There where thou sought'st the shining crown of fame.
 
 SONNETS. 69 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THEN spake my mistress : Heed not till I chide ; 
 I spurn no proffered service, but none ask : 
 Who follows me a self-appointed task 
 
 Takes up ; yet if he seek my paths not overwide, 
 
 I shall not fail. Let him this lesson learn 
 I give not that which some sue me to gain, 
 But in the strife my fancied gifts to attain 
 
 All secret strength and grace the suppliants earn. 
 
 Take courage, then ; suitors enow I know 
 
 That seek for what they dream I can bestow, 
 
 They would be poets yet to me all owe. 
 
 More than man has not gods nor men can give ; 
 
 By this and this alone shall any live 
 
 Self-knowledge born when man with him doth strive.
 
 70 SONNETS. 
 
 IX 
 
 ALREADY half of life lies with the past, 
 And all my future years shall take their form 
 From those spent in the heedless waste of youth. 
 This like a sculptor's image grows in size, 
 But takes not difference with its greatness on. 
 So a man's life, when youth has come and gone, 
 May grow in outward seeming, but within 
 Shows the strong mastery of a long-past cause. 
 
 And this is part the irony of Fate, 
 
 This is the lesson hard we all must learn 
 
 Full half of life is spent ere we begin 
 
 To know its meaning, and the rest is lived 
 
 Not by the wisdom which those years have taught, 
 
 But by a Nemesis ourselves have wrought.
 
 SONNETS. 71 
 
 X. 
 
 'Tis well that joy supreme and gravest care 
 Come in the steady sequence of our years, 
 But seldom were life only smiles and tears, 
 
 That bliss or anguish which doth more outwear. 
 
 Scarce would we choose that doubtful boon to share, 
 And give a new race breath to take our fears, 
 A race that now our laid-off burden bears, 
 
 And thus pass on a legacy aware. 
 
 But joys that lighten days of ill and woes, 
 
 That rede us well against our hours of pride, 
 Alterned with breathing-times of deep repose 
 All in one group like thorn and leaf and rose ; 
 These make our kindly years as gently glide 
 Into our past as waves with wavelets slide.
 
 TO THE POET. 
 
 WHAT cares the rose if the buds which are its pride 
 Be plucked for the breast of the dead or the hands of 
 a bride ? 
 
 The mother-drift if its pebbles be dull inglorious things, 
 Or diamonds fit to shine from the diadems of kings ? 
 
 Sing, O poet, the moods of thy moments each 
 Perfect to thee whatever the meaning it reach. 
 
 Let the years find if it be as a soulless stone, 
 
 Or under the words which hide there be a glory alone.
 
 C 73 ) 
 
 THE FAIRY STORY. 
 
 TELL us a fairy story, please ; 
 
 Only this once, ah do ! 
 You don't know one ? Why, what a tease 
 
 Come, tell us a story true. 
 
 The water of life and the talking tree, 
 The carpet and cap and purse, 
 
 Already you doubt. Why, then, bid me 
 Tales so contemned rehearse ? 
 
 There was a people who lived long since, 
 
 But never were satisfied ; 
 Wearied at last, their magician prince 
 
 Sent them afar to bide. 
 
 Never the day was long, nor night ; 
 
 Never a task was set ; 
 From dawn to eve was but one delight, 
 
 From eve till the new dawn met.
 
 74 THE FAIRY STORY. 
 
 No rich, no poor, nor good nor bad, 
 This wonderful kingdom knew ; 
 
 Each shared with all whate'er he had, 
 And uncared the harvests grew. 
 
 Nor fears nor hopes, no toil, no care : 
 
 Was ever so blest a race ! 
 Their life as an angel's life was fair, 
 
 Their land as an angel's place. 
 
 The sweet dawn came, and it brought no toil 
 
 No wearied limbs hailed eve ; 
 Came never a thought their bliss to spoil, 
 
 Came never a dream to grieve. 
 
 Throughout that land there was none a slave, 
 
 To others or to himself; 
 No human machine his own life gave 
 
 To heap up another's pelf. 
 
 There was no love, for with love comes pain, 
 No children the fair land saw; 
 
 By such dear cares were surely slain, 
 The peace which was its sole law. 
 
 They lived, I know not how many years ; 
 
 In that kingdom none grows old, 
 For death and sickness, and tears, and fears 
 
 Of its race may not be told. .
 
 THE FAIRY STORY. 75 
 
 But the prince whose magic had wrought this grace 
 
 Bethought him to test one day, 
 Whether the bliss of his transferred race 
 
 Had chased their past away. 
 
 He spoke but a word ; in the kingdom blest 
 
 A shudder went through the air, 
 And in all their souls a strange unrest 
 
 Came and foreboded care. 
 
 And the cloud that had hidden the life they left 
 
 Dissolved like their present lot ; 
 It seemed they dreamed, but the swift mind weft 
 
 The semblance of what was not. 
 
 - 
 Then with one sobbed prayer each human heart 
 
 Turned to its king and said : 
 O suffer that hence I may depart ; 
 Give back my life which has fled. 
 
 For now, O prince, a change has come, 
 
 I see who once was blind ; 
 Of this pleasant life I know the sum, 
 
 And the care of the life behind. 
 
 Yet give me, O give me back again 
 
 My heart which was dead with ease ; 
 Apportion me who deserve it, pain ; 
 
 Let sorrow upon me seize.
 
 76 THE FAIRY STORY, 
 
 Your kingdom fair is for angels meant ; 
 
 No human hearts can beat, 
 Here in a region where Content 
 
 Takes her eternal seat 
 
 \ To live what is it but to love ; 
 \ And for that high love's sake 
 \To bear and dare, all labour prove, 
 All sacrifice to make ?
 
 ( 77 ) 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 FAIR is of art the facile grace, 
 
 Colour and flowing line, 
 That on a careless canvas trace 
 
 Face or a form divine, 
 Morning on some familiar scene, 
 
 Moonlight on quiet seas, 
 Life in a garden land serene, 
 
 Eve in the dewy leas. 
 
 Look on this tortured plate that knows 
 
 Searching of steel and fire, 
 Fixed as a human face that shows 
 
 Scathe of long pain and ire. 
 Yet not the more for its stern lines here, 
 
 Truth in exactness lies ; 
 Beauty is truth, nor need'st thou fear 
 
 Division in noble eyes.
 
 IMPRESSION. 
 
 F. W. L. A. 
 
 GRAVE thoughts were ours as down the hill 
 We slowly paced ; the twilight 
 
 Spread its soft dimness round and still, 
 Sank on the landscape night. 
 
 Rippling along the pallid stream, 
 Homeward the skiffs were drifting ; 
 
 All was calm as a thing of dream, 
 And all as a dream was shifting. 
 
 The voice we heard kept one low tone 
 Sad as a night-mood speaking, 
 
 Impassive, desolate, proud, alone, 
 A soul compelled, not seeking.
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 AD MATREM. 
 
 FORGIVE me if my words are weak 
 To sum the dear debt that I owe 
 A debt which ever seems to grow, 
 
 Nor can I pay howe'er I seek. 
 
 Trust me, it is not all in vain ; 
 
 Though undeserving, so much love 
 Some answering nobleness must move 
 
 Bear with me till I may attain !
 
 ( 8o ) 
 
 NOCTURNE. 
 
 WITH the sunset splendid as a vision glows the west, 
 Far around its glories tremble on the distant water's 
 
 breast 
 
 Like a sleeping dragon flashing part his mail and glitter- 
 ing crest. 
 
 All the glory, all the splendour, of the sunset now is dead, 
 Grey and cold and far and pallid all the water's flame is 
 
 fled, 
 Smote with sudden whiteness as a fair face blanched 
 
 with dread. 
 
 I With the darkness on the plain-land silence comes and 
 
 I brooding lies, 
 
 Breathes among the whispering scrub a cool wind in slow 
 
 faint and fitful sighs ; 
 I Like a thought it comes as sudden, like a thought as 
 
 sudden flies.
 
 NOCTURNE. 8 i 
 
 Death and night, with this one boon I would fain be 
 
 satisfied ; 
 Morn and noon, O give me, with their fulness, passion, 
 
 pride, 
 Nor the lingering after calmness with its memories be 
 
 denied. 
 
 Then, before the night fall dark upon me in a pathless 
 
 path alone, 
 
 Give me thy forgetting, end a life when loveless grown ; 
 Since another dawn I see not, let me fall ere day be 
 
 flown.
 
 REVE. 
 
 WHERE have I seen thee, beautiful shade, 
 That mine eyes cannot forget thee ? 
 
 In sleep a form revisits me, 
 In sleep again I see. 
 
 Eyes that I dare not aught refuse 
 
 Did I know their mute desire, 
 And lips that seem to part and speak 
 
 Words that in our gross air expire. 
 
 I wake and stare in the darkness idly, 
 
 For the beautiful face is gone : 
 Where have I known and where shall I see thee, 
 
 Girl with eyes where a sweet light shone ?
 
 ( 8 3 ) 
 
 INFELIX. 
 
 LIGHTS of love no more may come 
 
 Where they came and lingered ; 
 
 Love's lips, hers, hence are dumb. 
 
 Dank ooze drips from tangled hair, 
 
 Slimy weeds and cruel 
 Veil a face, alas ! too fair. 
 
 Love's lips, hers, that kisses sought 
 
 In despair together close, 
 Heart now still so late o'erfraught.
 
 84 
 
 BUTTERCUPS. 
 
 THE throng goes past, but now and then 
 Children and girls and grey old men 
 Stop at the market stall and gaze 
 On buttercups brave with lustrous gold, 
 Single or in a flowery maze. 
 
 One sees an English meadow fair, 
 Sweet is the calm and sunny air, 
 The May is white in the hedges low, 
 Daisies gleam in the grassy field, 
 A brimming brook seems loth to flow. 
 
 They grew for me in a year long past 
 Through God's acre that filled so fast, 
 Among the grass on the sunken graves, 
 Tall in the deep grass bent and bowed, 
 Where the wind went in long slow waves.
 
 85 
 
 TO KHR YSE. 
 
 THESE verses, Khryse, I address, 
 An unknown writer for the press, 
 Bid to describe your festival, not share. 
 
 Daughter of Midas, on your bare 
 
 Beautiful bosom, in your hair 
 
 And at your girdle gleaming always gold. 
 
 But no young joy in calm eyes cold ! 
 
 Your lips no sweet smile is so bold 
 
 As to dare teach how they should kiss and pout. 
 
 Too young you are for care and doubt, 
 
 All your soft girlishness to flout, 
 
 So soon has gold's harsh Nemesis a place ? 
 
 Girl with the proud and tragic face, 
 
 Whose gold gilds out your youth and grace 
 
 Thus an audacious pity I express.
 
 ( 86 ) 
 
 ARTS PATIENCE. 
 
 HALF in sunshine, half in shade, 
 
 Silent at times as if afraid, 
 
 Or listening to the song she made 
 
 A swift octave, each tender note 
 
 Upon the hot noon air afloat, 
 
 Nor once attempts the trembling throat. 
 
 Dear little singer, is it so 
 Dost thou love's delights forego 
 That a perfect song may flow ? 
 
 Is each triumph long rehearsed, 
 Note by note slow mastered first 
 Ere thou darest one sweet burst ? 
 
 Then no more the poets trust 
 That full song perfection just 
 Sums a hundred failures past. 
 
 Be it so, then fail and fail, 
 If though late they can avail, 
 Win and scorn the wasted tale.
 
 ARCADY. 
 
 STILL is there Arcady that poets sang ; 
 
 Not where men stupid as their sheep sued girls 
 
 As idly pretty and as cold as pearls. 
 
 'Tis where bright eyes bid brighter eyes to shine, 
 And kisses on red lips teach these to be 
 As eloquent in love's dumb speech and free. 
 
 Where but a touch though thoughtless is all rapture, 
 And lips too wise for words make sweetly clear 
 A thousand ways a thousand lessons dear. 
 
 Where memory lingers in a happy dream 
 And tender oracles from trifles draws, 
 Doubting and altering like a spring day's flaws. 
 
 Thus in a dream of happiness to come, 
 Passes a happiness that neither heeds 
 Till all the suit is told and all succeeds. 
 
 This is the land of Arcady, that scarce 
 
 Is dreamed till entered, or is known till left, 
 
 And prized the more when all its charm is reft.
 
 88 ARCADY. 
 
 For when we learn, and soonest when we teach 
 What is the secret of a priceless bliss- 
 Silence or speech, a glance, a touch, a kiss, 
 
 So that deep love interprets that to love, 
 The flaming swords are at the Eden gate, 
 And forth to speed us stern-faced cherubs wait.
 
 A PETITE. 
 
 WHAT shall I give for a kiss ? 
 
 Kiss me, perhaps I'll say then ; 
 For I hold shall I answer amiss? 
 There's no guerdon for this, 
 
 To kiss you and kiss you again. 
 
 Petite, would you sell but one touch 
 Of those lips, a half-open rose ? 
 
 To kiss them were far too much. 
 
 Would you give, then ? for such 
 Himself and his love a man owes.
 
 ABSENCE. 
 
 AH, happy air that, rough or soft, 
 May kiss that face and stay ; 
 
 And happy beams that from above 
 May choose to her their way ; 
 
 And happy flowers that now and then 
 Touch lips more sweet than they ! 
 
 But it were not so blest to be, 
 
 Or light or air or rose ; 
 Those dainty fingers tear and toss 
 
 The bloom that in them glows ; 
 And come or go, both wind and ray 
 
 She heeds not, if she knows. 
 
 But if I come thy choice should be 
 
 Either to love or not 
 For if I might I would not kiss 
 
 And then be all forgot ; 
 And it were best thy love to lose 
 
 If love self-scorn begot.
 
 THE RETURN OF THE CONTINGENT. 
 
 OH, marching steps of soldiers home again ! 
 
 Now the trees no longer hiding the men come at the 
 
 march, 
 Rank after rank abreast, and all are past. 
 
 Eyes for you only, O soldiers, clad in the yellow of the 
 
 desert ; 
 Eyes for you only, full-ranked, firm, marching in the wet 
 
 streets ; 
 Hail to you, gaunt-faced and sallow from blaze of foreign 
 
 suns, 
 Eager-eyed, threading the crowds for faces and forms 
 
 you know ! 
 
 Oh, flags all fresh and fair ! 
 
 Fresh and fair your banners. 
 
 But the famous banners are torn with the death-grip of 
 
 men and shot, 
 And stained with the soak of irredeemable blood,.
 
 92 THE RETURN OF THE CONTINGENT. 
 
 And grimed with powder of a hundred battles and earth 
 
 of a hundred lands, 
 Oh, famous banners, that to keep have cost a thousand 
 
 men ! 
 
 Reminiscent of Egypt so steady you sweep along, 
 While the skies are grey with cloud, and the world is 
 
 sad with rain, 
 Remembering perilous halts in a desert accursed and 
 
 lone; 
 Whilst the captain stars led west the march of the army 
 
 of the night, 
 Whistling solitary shots, and shrieks of far-off curses, 
 
 words not understood, 
 Forced marches under blazing skies through a dead sea 
 
 of air, 
 In a land of thirst and heat, unseen foes and doubtful 
 
 friends. 
 
 But the famous banners are torn, and the famous 
 
 regiments thinned ; 
 Fair are your flags (well for you) ; full are your marching 
 
 ranks. 
 
 The triumph is theirs who return ; 
 
 But to think of the dead soldiers unreturning, un- 
 
 triumphant, 
 Of the black blood's ooze, and the wild eyes heedless 
 
 staring, 
 
 And the hands convulsively gripped in the earth, 
 And the rigid forms of dead soldiers !
 
 THE RETURN OF THE CONTINGENT. 93 
 
 Who commemorates these ? 
 
 Weeping women in obscure houses remembering their 
 
 lost men, 
 Unconscious children that stop their play to ask of him 
 
 who is dead, 
 Laughing comrades with crape around their left arms ! 
 
 The triumph is theirs who live, who return ; 
 Who thinks of the vanished possibilities of these who 
 died to make the triumph ? 
 
 Not yet for you, Australia, banners torn, blood-blackened, 
 
 grimed ; 
 Not yet ranks of soldiers gapped by the harvesting of 
 
 shot; 
 Not yet to leave thy sons cold, stark, under unpitying 
 
 stars ; 
 Not yet to write victories on thy flags bought with the 
 
 incomplete destinies of men !
 
 ( 94 ) 
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 ALL day upon a wave that lifts and falls 
 With a soft sureness like a sleeper's breast, 
 The sunshine lies, a gold flood o'er the blue, 
 And flows unseen, unheard, in equal waves 
 Through the short vistas of the neighbour woods, 
 Filling them with a gracious mystery, 
 A purple haze, light almost, that alway 
 Flees coy before and, like a love disdained, 
 Comes far behind and fearing to be seen ; 
 Whilst higher up the slopes of gentle hills 
 The ethereal veil becomes a settled cloud 
 Translucent, yet not showing all it holds. 
 
 Here where a crescent bends of sloping beach, 
 Where the white water glides along the sands, 
 We gain an easy landing. Just above 
 A sparse sward spreads a little lawn, to where 
 The trees stand separate without undergrowth, 
 Save graceful bracken and some climbers few. 
 Not far within the trees where yet the shade
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 95 
 
 Is tender, for the morning still is young, 
 A tent is pitched, about it strewed all ways 
 The few utensils of our sylvan life 
 Sylvan two days till we are citizens. 
 
 He would not claim a love for gracious scenes 
 
 Who chose our landing, and who placed our camp ; 
 
 Yet choice was ampler witness than were words ; 
 
 For opposite the dazzling waters washed 
 
 A line of rock whose face was worn along 
 
 By the incessant stress of that soft touch ; 
 
 And from the margin of the tide lush growths 
 
 Traced with their greens the sweep of rocky ledge. 
 
 Thence rose the sloping foreland, often steep, 
 
 But gradual otherwhere, and undergrowth 
 
 Led the gaze upward to the woody crest 
 
 Clothed on with that blue dimness almost light. 
 
 Now a fair valley lay between the hills, 
 
 Now lawns and slopes spread out beside the waves, 
 
 That in soft alternation moved along 
 
 Beaches of shell-strewn, tawny sands, or scarped 
 
 And channelled fronts of dank and mossy rocks, 
 
 Or little coves where the deep waters showed 
 
 Thickets o'erhead, and with the tide beat seemed 
 
 To mock the motion that the wind e'en gave, 
 
 Or shoals through which the sea chafed on to land. 
 
 So wild a grace that sylvan landscape had, 
 Such careless freedom in the watery flow, 
 Such pensive charm the woodland, so remote
 
 96 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 All seemed from ken and frequence of the world, 
 It might have been some yet unpeopled land 
 But late discovered, and scarce even known. 
 From the far outer harbour came at times, 
 By distance and sereneness of that place 
 So softened that their source might not be guessed 
 The clang of hammers regularly swung, 
 The music of ship-bells, or sudden scream 
 Of steam-pipes, and the dash of paddle-floats. 
 But in that spot no noise, save it were plash 
 Of waters upon shore, a sough of wind 
 Through the stiff rustling foliage high in air, 
 Or the infrequent call of birds afar, 
 Came harsh enough a plaintive echo rouse 
 And frighten hence the glad tranquillity 
 The hush where nature works and broods intent. 
 The gulls that skimmed the waters in their flight 
 So white, so swift they were, so silent moved, 
 Not birds but spirits seemed in glimpses seen, 
 
 Two of us of that harbour wonder proud 
 Planned these few days of freedom by the sea, 
 Lest our chance guest, in town on holiday, 
 Should leave, and know of Sydney but her streets. 
 A young man country born and country bred, 
 Whate'er was best of country mode he had, 
 Frank honesty of speech and ways, courage, 
 Large-handedness that knew not any check, 
 So it were his he gave, and better still 
 The genial mood that never won a friend,
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 97 
 
 Nor lost one by unkindliness of heart. 
 
 He used all manly freedom, and his words 
 
 Were those plain words that named the thing he meant, 
 
 Not these fair phrases which, like lily-cups 
 
 And leaves, oft hide foul depths. Where'er he came 
 
 He seemed to add some brightness to the place. 
 
 His face was youthful, though the brown thick beard 
 
 That from broad temples hid his cheeks to where 
 
 The soft moustache masked full firm lips, denied ; 
 
 His eyes that saw all, and yet moveless seemed, 
 
 Brown orbs whose depth was full of light and fire, 
 
 Expressed not one but every kindly mood, 
 
 Fun that had never under-sting of scorn, 
 
 And all the abundance of his jocund life, 
 
 Translating these by glances that revealed 
 
 The genial temper of a manly soul ; 
 
 Which the true voice another way proclaimed, 
 
 Words that were pictures of the men he named, 
 
 And bursts of rippling laughter that said more 
 
 Than laboured etching of our speech might dare. 
 
 What muse will sing how those fair days were passed, 
 
 Too few to make us weary of that life 
 
 Lived linked with nature, and to which most men 
 
 Come with delight, as if they so returned 
 
 To the large manner of our primal race ; 
 
 But not so few that when each charm was known, 
 
 Life's claims became more urgent from delay? 
 
 What verse shall celebrate that electric touch 
 
 That trembles from the unknown depths below 
 
 Along the tense line, or the proud triumph 
 
 H
 
 98 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 When rise the struggling victims to the light ; 
 
 Or lazily disrobing in the shade, 
 
 Showing white men to the unwonted shine, 
 
 Walk down the sloping beach, and in one plunge 
 
 Know all the clinging coolness of the sea? 
 
 What laughter heard ye, echoes, and what games 
 
 Ye saw, grave woods, by your austerity 
 
 In us, despising all men's short-lived youth, 
 
 Whilst we disported, and, the mark unseen, 
 
 Urged flying streams, with eager palms against, 
 
 When laughs betrayed the others, or one arm 
 
 Sustaining, with the other boxed and thrust ; 
 
 Or at close quarters wrestled without rule, 
 
 Nor recked what limb we held, or where, or how ! 
 
 Then scorning towels, like a Norman lord, 
 
 Bathed in the sunshine as we bathed in the sea, 
 
 Racing along the sands till we were dry. 
 
 Then we rowed over to the opposing shore, 
 
 Chased crabs that, under hanging rocks secure, 
 
 Waved purple warning pincers and slid down ; 
 
 Walked through the woods, and talked the echoes thick, 
 
 And with repeated laughter, loud as his, 
 
 Drove to inglorious flight the Cockabur. 
 
 Evening came. Down from the western hills 
 The shadows crossed the melancholy waves ; 
 The tide ebbed from the beach, as it would go 
 With day, and visit some new dawned-on shore. 
 The sea-wind, blowing fitful since the noon, 
 Blew steady now, and crested all the bay,
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 99 
 
 And moaned within the wood like far-off seas. 
 Amid the trunks 'twas dusk. From where we sat, 
 And pensive watched the splendid day depart, 
 We saw the golden sunlight shadowless 
 Sleep on the upper slopes of neighbour hills, 
 Yet followed ever by the stealthy shade. 
 Slow the sun sank down through the flushing west, 
 And like scorned favours called his sunbeams there, 
 Mocked by the shimmer of some pallid stars. 
 
 Then we rose up and scattered to a task 
 
 One gathered leaves and deadwood, one in search 
 
 Of water went, the third brought forth our food. 
 
 Against the white trunk of a mighty tree 
 
 The merry flames leaped up. Nor needed we 
 
 A second warning when the meal was spread 
 
 A short delicious meal. Then pipes were lit, 
 
 And stretched at ease upon the swardy earth, 
 
 We lay in an elysium of calm, 
 
 Silent, but thinking kindness, as all smokers should. 
 
 Silent some while we lay till pipes were low, 
 
 And watched the Cross through boughs that now and 
 
 then, 
 
 Moved by the wind, now hid, now showed the sign, 
 And many a splendid constellation more ; 
 Till, tired of silence, prompted by some thought, 
 The countryman broke reverie with a tale. 
 For at that hour, when day is done, and night 
 Sunders the world of light and care and toil
 
 TOO IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 From that small world where each soul moves alone, 
 Men's thoughts take tenderness upon them, and past 
 
 hopes, 
 
 Faces long time unseen, voices unheard, 
 Long thoughts with past days linked and fled delights, 
 Unbidden come or bid; and impulse comes, 
 Born of the loneliness and sense of loss, 
 To reach out hands and grasp some dearer hands, 
 From that reserve which daylight makes set free 
 Babble we care not what if but friends hear. 
 
 Five years ago, a boy, I went to make 
 
 Holiday with a brother living near ; 
 
 He, first a stockman in the north, went out 
 
 Into far Queensland, and thence many times 
 
 Had brought down herds of cattle half gone wild 
 
 In deserts on the Cooper or Paroo. 
 
 Tired of that aimless life, he wedded, chose 
 
 Some virgin land along a creek and farmed. 
 
 Eight miles from town he lived ; his farmland lay 
 
 One side a creek that never ceased to flow, 
 
 Fed by springs in the uplands, whence it came 
 
 Not seldom swollen by a sudden storm. 
 
 Far off among the hills rose in a wall 
 
 Of swirling water brown, and in its flight 
 
 Poured all ways, leaving where it passed a wreck. 
 
 Along the steep slope stretched the farm from there. 
 
 High up the house stood in a clearing wide ; 
 
 From the house-door the gaze swept on each hand 
 
 Along a range which, in a crescent bent,
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 In places steep and high, and everywhere, 
 
 As on the hills about us, where a tree 
 
 Could roothold find it grew, and prospered too. 
 
 Beyond the creek the land was not so harsh ; 
 
 The soil was bad, and such trees as there grew 
 
 Were few and stunted, and of useless kinds. 
 
 Out further, where this growth stopped, were the plains, 
 
 Treeless, lifeless, grassless half the year ; 
 
 A few dry lake-beds showed the summer's power, 
 
 Not conquered quite they lay. The brown wide plain 
 
 Stopped at their verge, and then scooped out below, 
 
 They filled their ovals or their circles all 
 
 With deep green tender grass, and round their rim 
 
 The long dead reeds rustled in every wind. 
 
 'Twas summer when I came, the farm looked well ; 
 
 The maize dropped silky streamers from the corn ; 
 
 Down at the creek the lucerne grew knee-high, 
 
 And the young fruit trees had begun to bear. 
 
 A fortnight passed, full of delight to me, 
 
 Till in the evening of a sweltering day, 
 
 Cutting the lucerne in the lower field, 
 
 I cast my gaze towards the further hills 
 
 And saw but a long smoke pall. Supper done, 
 
 We walked, my brother and his wife and I 
 
 A babe he carried and a child I led 
 
 Along the creek a mile or more, to where 
 
 We saw the fire distinctly. Not to fear 
 
 Needed we yet ; an acre of slow fire 
 
 Marching away from us along the hills,
 
 102 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 A stream of flame between its banks of wood. 
 
 Glad not to fear it we turned back at length ; 
 
 So through the cool and silent twilight hours 
 
 Gaily and slowly we came home again. 
 
 Next day was calm ; and in the harvest-field 
 
 The swish of scythes cut through the matted growth, 
 
 And long swathes followed us as on we toiled 
 
 The hours came unperceived, and went ; after noon 
 
 A storm came up and settled to a wind. 
 
 What danger this might bring too soon we knew, 
 
 For, like a fog, the dense and pungent smoke 
 
 Hid all the intervening woods nor smoke alone, 
 
 But feathery masses of white ember-ash 
 
 Ghastly upon our sweating faces sank. 
 
 We left our work, and sought the house to calm 
 
 The fears that wrung us unconfessed the more, 
 
 Since we knew well how just the fear we chid. 
 
 The wood was all around us ; now too late 
 
 We saw how great mistake to set the house, 
 
 For fear of flood, right in the track of flame. 
 
 Leaving my brother to seek out his goods, 
 
 I caught the horses, yoked them in the dray. 
 
 Loth to leave first, saw he his children safe 
 
 Sitting among the piled-up household stuff. 
 
 We waited still and hoped the wind might change, 
 
 Or rain might come. The babies sobbed to see 
 
 Us all so grave, and heedless of their cries. 
 
 I at the horses' heads stood holding them, 
 
 The others near ; and through the evening dusk 
 
 And drift of smoke and blinding cindery ash
 
 IN MIDDLE HARBOUR. 103 
 
 We saw by glimpses how the flames approached, 
 
 And heard the mighty roar. Louder it grew, 
 
 More lurid shone the fire ; now when a gust 
 
 Blew off the canopy of smoke it showed 
 
 A racing tide of flame, that e'en the smoke 
 
 Irradiated with an angry glow. 
 
 The wind flung down upon us blazing leaves, 
 
 Still glowing embers, and the swirling ash. 
 
 To stay was vain, and in despair of help 
 
 We mounted, and the frightened horses leapt. 
 
 Such a mad plunging drive ! And as we gained 
 
 The height above the house, one moment back 
 
 We gazed. Beyond the creek, the scanty bush 
 
 Afire, the valley seemed a smoky sea 
 
 Level ; but through the cloud some mighty tree 
 
 Flamed with his topmost branches. The dull roar 
 
 All other sounds involved. We saw it all 
 
 In one swift look ; but far our way along 
 
 Heard we the duller sounding roar behind. 
 
 That night, a shelter reached, the tempest came, 
 A furious rain with intervals of calm, 
 Strange windless calm that respite were and threat. 
 Then when the way was open we rode back, 
 Less to see what was spared than know the worst. 
 All up the slope from creek to topmost top 
 The fire had passed crops, fences, orchard, all 
 Were ruined. Here and there a post or slab, 
 Charred to the very earth, still stood. The flames 
 Had done their fiercest work around the house.
 
 104 IX MJDDLE HARBOUR. 
 
 Some fallen, some aslant, some few upright, 
 
 But from the ground sheer to their highest twig 
 
 The trees were blasted. Gaunt and black they rose, 
 
 Warped and distorted by the fearful heat. 
 
 The earth all round was strewn with wreck and spoil, 
 
 Although the rain so much had swept away. 
 
 Where late the house was but the chimney stood, 
 
 All lost beside in flame. We slowly rode, 
 
 No fences hindering, all about the place, 
 
 And did not mark a spot the fire had spared. 
 
 Yet when by twelve months older I returned, 
 Leaving my brother in his rebuilt house, 
 O'erlooking like the old a blooming farm, 
 E'en then the ruin could but half be hid. 
 Hence to the latest moment of my life 
 Mine eyes shall keep remembrance of that gaze 
 When, while the horses tore at the loose reins, 
 I saw the valley all a hell of flame. 
 
 I'KINTEO BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SON'S, LIMITKB, LONDON AND BECCl.KS.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 50m-7,'69(N296s4) 0-120