By the Cliffs of the Sea

   (In Memory of Samuel Bennett.)

   In a far-away glen of the hills,
    Where the bird of the night is at rest,
   Shut in from the thunder that fills
    The fog-hidden caves of the west—
   In a sound of the leaf, and the lute
    Of the wind on the quiet lagoon,
   I stand, like a worshipper, mute
    In the flow of a marvellous tune!
   And the song that is sweet to my sense
    Is, "Nearer, my God, unto Thee";
   But it carries me sorrowing hence,
    To a grave by the cliffs of the sea.

   So many have gone that I loved—
    So few of the fathers remain,
   That where in old seasons I moved
    I could never be happy again.
   In the breaks of this beautiful psalm,
    With its deep, its devotional tone,
   And hints of ineffable calm,
    I feel like a stranger, alone.
   No wonder my eyes are so dim—
    Your trouble is heavy on me,
   O widow and daughter of him
    Who sleeps in the grave by the sea!

   The years have been hard that have pressed
    On a head full of premature grey,
   Since Stenhouse went down to his rest,
    And Harpur was taken away.
   In the soft yellow evening-ends,
    The wind of the water is faint
   By the home of the last of my friends—
    The shrine of the father and saint.
   The tenderness touching—the grace
    Of Ridley no more is for me;
   And flowers have hidden the face
    Of the brother who sleeps by the sea.

   The vehement voice of the South
    Is loud where the journalist lies;
   But calm hath encompassed his mouth,
    And sweet is the peace in his eyes.
   Called hence by the Power who knows
    When the work of a hero is done,
   He turned at the message, and rose
    With the harness of diligence on.
   In the midst of magnificent toil,
    He bowed at the holy decree;
   And green is the grass on the soil
    Of the grave by the cliffs of the sea.

   I knew him, indeed; and I knew,
    Having suffered so much in his day,
   What a beautiful nature and true
    In Bennett was hidden away.
   In the folds of a shame without end,
    When the lips of the scorner were curled,
   I found in this brother a friend—
    The last that was left in the world.
   Ah! under the surface austere
    Compassion was native to thee;
   I send from my solitude here
    This rose for the grave by the sea.

   To the high, the heroic intent
    Of a life that was never at rest,
   He held, with a courage unspent,
    Through the worst of his days and the best.
   Far back in the years that are dead
    He knew of the bitterness cold
   That saddens with silver the head
    And makes a man suddenly old.
   The dignity gracing his grief
    Was ever a lesson to me;
   He lies under blossom and leaf
    In a grave by the cliffs of the sea.

   Above him the wandering face
    Of the moon is a loveliness now,
   And anthems encompass the place
    From lutes of the luminous bough.
   The forelands are fiery with foam
    Where often and often he roved;
   He sleeps in the sight of the home
    That he built by the waters he loved.
   The wave is his fellow at night,
    And the sun, shining over the lea,
   Sheds out an unspeakable light
    On this grave by the cliffs of the sea.

Galatea

   A silver slope, a fall of firs, a league of gleaming grasses,
   And fiery cones, and sultry spurs, and swarthy pits and passes!

       .   .   .   .   .

   The long-haired Cyclops bated breath, and bit his lip and hearkened,
   And dug and dragged the stone of death, by ways that dipped and darkened.

   Across a tract of furnaced flints there came a wind of water,
   From yellow banks with tender hints of Tethys' white-armed daughter.

   She sat amongst wild singing weeds, by beds of myrrh and moly;
   And Acis made a flute of reeds, and drew its accents slowly;

   And taught its spirit subtle sounds that leapt beyond suppression,
   And paused and panted on the bounds of fierce and fitful passion.

   Then he who shaped the cunning tune, by keen desire made bolder,
   Fell fainting, like a fervent noon, upon the sea-nymph's shoulder.

   Sicilian suns had laid a dower of light and life about her:
   Her beauty was a gracious flower—the heart fell dead without her.

   "Ah, Galate," said Polypheme, "I would that I could find thee
   Some finest tone of hill or stream, wherewith to lull and bind thee!

   "What lyre is left of marvellous range, whose subtle strings, containing
   Some note supreme, might catch and change, or set thy passion waning?—

   "Thy passion for the fair-haired youth whose fleet, light feet perplex me
   By ledges rude, on paths uncouth, and broken ways that vex me?

   "Ah, turn to me! else violent sleep shall track the cunning lover;
   And thou wilt wait and thou wilt weep when I his haunts discover."

   But golden Galatea laughed, and Thosa's son, like thunder,
   Broke through a rifty runnel shaft, and dashed its rocks asunder,

   And poised the bulk, and hurled the stone, and crushed the hidden Acis,
   And struck with sorrow drear and lone the sweetest of all faces.

   To Zeus, the mighty Father, she, with plaint and prayer, departed:
   Then from fierce Aetna to the sea a fountained water started—

   A lucent stream of lutes and lights—cool haunt of flower and feather,
   Whose silver days and yellow nights made years of hallowed weather.

   Here Galatea used to come, and rest beside the river;
   Because, in faint, soft, blowing foam, her shepherd lived for ever.

Black Kate

   Kate, they say, is seventeen—
    Do not count her sweet, you know.
   Arms of her are rather lean—
    Ditto, calves and feet, you know.
   Features of Hellenic type
    Are not patent here, you see.
   Katie loves a black clay pipe—
    Doesn't hate her beer, you see.

   Spartan Helen used to wear
    Tresses in a plait, perhaps:
   Kate has ochre in her hair—
    Nose is rather flat, perhaps.
   Rose Lorraine's surpassing dress
    Glitters at the ball, you see:
   Daughter of the wilderness
    Has no dress at all, you see.

   Laura's lovers every day
    In sweet verse embody her:
   Katie's have a different way,
    Being frank, they "waddy" her.
   Amy by her suitor kissed,
    Every nightfall looks for him:
   Kitty's sweetheart isn't missed—
    Kitty "humps" and cooks for him.

   Smith, and Brown, and Jenkins, bring
    Roses to the fair, you know.
   Darkies at their Katie fling
    Hunks of native bear, you know.
   English girls examine well
    All the food they take, you twig:
   Kate is hardly keen of smell—
    Kate will eat a snake, you twig.

   Yonder lady's sitting room—
    Clean and cool and dark it is:
   Kitty's chamber needs no broom—
    Just a sheet of bark it is.
   You may find a pipe or two
    If you poke and grope about:
   Not a bit of starch or blue—
    Not a sign of soap about.

   Girl I know reads Lalla Rookh—
    Poem of the "heady" sort:
   Kate is better as a cook
    Of the rough and ready sort.
   Byron's verse on Waterloo,
    Makes my darling glad, you see:
   Kate prefers a kangaroo—
    Which is very sad, you see.

   Other ladies wear a hat
    Fit to write a sonnet on:
   Kitty has—the naughty cat—
    Neither hat nor bonnet on!
   Fifty silks has Madame Tate—
    She who loves to spank it on:
   All her clothes are worn by Kate
    When she has her blanket on.

   Let her rip! the Phrygian boy
    Bolted with a brighter one;
   And the girl who ruined Troy
    Was a rather whiter one.
   Katie's mouth is hardly Greek—
    Hardly like a rose it is:
   Katie's nose is not antique—
    Not the classic nose it is.

   Dryad in the grand old day,
    Though she walked the woods about,
   Didn't smoke a penny clay—
    Didn't "hump" her goods about.
   Daphne by the fairy lake,
    Far away from din and all,
   Never ate a yard of snake,
    Head and tail and skin and all.

A Hyde Park Larrikin

  —
   * To the servants of God that are to be found in every denomination,
     these verses, of course, do not apply.—H.K.
  —

   You may have heard of Proclus, sir,
    If you have been a reader;
   And you may know a bit of her
    Who helped the Lycian leader.

   I have my doubts—the head you "sport"
    (Now mark me, don't get crusty)
   Is hardly of the classic sort—
    Your lore, I think, is fusty.

   Most likely you have stuck to tracts
    Flushed through with flaming curses—
   I judge you, neighbour, by your acts—
    So don't you d——n my verses.

   But to my theme.  The Asian sage,
    Whose name above I mention,
   Lived in the pitchy Pagan age,
    A life without pretension.

   He may have worshipped gods like Zeus,
    And termed old Dis a master;
   But then he had a strong excuse—
    He never heard a pastor.

   However, it occurs to me
    That, had he cut Demeter
   And followed you, or followed me,
    He wouldn't have been sweeter.

   No doubt with "shepherds" of this time
    He's not the "clean potato",
   Because—excuse me for my rhyme—
    He pinned his faith to Plato.

   But these are facts you can't deny,
    My pastor, smudged and sooty,
   His mind was like a summer sky—
    He lived a life of beauty—

   To lift his brothers' thoughts above
    This earth he used to labour:
   His heart was luminous with love—
    He didn't wound his neighbour.

   To him all men were just the same—
    He never foamed at altars,
   Although he lived ere Moody came—
    Ere Sankey dealt in psalters.

   The Lycian sage, my "reverend" sir,
    Had not your chances ample;
   But, after all, I must prefer
    His perfect, pure example.

   You, having read the Holy Writ—
    The Book the angels foster—
   Say have you helped us on a bit,
    You overfed impostor?

   What have you done to edify,
    You clammy chapel tinker?
   What act like his of days gone by—
    The grand old Asian thinker?

   Is there no deed of yours at all
    With beauty shining through it?
   Ah, no! your heart reveals its gall
    On every side I view it.

   A blatant bigot with a big
    Fat heavy fetid carcass,
   You well become your greasy "rig"—
    You're not a second Arcas.

   What sort of "gospel" do you preach?
    What "Bible" is your Bible?
   There's worse than wormwood in your speech,
    You livid, living libel!

   How many lives are growing gray
    Through your depraved behaviour!
   I tell you plainly—every day
    You crucify the Saviour!

   Some evil spirit curses you—
    Your actions never vary:
   You cannot point your finger to
    One fact to the contrary.

   You seem to have a wicked joy
    In your malicious labour,
   Endeavouring daily to destroy
    The neighbour's love for neighbour.

   The brutal curses you eject
    Make strong men dread to hear you.
   The world outside your petty sect
    Feels sick when it is near you.

   No man who shuns that little hole
    You call your tabernacle
   Can have, you shriek, a ransomed soul—
    He wears the devil's shackle.

   And, hence the "Papist" by your clan
    Is dogged with words inhuman,
   Because he loves that friend of man
    The highest type of woman—

   Because he has that faith which sees
    Before the high Creator
   A Virgin pleading on her knees—
    A shining Mediator!

   God help the souls who grope in night—
    Who in your ways have trusted!
   I've said enough! the more I write,
    The more I feel disgusted.

   The warm, soft air is tainted through
    With your pernicious leaven.
   I would not live one hour with you
    In your peculiar heaven!

   Now mount your musty pulpit—thump,
    And muddle flat clodhoppers;
   And let some long-eared booby "hump"
    The plate about for coppers.

   At priest and parson spit and bark,
    And shake your "church" with curses,
   You bitter blackguard of the dark—
    With this I close my verses.

Names Upon a Stone

   (Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.)

   Across bleak widths of broken sea
    A fierce north-easter breaks,
   And makes a thunder on the lea—
    A whiteness of the lakes.
   Here, while beyond the rainy stream
    The wild winds sobbing blow,
   I see the river of my dream
    Four wasted years ago.

   Narrara of the waterfalls,
    The darling of the hills,
   Whose home is under mountain walls
    By many-luted rills!
   Her bright green nooks and channels cool
    I never more may see;
   But, ah! the Past was beautiful—
    The sights that used to be.

   There was a rock-pool in a glen
    Beyond Narrara's sands;
   The mountains shut it in from men
    In flowerful fairy lands;
   But once we found its dwelling-place—
    The lovely and the lone—
   And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
    Our names upon a stone.

   Above us, where the star-like moss
    Shone on the wet, green wall
   That spanned the straitened stream across,
    We saw the waterfall—
   A silver singer far away,
    By folded hills and hoar;
   Its voice is in the woods to-day—
    A voice I hear no more.

   I wonder if the leaves that screen
    The rock-pool of the past
   Are yet as soft and cool and green
    As when we saw them last!
   I wonder if that tender thing,
    The moss, has overgrown
   The letters by the limpid spring—
    Our names upon the stone!

   Across the face of scenes we know
    There may have come a change—
   The places seen four years ago
    Perhaps would now look strange.
   To you, indeed, they cannot be
    What haply once they were:
   A friend beloved by you and me
    No more will greet us there.

   Because I know the filial grief
    That shrinks beneath the touch—
   The noble love whose words are brief—
    I will not say too much;
   But often when the night-winds strike
    Across the sighing rills,
   I think of him whose life was like
    The rock-pool's in the hills.

   A beauty like the light of song
    Is in my dreams, that show
   The grand old man who lived so long
    As spotless as the snow.
   A fitting garland for the dead
    I cannot compass yet;
   But many things he did and said
    I never will forget.

   In dells where once we used to rove
    The slow, sad water grieves;
   And ever comes from glimmering grove
    The liturgy of leaves.
   But time and toil have marked my face,
    My heart has older grown
   Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace
    Our names upon the stone.

Leichhardt

   Lordly harp, by lordly master wakened from majestic sleep,
   Yet shall speak and yet shall sing the words which make the fathers weep!
   Voice surpassing human voices—high, unearthly harmony—
   Yet shall tell the tale of hero, in exalted years to be!
   In the ranges, by the rivers, on the uplands, down the dells,
   Where the sound of wind and wave is, where the mountain anthem swells,
   Yet shall float the song of lustre, sweet with tears and fair with flame,
   Shining with a theme of beauty, holy with our Leichhardt's name!
   Name of him who faced for science thirsty tracts of bitter glow,
   Lurid lands that no one knows of—two-and-thirty years ago.

   Born by hills of hard grey weather, far beyond the northern seas,
   German mountains were his sponsors, and his mates were German trees;
   Grandeur of the old-world forests passed into his radiant soul,
   With the song of stormy crescents where the mighty waters roll.
   Thus he came to be a brother of the river and the wood—
   Thus the leaf, the bird, the blossom, grew a gracious sisterhood;
   Nature led him to her children, in a space of light divine:
   Kneeling down, he said—"My mother, let me be as one of thine!"
   So she took him—thence she loved him—lodged him in her home of dreams,
   Taught him what the trees were saying, schooled him in the speech of streams.

   For her sake he crossed the waters—loving her, he left the place
   Hallowed by his father's ashes, and his human mother's face—
   Passed the seas and entered temples domed by skies of deathless beam,
   Walled about by hills majestic, stately spires and peaks supreme!
   Here he found a larger beauty—here the lovely lights were new
   On the slopes of many flowers, down the gold-green dells of dew.
   In the great august cathedral of his holy lady, he
   Daily worshipped at her altars, nightly bent the reverent knee—
   Heard the hymns of night and morning, learned the psalm of solitudes;
   Knew that God was very near him—felt His presence in the woods!

   But the starry angel, Science, from the home of glittering wings,
   Came one day and talked to Nature by melodious mountain springs:
   "Let thy son be mine," she pleaded; "lend him for a space," she said,
   "So that he may earn the laurels I have woven for his head!"
   And the lady, Nature, listened; and she took her loyal son
   From the banks of moss and myrtle—led him to the Shining One!
   Filled his lordly soul with gladness—told him of a spacious zone
   Eye of man had never looked at, human foot had never known.
   Then the angel, Science, beckoned, and he knelt and whispered low—
   "I will follow where you lead me"—two-and-thirty years ago.

   On the tracts of thirst and furnace—on the dumb, blind, burning plain,
   Where the red earth gapes for moisture, and the wan leaves hiss for rain,
   In a land of dry, fierce thunder, did he ever pause and dream
   Of the cool green German valley and the singing German stream?
   When the sun was as a menace, glaring from a sky of brass,
   Did he ever rest, in visions, on a lap of German grass?
   Past the waste of thorny terrors, did he reach a sphere of rills,
   In a region yet untravelled, ringed by fair untrodden hills?
   Was the spot where last he rested pleasant as an old-world lea?
   Did the sweet winds come and lull him with the music of the sea?

   Let us dream so—let us hope so!  Haply in a cool green glade,
   Far beyond the zone of furnace, Leichhardt's sacred shell was laid!
   Haply in some leafy valley, underneath blue, gracious skies,
   In the sound of mountain water, the heroic traveller lies!
   Down a dell of dewy myrtle, where the light is soft and green,
   And a month like English April sits, an immemorial queen,
   Let us think that he is resting—think that by a radiant grave
   Ever come the songs of forest, and the voices of the wave!
   Thus we want our sons to find him—find him under floral bowers,
   Sleeping by the trees he loved so, covered with his darling flowers!