The Bereaved One

   She sleeps—and I see through a shadowy haze,
    Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished
   In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,
    As the mists of the morning, have faded and perished.
   She sleeps—and will waken to bless me no more;
    Her life has died out like the gleam on the river,
   And the bliss that illumined my bosom of yore
    Has fled from its dwelling for ever and ever.

   I had thought in this life not to travel alone,
    I had hoped for a mate in my joys and my sorrow—
   But the face of my idol is colder than stone,
    And my path will be lonely without her to-morrow.
   I was hoping to bask in the light of her smile
    When Fortune and Fame with their laurels had crown'd me—
   But the fire in her eyes has been dying the while,
    And the thorns of affliction are planted around me.

   There are those that may vent all their grief in their tears
    And weep till the past is away in the distance;
   But this wreck of the dream of my sunshiny years
    Will hang like a cloud o'er the rest of existence.
   In the depth of my soul she shall ever remain;
    My thoughts, like the angels, shall hover about her;
   For our hearts have been reft and divided in pain
    And what is this world to be left in without her?

Dungog

   Here, pent about by office walls
    And barren eyes all day,
   'Tis sweet to think of waterfalls
    Two hundred miles away!

   I would not ask you, friends, to brook
    An old, old truth from me,
   If I could shut a Poet's book
    Which haunts me like the Sea!

   He saith to me, this Poet saith,
    So many things of light,
   That I have found a fourfold faith,
    And gained a twofold sight.

   He telleth me, this Poet tells,
    How much of God is seen
   Amongst the deep-mossed English dells,
    And miles of gleaming green.

   From many a black Gethsemane,
    He leads my bleeding feet
   To where I hear the Morning Sea
    Round shining spaces beat!

   To where I feel the wind, which brings
    A sound of running creeks,
   And blows those dark, unpleasant things,
    The sorrows, from my cheeks.

   I'll shut mine eyes, my Poet choice,
    And spend the day with thee;
   I'll dream thou art a fountain voice
    Which God hath sent to me!

   And far beyond these office walls
    My thoughts shall even stray,
   And watch the wilful waterfalls,
    Two hundred miles away.

   For, if I know not of thy deeds,
    And darling Kentish downs,
   I've seen the deep, wild Dungog fells,
    And hate the heart of towns!

   Then, ho! for beaming bank and brake,
    Far-folded hills among,
   Where Williams,* like a silver snake,
    Draws winding lengths along!

  —
   * A tributary of the river Hunter, after Hunter, on which Dungog stands.
  —

   And ho! for stormy mountain cones,
    Where headlong Winter leaps,
   What time the gloomy swamp-oak groans,
    And weeps and wails and weeps.

   There, friends, are spots of sleepy green,
    Where one may hear afar,
   O'er fifteen leagues of waste, I ween,
    A moaning harbour bar!

   (The sea that breaks, and beats and shakes
    The caverns, howling loud,
   Beyond the midnight Myall Lakes,*
    And half-awakened Stroud!)**

  —
   * A chain of lakes near Port Stephens, N.S.W.
   ** A town on the Karuah, which flows into Port Stephens.
  —

   There, through the fretful autumn days,
    Beneath a cloudy sun,
   Comes rolling down rain-rutted ways,
    The wind, Euroclydon!

   While rattles over riven rocks
    The thunder, harsh and dry;
   And blustering gum and brooding box
    Are threshing at the sky!

   And then the gloom doth vex the sight
    With crude, unshapely forms
   Which hold throughout the yelling night
    A fellowship with storms!

   But here are shady tufts and turns,
    Where sumptuous Summer lies
   (By reaches brave with flags and ferns)
    With large, luxuriant eyes.

   And here, another getteth ease—
    Our Spring, so rarely seen,
   Who shows us in the cedar trees
    A glimpse of golden green.

   What time the flapping bats have trooped
    Away like ghosts to graves,
   And darker growths than Night are cooped
    In silent, hillside caves.

   Ah, Dungog, dream of darling days,
    'Tis better thou should'st be
   A far-off thing to love and praise—
    A boon from Heaven to me!

   For, let me say that when I look
    With wearied eyes on men,
   I think of one unchanging nook,
    And find my faith again.

Deniehy's Lament

   Spirit of Loveliness!  Heart of my heart!
   Flying so far from me, Heart of my heart!
   Above the eastern hill, I know the red leaves thrill,
   But thou art distant still, Heart of my heart!

   Sinning, I've searched for thee, Heart of my heart!
   Sinning, I've dreamed of thee, Heart of my heart!
   I know no end nor gain; amongst the paths of pain
   I follow thee in vain, Heart of my heart!

   Much have I lost for thee, Heart of my heart!
   Not counting the cost for thee, Heart of my heart!
   Through all this year of years thy form as mist appears,
   So blind am I with tears, Heart of my heart!

   Mighty and mournful now, Heart of my heart!
   Cometh the Shadow-Face, Heart of my heart!
   The friends I've left for thee, their sad eyes trouble me—
   I cannot bear to be, Heart of my heart!

Deniehy's Dream

   Just when the western light
    Flickered out dim,
   Flushing the mountain-side,
    Summit and rim,
   A last, low, lingering gleam
   Fell on a yellow stream,
   And then there came a dream
    Shining to him.

   Splendours miraculous
    Mixed with his pain
   All like a vision of
    Radiance and rain!
   He faced the sea, the skies,
   Old star-like thoughts did rise;
   But tears were in his eyes,
    Stifled in vain.

   Infinite tokens of
    Sorrows set free
   Came in the dreaming wind
    Far from the sea!
   Past years about him trooped,
   Fair phantoms round him stooped,
   Sweet faces o'er him drooped
    Sad as could be!

   "This is our brother now:
    Sisters, deplore
   Man without purpose, like
    Ship without shore!
   He tracks false fire," one said,
   "But weep you—he must tread
   Whereto he may be led—
    Lost evermore."

   "Look," said another,
    "Summit and slope
   Burn, in the mountain-land—
    Basement and cope!
   Till daylight, dying dim,
   Faints on the world's red rim,
   We'll tint this Dream for him
    Even—with hope!"

Cui Bono?

   A clamour by day and a whisper by night,
    And the Summer comes—with the shining noons,
   With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light
    Of the falling suns and the rising moons.

   And the ripple of leaves and the purple and red
    Die for the grapes and the gleam of the wheat,
   And then you may pause with the splendours, or tread
    On the yellow of Autumn with lingering feet.

   You may halt with the face to a flying sea,
    Or stand like a gloom in the gloom of things,
   When the moon drops down and the desolate lea
    Is troubled with thunder and desolate wings.

   But alas for the grey of the wintering eves,
    And the pondering storms and the ruin of rains;
   And alas for the Spring like a flame in the leaves,
    And the green of the woods and the gold of the lanes!

   For, seeing all pathos is mixed with our past,
    And knowing all sadness of storm and of surge
   Is salt with our tears for the faith that was cast
    Away like a weed o'er a bottomless verge,

   I am lost for these tokens, and wearied of ways
    Wedded with ways that are waning amain,
   Like those that are filled with the trouble that slays;
    Having drunk of their life to the lees that are pain.

   And yet I would write to you!  I who have turned
    Away with a bitter disguise in the eyes,
   And bitten the lips that have trembled and burned
    Alone for you, darling, and breaking with sighs.

   Because I have touched with my fingers a dress
    That was Beauty's; because that the breath of thy mouth
   Is sweetness that lingers; because of each tress
    Showered down on thy shoulders; because of the drouth

   That came in thy absence; because of the lights
    In the Passion that grew to a level with thee—
   Is it well that our lives have been filled with the nights
    And the days which have made it a sorrow to be?

   Yea, thus having tasted all love with thy lips,
    And having the warmth of thy hand in mine own,
   Is it well that we wander, like parallel ships,
    With the silence between us, aloof and alone?

   With my face to the wall shall I sleep and forget
    The shadow, the sweet sense of slumber denies,
   If even I marvel at kindness, and fret,
    And start while the tears are all wet in mine eyes?

   Oh, darling of mine, standing here with the Past,
    Trampled under our feet in the bitterest ways,
   Is this speech like a ghost that it keeps us aghast
    On the track of the thorns and in alien days?

   When I know of you, love, how you break with our pain,
    And sob for the sorrow of sorrowful dreams,
   Like a stranger who stands in the wind and the rain
    And watches and wails by impassable streams:

   Like a stranger who droops on a brink and deplores,
    With famishing hands and frost in the feet,
   For the laughter alive on the opposite shores
    With the fervour of fire and the wind of the wheat.

In Hyde Park

  —
   * [This and the next poem were written for "Prince Alfred's Wreath",
     published in Sydney in 1868.  While in Sydney, the Prince was shot at
     by a fanatic and slightly injured.]
  —

   They come from the highways of labour,
    From labour and leisure they come;
   But not to the sound of the tabor,
    And not to the beating of drum.

   By thousands the people assemble
    With faces of shadow and flame,
   And spirits that sicken and tremble
    Because of their sorrow and shame!

   Their voice is the voice of a nation;
    But lo, it is muffled and mute,
   For the sword of a strong tribulation
    Hath stricken their peace to the root.

   The beautiful tokens of pity
    Have utterly fled from their eyes,
   For the demon who darkened the city
    Is curst in the breaking of sighs.

   Their thoughts are as one; and together
    They band in their terrible ire,
   Like legions of wind in fierce weather
    Whose footsteps are thunder and fire.

   But for ever, like springs of sweet water
    That sings in the grass-hidden leas
   As soft as the voice of a daughter,
    There cometh a whisper from these.

   There cometh from shame and dejection,
    From wrath and the blackness thereof,
   A word at whose heart is affection
    With a sighing whose meaning is love.

   In the land of distress and of danger,
    With their foreheads in sackcloth and dust,
   They weep for the wounds of the Stranger
    And mourn o'er the ashes of trust!

   They weep for the Prince, and the Mother
    Whose years have been smitten of grief—
   For the son and the lord and the brother,
    And the widow, the queen and the chief!

   But he, having moved like a splendour
    Amongst them in happier days,
   With the grace that is manly and tender
    And the kindness that passes all praise,

   Will think, in the sickness and shadow,
    Of greetings in forest and grove,
   And welcome in city and meadow,
    Nor couple this sin with their love.

   For the sake of the touching devotion
    That sobs through the depths of their woe,
   This son of the kings of the ocean,
    As he came to them, trusting will go.

Australia Vindex

   Who cometh from fields of the south
    With raiment of weeping and woe,
   And a cry of the heart in her mouth,
    And a step that is muffled and slow?

   Her paths are the paths of the sun;
    Her house is a beautiful light;
   But she boweth her head, and is one
    With the daughters of dolour and night.

   She is fairer than flowers of love;
    She is fiercer than wind-driven flame;
   And God from His thunders above
    Hath smitten the soul of her shame.

   She saith to the bloody one curst
    With the fever of evil, she saith
   "My sorrow shall strangle thee first
    With an agony wilder than death!

   "My sorrow shall hack at thy life!
    Thou shalt wrestle with wraiths of thy sin,
   And sleep on a pillow of strife
    With demons without and within!"

   She whispers, "He came to the land
    A lord and a lover of me—
   A son of the waves with a hand
    As fearless and frank as the sea.

   "On the shores of the stranger he stood
    With the sweetness of youth on his face;
   Till there started a fiend from the wood,
    Who stabbed at the peace of the place!

   "Because of the dastardly thing
    Thou hast done in the sight of the day,
   All horrors that sicken and sting
    Shall make thee for ever their prey.

   "Because of the beautiful trust
    Destroyed by a devil like thee,
   Thy bed shall be low in the dust
    And my heel as a shackle shall be!

   "Because" (and she mutters it deep
    Who curseth the coward in chains)
   "Thou hast stricken and murdered our sleep,
    Thy sleep shall be perished with pains;

   "Thy sleep shall be broken and sharp
    And filled with fierce spasms and dreams,
   And shadow shall haunt thee and harp
    On hellish and horrible themes!

   "I will set my right hand on thy neck
    And my foot on thy body, nor bate,
   Till thy name shall become as a wreck
    And a byword for hisses and hate!"

Ned the Larrikin

   A song that is bitter with grief—a ballad as pale as the light
   That comes with the fall of the leaf, I sing to the shadows to-night.

   The laugh on the lyrical lips is sadder than laughter of ghosts
   Chained back in the pits of eclipse by wailing unnameable coasts.

   I gathered this wreath at the close of day that was dripping with dew;
   The blossom you take for a rose was plucked from the branch of a yew.

   The flower you fancy is sweet has black in the place of the red;
   For this is a song of the street—the ballad of larrikin Ned.

   He stands at the door of the sink that gapes like a fissure of death:
   The face of him fiery with drink, the flame of its fume in his breath.

   He thrives in the sickening scenes that the devil has under his ban;
   A rascal not out of his teens with the voice of a vicious old man.

   A blossom of blackness, indeed—of Satan a sinister fruit!
   Far better the centipede's seed—the spawn of the adder or newt.

   Than terror of talon or fang this imp of the alleys is worse:
   His speech is a poisonous slang—his phrases are coloured with curse.

   The prison, the shackles, and chain are nothing to him and his type:
   He sings in the shadow of pain, and laughs at the impotent stripe.

   There under the walls of the gaols the half of his life has been passed.
   He was born in the bosom of bale—he will go to the gallows at last.

   No angel in Paradise kneels for him at the feet of the Lord;
   A Nemesis follows his heels in the flame of a sinister sword.

   The sins of his fathers have brought this bitterness into his days—
   His life is accounted as naught; his soul is a brand for the blaze.

   Did ever his countenance change?  Did ever a moment supreme
   Illumine his face with a strange ineffably beautiful dream?

   Before he was caught in the breach—in the pits of iniquity grim,
   Did ever the Deity reach the hand of a Father to him?

   Behold, it is folly to say the evil was born in the blood;
   The rose that is cankered to-day was once an immaculate bud!

   There might have been blossom and fruit—a harvest exceedingly fair,
   Instead of the venomous root, and flowers that startle and scare.

   The burden—the burden is their's who, watching this garden about,
   Assisted the thistle and tares, and stamped the divinity out!

   A growth like the larrikin Ned—a brutal unqualified clod,
   Is what ye are helping who'd tread on the necks of the prophets of God.

   No more than a damnable weed ye water and foster, ye fools,
   Whose aim is to banish indeed the beautiful Christ from the schools.

   The merciful, wonderful light of the seraph Religion behold
   These evil ones shut from the sight of the children who weep in the cold!

   But verily trouble shall fall on such, and their portion shall be
   A harvest of hyssop and gall, and sorrow as wild as the sea.

   For the rose of a radiant star is over the hills of the East,
   And the fathers are heartened for war—
     the prophet, the Saint, and the priest.

   For a spirit of Deity makes the holy heirophants strong;
   And a morning of majesty breaks, and blossoms in colour and song.

   Yea, now, by the altars august the elders are shining supreme;
   And brittle and barren as dust is the spiritless secular dream.

   It's life as a vapour shall end as a fog in the fall of the year;
   For the Lord is a Father and Friend, and the day of His coming is near.

In Memoriam—Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse

   Shall he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus,
    Turned gracious eyes and countenance of shine,
   Be left to lie without a wreath from us,
    To sleep without a flower upon his shrine?

   Shall he, the son of that resplendent Muse,
    Who gleams, high priestess of sweet scholarship,
   Still slumber on, and every bard refuse
    To touch a harp or move a tuneful lip?

   No! let us speak, though feeble be our speech,
    And let us sing, though faltering be our strain,
   And haply echoes of the song may reach
    And please the soul we cannot see again.

   We sing the beautiful, the radiant life
    That shone amongst us like the quiet moon,
   A fine exception in this sphere of strife,
    Whose time went by us like a hallowed tune.

   Yon tomb, whereon the moonlit grasses sigh,
    Hides from our view the shell of one whose days
   Were set throughout to that grand harmony
    Which fills all minor spirits with amaze.

   This was the man whose dear, lost face appears
    To rise betimes like some sweet evening dream,
   And holy memories of faultless years,
    And touching hours of quietness supreme.

   He, having learned in full the golden rule,
    Which guides great lives, stood fairly by the same,
   Unruffled as the Oriental pool,
    Before the bright, disturbing angel came.

   In Learning's halls he walked—a leading lord,
    He trod the sacred temple's inner floors;
   But kindness beamed in every look and word
    He gave the humblest Levite at the doors.

   When scholars poor and bowed beneath the ban,
    Which clings as fire, were like to faint and fall,
   This was the gentle, good Samaritan,
    Who stopped and held a helping hand to all.

   No term that savoured of unfriendliness,
    No censure through those pure lips ever passed;
   He saw the erring spirit's keen distress,
    And hoped for it, long-suffering to the last.

   Moreover, in these days when Faith grows faint,
    And Heaven seems blurred by speculation wild,
   He, blameless as a mediaeval saint,
    Had all the trust which sanctifies a child.

   But now he sleeps, and as the years go by,
    We'll often pause above his sacred dust,
   And think how grand a thing it is to die
    The noble death which deifies the just.