To the Spirit of Music

     I

   The cool grass blowing in a breeze
    Of April valleys sooms and sways;
   On slopes that dip to quiet seas
    Through far, faint drifts of yellowing haze.
   I lie like one who, in a dream
    Of sounds and splendid coloured things,
   Seems lifted into life supreme
    And has a sense of waxing wings.
   For through a great arch-light which floods
    And breaks and spreads and swims along
   High royal-robed autumnal woods,
    I hear a glorious sunset song.
   But, ah, Euterpe! I that pause
    And listen to the strain divine
   Can never learn its words, because
    I am no son of thine.

   How sweet is wandering where the west
    Is full of thee, what time the morn
   Looks from his halls of rosy rest
    Across green miles of gleaming corn!

   How sweet are dreams in shady nooks,
    When bees are out, and day is mute,
   While down the dell there floats the brook's
    Fine echo of thy marvellous lute!

   And oh, how sweet is that sad tune
    Of thine, within the evening breeze,
   Which roams beneath the mirrored moon
    On silver-sleeping summer seas!

   How blest are they whom thou hast crowned,
    Thy priests—the lords who understand
   The deep divinity of sound,
    And live their lives in Wonderland!

   These stand within thy courts and see
    The light exceeding round thy throne,
   But I—an alien unto thee—
    I faint afar off, and alone.

     II

   In hills where the keen Thessalonian
    Made clamour with horse and with horn,
   In oracular woods the Dodonian—
    The mystical maiden was born.
   And the high, the Olympian seven,
    Ringed round with ineffable flame,
   Baptized her in halos of heaven,
    And gave her her beautiful name.
   And Delphicus, loving her, brought her
    Immutable dower of dreams,
   And clothed her with glory, and taught her
    The words of the winds and the streams.

   She dwelt with the echoes that dwell
    In far immemorial hills;
   She wove of their speeches a spell—
    She borrowed the songs of the rills;
   And anthems of forest and fire,
    And passionate psalms of the rain
   Had life in the life of the lyre,
    And breath in its infinite strain.

   In a fair, in a floral abode,
    Of purple and yellow and red,
   The voice of her floated and flowed,
    The light of her lingered and spread,
   And ever there slipt through the bars
    Of the leaves of her luminous bowers,
   Syllables splendid as stars,
    And faultless as moon-litten flowers.

     III

   Lady of a land of wonder,
    Daughter of the hill supernal,
   Far from frost and far from thunder
    Under sons and moons eternal!
   Long ago the strong Immortals
    Took her hence on wheels of fire,
   Caught her up and shut their portals—
    Floral maid with fervent lyre.
   But stray fallen notes of brightness
    Yet within our world are ringing,
   Floating on the winds of lightness
    Glorious fragments of her singing.

   Bud of light, she shines above us;
    But a few of starry pinions—
   Passioned souls who are her lovers—
    Dwell in her divine dominions.
   Few they are, but in the centric
    Fanes of Beauty hold their station;
   Kings of music, lords authentic,
    Of the worlds of Inspiration.
   These are they to whom are given
    Eyes to see the singing stream-land,
   Far from earth and near to heaven,
    Known to gods and men as Dreamland.

   Mournful humanity, stricken and worn,
    Toiling for peace in undignified days,
   Set in a sphere with the shadows forlorn,
    Seeing sublimity dimmed by a haze—
   Mournful humanity wearing the sign
    Of trouble with time and unequable things,
   Long alienated from spaces divine,
    Sometimes remembers that once it had wings.
   Chiefly it is when the song and the light
    Sweeten the heart of the summering west,
   Music and glory that lend to the night
    Glimpses of marvellous havens of rest.

   Chiefly it is when the beautiful day
    Dies with a sound on its lips like a psalm—
   Anthem of loveliness drifting away
    Over a sea of unspeakable calm.

   Then Euterpe's harmonies
    In the ballad rich and rare,
   Freighted with old memories,
    Float upon the evening air—
   Float, like shine in films of rain,
    Full of past pathetic themes,
   Tales of perished joy and pain,
    Frail and faint as dreams in dreams.
   Then to far-off homes we rove,
    Homes of youth and hope and faith,
   Beautiful with lights of love—
    Sanctified by shrines of death.

   Ah! and in that quiet hour
    Soul by soul is borne away
   Over tracts of leaf and flower,
    Lit with a supernal day;
   Over Music-world serene,
    Spheres unknown to woes and wars,
   Homes of wildernesses green,
    Silver seas and golden shores;
   Then, like spirits glorified,
    Sweet to hear and bright to see,
   Lords in Eden they abide
    Robed with strange new majesty.

John Dunmore Lang

   The song that is last of the many
    Whose music is full of thy name,
   Is weaker, O father! than any,
    Is fainter than flickering flame.
   But far in the folds of the mountains
    Whose bases are hoary with sea,
   By lone immemorial fountains
    This singer is mourning for thee.

   Because thou wert chief and a giant
    With those who fought on for the right
   A hero determined, defiant;
    As flame was the sleep of thy might.
   Like Stephen in days that are olden,
    Thy lot with a rabble was cast,
   But seasons came on that were golden,
    And Peace was thy mother at last.

   I knew of thy fierce tribulation,
    Thou wert ever the same in my thought—
   The father and friend of a nation
    Through good and through evil report.
   At Ephesus, fighting in fetters,
    Paul drove the wild beasts to their pen;
   So thou with the lash of thy letters
    Whipped infamy back to its den.

   The noise of thy battle is over,
    Thy sword is hung up in its sheath;
   Thy grave has been decked by its lover
    With beauty of willowy wreath.
   The winds sing about thee for ever,
    The voices of hill and of sea;
   But the cry of the conflict will never
    Bring sorrow again unto thee.

On a Baby Buried by the Hawkesbury

        [Lines sent to a Young Mother.]

   A grace that was lent for a very few hours,
    By the bountiful Spirit above us;
   She sleeps like a flower in the land of the flowers,
    She went ere she knew how to love us.
   Her music of Heaven was strange to this sphere,
    Her voice is a silence for ever;
   In the bitter, wild fall of a sorrowful year,
    We buried our bird by the river.

   But the gold of the grass, and the green of the vine,
    And the music of wind and of water,
   And the torrent of song and superlative shine,
    Are close to our dear little daughter.
   The months of the year are all gracious to her,
    A winter breath visits her never;
   She sleeps like a bird in a cradle of myrrh,
    By the banks of the beautiful river.

Song of the Shingle-Splitters

   In dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
    And the dingoes nightly yell—
   Where the curlew's cry goes floating by,
    We splitters of shingles dwell.
   And all day through, from the time of the dew
    To the hour when the mopoke calls,
   Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing
    Sweet hymns by the waterfalls.
   And all night long we are lulled by the song
    Of gales in the grand old trees;
   And in the brakes we can hear the lakes
    And the moan of the distant seas.
       For afar from heat and dust of street,
        And hall and turret and dome,
       In forest deep, where the torrents leap,
        Is the shingle-splitter's home.

   The dweller in town may lie upon down,
    And own his palace and park:
   We envy him not his prosperous lot,
    Though we slumber on sheets of bark.
   Our food is rough, but we have enough;
    Our drink is better than wine:
   For cool creeks flow wherever we go,
    Shut in from the hot sunshine.
   Though rude our roof, it is weather-proof,
    And at the end of the days
   We sit and smoke over yarn and joke,
    By the bush-fire's sturdy blaze.
       For away from din and sorrow and sin,
        Where troubles but rarely come,
       We jog along, like a merry song,
        In the shingle-splitter's home.

   What though our work be heavy, we shirk
    From nothing beneath the sun;
   And toil is sweet to those who can eat
    And rest when the day is done.
   In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime,
    No sound of the Sunday bells;
   But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles,
    And God in the woodland dwells.
   We listen to notes from the million throats
    Of chorister birds on high,
   Our psalm is the breeze in the lordly trees,
    And our dome is the broad blue sky.
       Oh! a brave, frank life, unsmitten by strife,
        We live wherever we roam,
       And our hearts are free as the great strong sea,
        In the shingle-splitter's home.

On a Street

   I dread that street—its haggard face
    I have not seen for eight long years;
   A mother's curse is on the place,
    (There's blood, my reader, in her tears).
   No child of man shall ever track,
    Through filthy dust, the singer's feet—
   A fierce old memory drags me back;
    I hate its name—I dread that street.

   Upon the lap of green, sweet lands,
    Whose months are like your English Mays,
   I try to hide in Lethe's sands
    The bitter, old Bohemian days.
   But sorrow speaks in singing leaf,
    And trouble talketh in the tide;
   The skirts of a stupendous grief
    Are trailing ever at my side.

   I will not say who suffered there,
    'Tis best the name aloof to keep,
   Because the world is very fair—
    Its light should sing the dark to sleep.
   But, let me whisper, in that street
    A woman, faint through want of bread,
   Has often pawned the quilt and sheet
    And wept upon a barren bed.

   How gladly would I change my theme,
    Or cease the song and steal away,
   But on the hill and by the stream
    A ghost is with me night and day!
   A dreadful darkness, full of wild,
    Chaotic visions, comes to me:
   I seem to hear a dying child,
    Its mother's face I seem to see.

   Here, surely, on this bank of bloom,
    My verse with shine would ever flow;
   But ah! it comes—the rented room,
    With man and wife who suffered so!
   From flower and leaf there is no hint—
    I only see a sharp distress—
   A lady in a faded print,
    A careworn writer for the press.

   I only hear the brutal curse
    Of landlord clamouring for his pay;
   And yonder is the pauper's hearse
    That comes to take a child away.
   Apart, and with the half-grey head
    Of sudden age, again I see
   The father writing by the dead
    To earn the undertaker's fee.

   No tear at all is asked for him—
    A drunkard well deserves his life;
   But voice will quiver, eyes grow dim,
    For her, the patient, pure young wife,
   The gentle girl of better days,
    As timid as a mountain fawn,
   Who used to choose untrodden ways,
    And place at night her rags in pawn.

   She could not face the lighted square,
    Or show the street her poor, thin dress;
   In one close chamber, bleak and bare,
    She hid her burden of distress.
   Her happy schoolmates used to drive,
    On gaudy wheels, the town about;
   The meat that keeps a dog alive
    She often had to go without.

   I tell you, this is not a tale
    Conceived by me, but bitter truth;
   Bohemia knows it, pinched and pale,
    Beside the pyre of burnt-out youth:
   These eyes of mine have often seen
    The sweet girl-wife, in winters rude,
   Steal out at night, through courts unclean,
    To hunt about for chips of wood.

   Have I no word at all for him
    Who used down fetid lanes to slink,
   And squat in tap-room corners grim,
    And drown his thoughts in dregs of drink?
   This much I'll say, that when the flame
    Of reason reassumed its force,
   The hell the Christian fears to name,
    Was heaven to his fierce remorse.

   Just think of him—beneath the ban,
    And steeped in sorrow to the neck,
   Without a friend—a feeble man,
    In failing health—a human wreck.
   With all his sense and scholarship,
    How could he face his fading wife?
   The devil never lifted whip
    With thongs like those that scourged his life.

   But He in whom the dying thief
    Upon the Cross did place his trust,
   Forgets the sin and feels the grief,
    And lifts the sufferer from the dust.
   And now, because I have a dream,
    The man and woman found the light;
   A glory burns upon the stream,
    With gold and green the woods are bright.

   But still I hate that haggard street,
    Its filthy courts, its alleys wild;
   In dreams of it I always meet
    The phantom of a wailing child.
   The name of it begets distress—
    Ah, song, be silent! show no more
   The lady in the perished dress,
    The scholar on the tap-room floor.

Heath from the Highlands

   Here, where the great hills fall away
    To bays of silver sea,
   I hold within my hand to-day
    A wild thing, strange to me.

   Behind me is the deep green dell
    Where lives familiar light;
   The leaves and flowers I know so well
    Are gleaming in my sight.

   And yonder is the mountain glen,
    Where sings in trees unstirred
   By breath of breeze or axe of men
    The shining satin-bird.

   The old weird cry of plover comes
    Across the marshy ways,
   And here the hermit hornet hums,
    And here the wild bee strays.

   No novel life or light I see,
    On hill, in dale beneath:
   All things around are known to me
    Except this bit of heath.

   This touching growth hath made me dream—
    It sends my soul afar
   To where the Scottish mountains gleam
    Against the Northern star.

   It droops—this plant—like one who grieves;
    But, while my fancy glows,
   There is that glory on its leaves
    Which never robed the rose.

   For near its wind-blown native spot
    Were born, by crags uphurled,
   The ringing songs of Walter Scott
    That shook the whole wide world.

   There haply by the sounding streams,
    And where the fountains break,
   He saw the darling of his dreams,
    The Lady of the Lake.

   And on the peaks where never leaf
    Of lowland beauty grew,
   Perhaps he met Clan Alpine's chief,
    The rugged Roderick Dhu.

   Not far, perchance, this heather throve
    (Above fair banks of ferns),
   From that green place of stream and grove
    That knew the voice of Burns.

   Against the radiant river ways
    Still waves the noble wood,
   Where in the old majestic days
    The Scottish poet stood.

   Perhaps my heather used to beam
    In robes of morning frost,
   By dells which saw that lovely dream—
    The Mary that he lost.

   I hope, indeed, the singer knew
    The little spot of land
   On which the mountain beauty grew
    That withers in my hand.

   A Highland sky my vision fills;
    I feel the great, strong North—
   The hard grey weather of the hills
    That brings men-children forth.

   The peaks of Scotland, where the din
    And flame of thunders go,
   Seem near me, with the masculine,
    Hale sons of wind and snow.

   So potent is this heather here,
    That under skies of blue,
   I seem to breathe the atmosphere
    That William Wallace knew.

   And under windy mountain wall,
    Where breaks the torrent loose,
   I fancy I can hear the call
    Of grand old Robert Bruce.

The Austral Months

     January

   The first fair month!  In singing Summer's sphere
   She glows, the eldest daughter of the year.
   All light, all warmth, all passion, breaths of myrrh,
   And subtle hints of rose-lands, come with her.
   She is the warm, live month of lustre—she
   Makes glad the land and lulls the strong, sad sea.
   The highest hope comes with her.  In her face
   Of pure, clear colour lives exalted grace;
   Her speech is beauty, and her radiant eyes
   Are eloquent with splendid prophecies.

     February

   The bright-haired, blue-eyed last of Summer.  Lo,
   Her clear song lives in all the winds that blow;
   The upland torrent and the lowland rill,
   The stream of valley and the spring of hill,
   The pools that slumber and the brooks that run
   Where dense the leaves are, green the light of sun,
   Take all her grace of voice and colour.  She,
   With rich warm vine-blood splashed from heel to knee,
   Comes radiant through the yellow woodlands.  Far
   And near her sweet gifts shine like star by star.
   She is the true Demeter.  Life of root
   Glows under her in gardens flushed with fruit;
   She fills the fields with strength and passion—makes
   A fire of lustre on the lawn-ringed lakes;
   Her beauty awes the great wild sea; the height
   Of grey magnificence takes strange delight
   And softens at her presence, at the dear
   Sweet face whose memory beams through all the year.

     March

   Clear upland voices, full of wind and stream,
   Greet March, the sister of the flying beam
   And speedy shadow.  She, with rainbow crowned,
   Lives in a sphere of songs of mazy sound.
   The hymn of waters and the gale's high tone,
   With anthems from the thunder's mountain throne,
   Are with her ever.  This, behold, is she
   Who draws its great cry from the strong, sad sea;
   She is the month of majesty.  Her force
   Is power that moves along a stately course,
   Within the lines of order, like no wild
   And lawless strength of winter's fiercest child.
   About her are the wind-whipped torrents; far
   Above her gleams and flies the stormy star,
   And round her, through the highlands and their rocks,
   Rings loud the grand speech from the equinox.

     April

   The darling of Australia's Autumn—now
   Down dewy dells the strong, swift torrents flow!
   This is the month of singing waters—here
   A tender radiance fills the Southern year;
   No bitter winter sets on herb and root,
   Within these gracious glades, a frosty foot;
   The spears of sleet, the arrows of the hail,
   Are here unknown.  But down the dark green dale
   Of moss and myrtle, and the herby streams,
   This April wanders in a home of dreams;
   Her flower-soft name makes language falter.  All
   Her paths are soft and cool, and runnels fall
   In music round her; and the woodlands sing
   For evermore, with voice of wind and wing,
   Because this is the month of beauty—this
   The crowning grace of all the grace that is.

     May

   Now sings a cool, bland wind, where falls and flows
   The runnel by the grave of last year's rose;
   Now, underneath the strong perennial leaves,
   The first slow voice of wintering torrent grieves.
   Now in a light like English August's day,
   Is seen the fair, sweet, chastened face of May;
   She is the daughter of the year who stands
   With Autumn's last rich offerings in her hands;
   Behind her gleams the ghost of April's noon,
   Before her is the far, faint dawn of June;
   She lingers where the dells and dewy leas
   Catch stormy sayings from the great bold seas;
   Her nightly raiment is the misty fold
   That zones her round with moonlight-coloured gold;
   And in the day she sheds, from shining wings,
   A tender heat that keeps the life in things.

     June

   Not like that month when, in imperial space,
   The high, strong sun stares at the white world's face;
   Not like that haughty daughter of the year
   Who moves, a splendour, in a splendid sphere;
   But rather like a nymph of afternoon,
   With cool, soft sunshine, comes Australian June.
   She is the calm, sweet lady, from whose lips
   No breath of living passion ever slips;
   The wind that on her virgin forehead blows
   Was born too late to speak of last year's rose;
   She never saw a blossom, but her eyes
   Of tender beauty see blue, gracious skies;
   She loves the mosses, and her feet have been
   In woodlands where the leaves are always green;
   Her days pass on with sea-songs, and her nights
   Shine, full of stars, on lands of frosty lights.

     July

   High travelling winds, filled with the strong storm's soul,
   Are here, with dark, strange sayings from the Pole;
   Now is the time when every great cave rings
   With sharp, clear echoes caught from mountain springs;
   This is the season when all torrents run
   Beneath no bright, glad beauty of the sun.
   Here, where the trace of last year's green is lost,
   Are haughty gales, and lordships of the frost.
   Far down, by fields forlorn and forelands bleak,
   Are wings that fly not, birds that never speak;
   But in the deep hearts of the glens, unseen,
   Stand grave, mute forests of eternal green;
   And here the lady, born in wind and rain,
   Comes oft to moan and clap her palms with pain.
   This is our wild-faced July, in whose breast
   Is never faultless light or perfect rest.

     August

   Across the range, by every scarred black fell,
   Strong Winter blows his horn of wild farewell;
   And in the glens, where yet there moves no wing,
   A slow, sweet voice is singing of the Spring.
   Yea, where the bright, quick woodland torrents run,
   A music trembles under rain and sun.
   The lips that breathe it are the lips of her
   At whose dear touch the wan world's pulses stir—
   The nymph who sets the bow of promise high
   And fills with warm life-light the bleak grey sky.
   She is the fair-haired August.  Ere she leaves
   She brings the woodbine blossom round the eaves;
   And where the bitter barbs of frost have been
   She makes a beauty with her gold and green;
   And, while a sea-song floats from bay and beach,
   She sheds a mist of blossoms on the peach.

     [For September, see p. 70.]  {In this etext, search for
     "September in Australia", in "Leaves from Australian Forests".—A. L.}

     October

   Where fountains sing and many waters meet,
   October comes with blossom-trammelled feet.
   She sheds green glory by the wayside rills
   And clothes with grace the haughty-featured hills.
   This is the queen of all the year.  She brings
   The pure chief beauty of our southern springs.
   Fair lady of the yellow hair!  Her breath
   Starts flowers to life, and shames the storm to death;
   Through tender nights and days of generous sun
   By prospering woods her clear strong torrents run;
   In far deep forests, where all life is mute,
   Of leaf and bough she makes a touching lute.
   Her life is lovely.  Stream, and wind, and bird
   Have seen her face—her marvellous voice have heard;
   And, in strange tracts of wildwood, all day long,
   They tell the story in surpassing song.

     November

   Now beats the first warm pulse of Summer—now
   There shines great glory on the mountain's brow.
   The face of heaven in the western sky,
   When falls the sun, is filled with Deity!
   And while the first light floods the lake and lea,
   The morning makes a marvel of the sea;
   The strong leaves sing; and in the deep green zones
   Of rock-bound glens the streams have many tones;
   And where the evening-coloured waters pass,
   Now glides November down fair falls of grass.
   She is the wonder with the golden wings,
   Who lays one hand in Summer's—one in Spring's;
   About her hair a sunset radiance glows;
   Her mouth is sister of the dewy rose;
   And all the beauty of the pure blue skies
   Has lent its lustre to her soft bright eyes.

     December

   The month whose face is holiness!  She brings
   With her the glory of majestic things.
   What words of light, what high resplendent phrase
   Have I for all the lustre of her days?
   She comes, and carries in her shining sphere
   August traditions of the world's great year;
   The noble tale which lifts the human race
   Has made a morning of her sacred face.
   Now in the emerald home of flower and wing
   Clear summer streams their sweet hosannas sing;
   The winds are full of anthems, and a lute
   Speaks in the listening hills when night is mute
   And through dim tracks where talks the royal tree
   There floats a grand hymn from the mighty sea;
   And where the grey, grave, pondering mountains stand
   High music lives—the place is holy land!