LEAVES FROM AUSTRALIAN FORESTS

Dedication

   To her who, cast with me in trying days,
   Stood in the place of health and power and praise;
   Who, when I thought all light was out, became
   A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;
   Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere
   That waits upon the man of letters here;
   Who, unawares, her deep affection showed
   By many a touching little wifely mode;
   Whose spirit, self-denying, dear, divine,
   Its sorrows hid, so it might lessen mine—
   To her, my bright, best friend, I dedicate
   This book of songs—'t will help to compensate
   For much neglect.  The act, if not the rhyme,
   Will touch her heart, and lead her to the time
   Of trials past.  That which is most intense
   Within these leaves is of her influence;
   And if aught here is sweetened with a tone
   Sincere, like love, it came of love alone.

Prefatory Sonnets

     I

   I purposed once to take my pen and write,
    Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
    With passion, but a cunning harmony
   Of words and music caught from glen and height,
   And lucid colours born of woodland light
    And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
   But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
    And since I've put the faded purpose by.
   I have no faultless fruits to offer you
    Who read this book; but certain syllables
    Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
   And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
   And these at least, though far between and few,
    May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.

     II

   So take these kindly, even though there be
    Some notes that unto other lyres belong,
    Stray echoes from the elder sons of song;
   And think how from its neighbouring native sea
   The pensive shell doth borrow melody.
    I would not do the lordly masters wrong
    By filching fair words from the shining throng
   Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree.
    Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms
   Shot through with sunset, treads the cedar dells,
   And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells
    Far down be where the white-haired cataract booms,
   He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,
    Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.

The Hut by the Black Swamp

   Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
    About with clouds and racks of rain,
   And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
    In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
       Across the plain.

   Now twilight, with a shadowy hand
    Of wild dominionship, doth keep
   Strong hold of hollow straits of land,
    And watery sounds are loud and deep
       By gap and steep.

   Keen, fitful gusts, that fly before
    The wings of storm when day hath shut
   Its eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,
    Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,
       Against the hut.

   And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,
    Far eastern cliffs start up, and take
   Thick steaming vapours from a swamp
    That lieth like a great blind lake,
       Of face opaque.

   The moss that, like a tender grief,
    About an English ruin clings—
   What time the wan autumnal leaf
    Faints, after many wanderings
       On windy wings—

   That gracious growth, whose quiet green
    Is as a love in days austere,
   Was never seen—hath never been—
    On slab or roof, deserted here
       For many a year.

   Nor comes the bird whose speech is song—
    Whose songs are silvery syllables
   That unto glimmering woods belong,
    And deep, meandering mountain dells
       By yellow wells.

   But rather here the wild-dog halts,
    And lifts the paw, and looks, and howls;
   And here, in ruined forest vaults,
    Abide dim, dark, death-featured owls,
       Like monks in cowls.

   Across this hut the nettle runs,
    And livid adders make their lair
   In corners dank from lack of suns,
    And out of foetid furrows stare
       The growths that scare.

   Here Summer's grasp of fire is laid
    On bark and slabs that rot, and breed
   Squat ugly things of deadly shade,
    The scorpion, and the spiteful seed
       Of centipede.

   Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,
    And flaming noontides, mute with heat,
   Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,
    Upon these rifted rafters beat
       With torrid feet.

   And night by night the fitful gale
    Doth carry past the bittern's boom,
   The dingo's yell, the plover's wail,
    While lumbering shadows start, and loom,
       And hiss through gloom.

   No sign of grace—no hope of green,
    Cool-blossomed seasons marks the spot;
   But chained to iron doom, I ween,
    'Tis left, like skeleton, to rot
       Where ruth is not.

   For on this hut hath murder writ,
    With bloody fingers, hellish things;
   And God will never visit it
    With flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,
       Or gentle wings.

September in Australia

   Grey Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest,
    And, behold, for repayment,
   September comes in with the wind of the West
    And the Spring in her raiment!
   The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers,
    While the forest discovers
   Wild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours,
    And the music of lovers.

   September, the maid with the swift, silver feet!
    She glides, and she graces
   The valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat,
    With her blossomy traces;
   Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose,
    She lightens and lingers
   In spots where the harp of the evening glows,
    Attuned by her fingers.

   The stream from its home in the hollow hill slips
    In a darling old fashion;
   And the day goeth down with a song on its lips,
    Whose key-note is passion.
   Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the sea
    I stand, and remember
   Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee,
    Resplendent September!

   The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon
    And beats on the beaches,
   Is filled with a tender and tremulous tune
    That touches and teaches;
   The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time,
    And the death of Devotion,
   Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme
    In the waves of the ocean.

   We, having a secret to others unknown,
    In the cool mountain-mosses,
   May whisper together, September, alone
    Of our loves and our losses!
   One word for her beauty, and one for the grace
    She gave to the hours;
   And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face
    To sleep with the flowers.

   High places that knew of the gold and the white
    On the forehead of Morning
   Now darken and quake, and the steps of the Night
    Are heavy with warning.
   Her voice in the distance is lofty and loud
    Through the echoing gorges;
   She hath hidden her eyes in a mantle of cloud,
    And her feet in the surges.

   On the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones—
    Chief temples of thunder—
   The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans,
    Gliding over and under.
   The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain,
    Leapeth wild at the forelands;
   And the plover, whose cry is like passion with pain,
    Complains in the moorlands.

   Oh, season of changes—of shadow and shine—
    September the splendid!
   My song hath no music to mingle with thine,
    And its burden is ended;
   But thou, being born of the winds and the sun,
    By mountain, by river,
   Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run,
    With thy voices for ever!

Ghost Glen

   "Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
   For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
   Shut your ears, stranger," saith the grey mother, crooning
   Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.

   To-night the north-easter goes travelling slowly,
   But it never stoops down to that hollow unholy;
   To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,
   But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten.

   For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,
   And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing—
   The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under),
   Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!

   Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving,
   Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving—
   You may see the saw heaving, and falling, and heaving,
   Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving!

   And across a burnt body, as black as an adder,
   Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog (was ever sight sadder?)
   For, as the dry thunder splits louder and faster,
   This sprite of a sheep-dog howls for his master.

   "Oh, count your beads deftly," saith the grey mother, crooning
   Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
   And well may she mutter, for the dark, hollow laughter
   You will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after.

   Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary,
   For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary.
   Pray for your peace in these perilous places,
   And pray for the laying of horrible faces.

   One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid,
   Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid;
   One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there
   (Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there:

   The stranger, who came from the loved, the romantic
   Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic,
   Leaving behind him a patient home, yearning
   For the steps in the distance—never returning;

   Who was left in the forest, shrunken and starkly,
   Burnt by his slayers (so men have said, darkly),
   With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there,
   And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there.

   Yea, cross your breast humbly and hold your breath tightly,
   Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly,
   From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too),
   And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to.

   I tell you—that bushman is braver than most men
   Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen,
   Although in that hollow, unholy and lonely,
   He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only.

Daphne

   Daphne!  Ladon's daughter, Daphne!  Set thyself in silver light,
   Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white—
   Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade,
   Flying love of bright Apollo,—fleeting type of faultless maid!
   She, when followed from the forelands by the lord of lyre and lute,
   Sped towards far-singing waters, past deep gardens flushed with fruit;
   Took the path against Peneus, panted by its yellow banks;
   Turned, and looked, and flew the faster through grey-tufted thicket ranks;
   Flashed amongst high flowered sedges:  leaped across the brook, and ran
   Down to where the fourfold shadows of a nether glade began;
   There she dropped, like falling Hesper, heavy hair of radiant head
   Hiding all the young abundance of her beauty's white and red.

   Came the yellow-tressed Far-darter—came the god whose feet are fire,
   On his lips the name of Daphne, in his eyes a great desire;
   Fond, full lips of lord and lover, sad because of suit denied;
   Clear, grey eyes made keen by passion, panting, pained, unsatisfied.
   Here he turned, and there he halted, now he paused, and now he flew,
   Swifter than his sister's arrows, through soft dells of dreamy dew.
   Vext with gleams of Ladon's daughter, dashed along the son of Jove,
   Fast upon flower-trammelled Daphne fleeting on from grove to grove;
   Flights of seawind hard behind him, breaths of bleak and whistling straits;
   Drifts of driving cloud above him, like a troop of fierce-eyed Fates!
   So he reached the water-shallows; then he stayed his steps, and heard
   Daphne drop upon the grasses, fluttering like a wounded bird.

   Was there help for Ladon's daughter?  Saturn's son is high and just:
   Did he come between her beauty and the fierce Far-darter's lust?
   As she lay, the helpless maiden, caught and bound in fast eclipse,
   Did the lips of god drain pleasure from her sweet and swooning lips?
   Now that these and all Love's treasures blushed, before the spoiler, bare,
   Was the wrong that shall be nameless done, and seen, and suffered there?
   No! for Zeus is King and Father.  Weary nymph and fiery god,
   Bend the knee alike before him—he is kind, and he is lord!
   Therefore sing how clear-browed Pallas—Pallas, friend of prayerful maid,
   Lifted dazzling Daphne lightly, bore her down the breathless glade,
   Did the thing that Zeus commanded:  so it came to pass that he
   Who had chased a white-armed virgin, caught at her, and clasped a tree.

The Warrigal

  —
   * The Dingo, or Wild Dog of Australia.
  —

   The warrigal's lair is pent in bare,
    Black rocks at the gorge's mouth;
   It is set in ways where Summer strays
    With the sprites of flame and drouth;
   But when the heights are touched with lights
    Of hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,
   His bed is made of the dead grass-blade
    And the leaves of the windy pine.

   Through forest boles the storm-wind rolls,
    Vext of the sea-driv'n rain;
   And, up in the clift, through many a rift,
    The voices of torrents complain.
   The sad marsh-fowl and the lonely owl
    Are heard in the fog-wreaths grey,
   When the warrigal wakes, and listens, and takes
    To the woods that shelter the prey.

   In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,
    And the silver, showery moon
   Glides over the hills, and floats, and fills,
    And dreams in the dark lagoon;
   While halting hard by the station yard,
    Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,
   The warrigal yells—and flats and fells
    Are loud with his dismal cry.

   On the topmost peak of mountains bleak
    The south wind sobs, and strays
   Through moaning pine and turpentine,
    And the rippling runnel ways;
   And strong streams flow, and great mists go,
    Where the warrigal starts to hear
   The watch-dog's bark break sharp in the dark,
    And flees like a phantom of fear.

   The swift rains beat, and the thunders fleet
    On the wings of the fiery gale,
   And down in the glen of pool and fen,
    The wild gums whistle and wail,
   As over the plains and past the chains
    Of waterholes glimmering deep,
   The warrigal flies from the shepherd's cries,
    And the clamour of dogs and sheep.

   He roves through the lands of sultry sands,
    He hunts in the iron range,
   Untamed as surge of the far sea verge,
    And fierce and fickle and strange.
   The white man's track and the haunts of the black
    He shuns, and shudders to see;
   For his joy he tastes in lonely wastes
    Where his mates are torrent and tree.

Euroclydon

      On the storm-cloven Cape
         The bitter waves roll,
         With the bergs of the Pole,
   And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:
         For the storm-cloven Cape
         Is an alien Shape
   With a fearful face; and it moans, and it stands
         Outside all lands
            Everlastingly!

      When the fruits of the year
         Have been gathered in Spain,
         And the Indian rain
   Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,
         There comes to this Cape
         To this alien Shape,
   As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,
         The Wind of the North,
            Euroclydon!

      And the wilted thyme,
         And the patches past
         Of the nettles cast
   In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
         Are tumbled and blown
         To every zone
   With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
         By this fourfold Wind—
            This Wind sublime!

      On the wrinkled hills,
         By starts and fits,
         The wild Moon sits;
   And the rindles fill and flash and fall
         In the way of her light,
         Through the straitened night,
   When the sea-heralds clamour, and elves of the war,
         In the torrents afar,
            Hold festival!

      From ridge to ridge
         The polar fires
         On the naked spires,
   With a foreign splendour, flit and flow;
         And clough and cave
         And architrave
   Have a blood-coloured glamour on roof and on wall,
         Like a nether hall
            In the hells below!

      The dead, dry lips
         Of the ledges, split
         By the thunder fit
   And the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,
         Anon break out,
         With a shriek and a shout,
   Like a hard, bitter laughter, cracked and thin,
         From a ghost with a sin
            Too dark for a name!

      And all thro' the year,
         The fierce seas run
         From sun to sun,
   Across the face of a vacant world!
         And the Wind flies forth
         From the wild, white North,
   That shivers and harries the heart of things,
         And shapes with its wings
            A chaos uphurled!

      Like one who sees
         A rebel light
         In the thick of the night,
   As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar—
         Who looks to it still,
         Up hill and hill,
   With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,
         And rough, and steep),
            Like a steadfast star—

      So I, that stand
         On the outermost peaks
         Of peril, with cheeks
   Blue with the salts of a frosty sea,
         Have learnt to wait,
         With an eye elate
   And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze
         Of the Beauty that rays
            Like a glimpse for me—

      Of the Beauty that grows
         Whenever I hear
         The winds of Fear
   From the tops and the bases of barrenness call;
         And the duplicate lore
         Which I learn evermore,
   Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,
         And the marvellous Form
            That governs all!