A Spanish Love Song

   From Andalusian gardens
    I bring the rose and rue,
   And leaves of subtle odour,
    To weave a gift for you.
   You'll know the reason wherefore
    The sad is with the sweet;
   My flowers may lie, as I would,
    A carpet for your feet!

   The heart—the heart is constant;
    It holds its secret, Dear!
   But often in the night time
    I keep awake for fear.
   I have no hope to whisper,
    I have no prayer to send,
   God save you from such passion!
    God help you from such end!

   You first, you last, you false love!
    In dreams your lips I kiss,
   And thus I greet your Shadow,
    "Take this, and this, and this!"
   When dews are on the casement,
    And winds are in the pine,
   I have you close beside me—
    In sleep your mouth is mine.

   I never see you elsewhere;
    You never think of me;
   But fired with fever for you
    Content I am to be.
   You will not turn, my Darling,
    Nor answer when I call;
   But yours are soul are body
    And love of mine and all!

   You splendid Spaniard!  Listen—
    My passion leaps to flame
   For neck and cheek and dimple,
    And cunning shades of shame!
   I tell you, I would gladly
    Give Hell myself to keep,
   To cling to, half a moment,
    The lips I taste in sleep.

The Last of His Tribe

   He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,
    And hides in the dark of his hair;
   For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,
    Or think of the loneliness there—
    Of the loss and the loneliness there.

   The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
    And turn to their coverts for fear;
   But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass
    Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear—
    With the nullah, the sling and the spear.

   Uloola, behold him!  The thunder that breaks
    On the tops of the rocks with the rain,
   And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,
    Have made him a hunter again—
    A hunter and fisher again.

   For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought;
    But he dreams of the hunts of yore,
   And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought
    With those who will battle no more—
    Who will go to the battle no more.

   It is well that the water which tumbles and fills,
    Goes moaning and moaning along;
   For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,
    And he starts at a wonderful song—
    At the sound of a wonderful song.

   And he sees, through the rents of the scattering fogs,
    The corroboree warlike and grim,
   And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,
    To watch, like a mourner, for him—
    Like a mother and mourner for him.

   Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands,
    Like a chief, to the rest of his race,
   With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands,
    And gleams like a dream in his face—
    Like a marvellous dream in his face?

Arakoon

  —
   * A promontory on the coast of New South Wales.
  —

   Lo! in storms, the triple-headed
       Hill, whose dreaded
   Bases battle with the seas,
   Looms across fierce widths of fleeting
       Waters beating
   Evermore on roaring leas!

   Arakoon, the black, the lonely!
       Housed with only
   Cloud and rain-wind, mist and damp;
   Round whose foam-drenched feet and nether
       Depths, together
   Sullen sprites of thunder tramp!

   There the East hums loud and surly,
       Late and early,
   Through the chasms and the caves,
   And across the naked verges
       Leap the surges!
   White and wailing waifs of waves.

   Day by day the sea-fogs gathered—
       Tempest-fathered—
   Pitch their tents on yonder peak,
   Yellow drifts and fragments lying
       Where the flying
   Torrents chafe the cloven creek!

   And at nightfall, when the driven
       Bolts of heaven
   Smite the rock and break the bluff,
   Thither troop the elves whose home is
       Where the foam is,
   And the echo and the clough.

   Ever girt about with noises,
       Stormy voices,
   And the salt breath of the Strait,
   Stands the steadfast Mountain Giant,
       Grim, reliant,
   Dark as Death, and firm as Fate.

   So when trouble treads, like thunder,
       Weak men under—
   Treads and breaks the thews of these—
   Set thyself to bear it bravely,
       Greatly, gravely,
   Like the hill in yonder seas;

   Since the wrestling and endurance
       Give assurance
   To the faint at bay with pain,
   That no soul to strong endeavour
       Yoked for ever,
   Works against the tide in vain.

The Voyage of Telegonus

   Ill fares it with the man whose lips are set
   To bitter themes and words that spite the gods;
   For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways
   With eyes and ears for all, this one shall halt
   As on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall know
   The plaintive front of sorrow; level looks
   With cries ill-favoured shall be dealt to him;
   And this shall be that he may think of peace
   As one might think of alienated lips
   Of sweetness touched for once in kind, warm dreams.
   Yea, fathers of the high and holy face,
   This soul thus sinning shall have cause to sob
   "Ah, ah," for sleep, and space enough to learn
   The wan, wild Hyrie's aggregated song
   That starts the dwellers in distorted heights,
   With all the meaning of perpetual sighs
   Heard in the mountain deserts of the world,
   And where the green-haired waters glide between
   The thin, lank weeds and mallows of the marsh.
   But thou to whom these things are like to shapes
   That come of darkness—thou whose life slips past
   Regarding rather these with mute fast mouth—
   Hear none the less how fleet Telegonus,
   The brass-clad hunter, first took oar and smote
   Swift eastward-going seas, with face direct
   For narrowing channels and the twofold coasts
   Past Colchis and the fierce Symplegades,
   And utmost islands, washed by streams unknown.

   For in a time when Phasis whitened wide
   And drove with violent waters blown of wind
   Against the bare, salt limits of the land,
   It came to pass that, joined with Cytheraea,
   The black-browed Ares, chafing for the wrong
   Ulysses did him on the plains of Troy,
   Set heart against the king; and when the storms
   Sang high in thunder and the Thracian rain,
   The god bethought him of a pale-mouthed priest
   Of Thebae, kin to ancient Chariclo,
   And of an omen which the prophet gave
   That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;
   Then, knowing how a heavy-handed fate
   Had laid itself on Circe's brass-clad son,
   He pricked the hunter with a lust that turned
   All thoughts to travel and the seas remote;
   But chiefly now he stirred Telegonus
   To longings for his father's exiled face,
   And dreams of rest and honey-hearted love
   And quiet death with much of funeral flame
   Far in the mountains of a favoured land
   Beyond the wars and wailings of the waves.

   So, past the ridges where the coast abrupt
   Dips greyly westward, Circe's strong-armed son
   Swept down the foam of sharp-divided straits
   And faced the stress of opening seas.  Sheer out
   The vessel drave; but three long moons the gale
   Moaned round; and swift, strong streams of fire revealed
   The labouring rowers and the lightening surf,
   Pale watchers deafened of sonorous storm,
   And dipping decks and rents of ruined sails.
   Yea, when the hollow ocean-driven ship
   Wheeled sideways, like a chariot cloven through
   In hard hot battle, and the night came up
   Against strange headlands lying east and north,
   Behold a black, wild wind with death to all
   Ran shoreward, charged with flame and thunder-smoke,
   Which blew the waters into wastes of white,
   And broke the bark, as lightning breaks the pine;
   Whereat the sea in fearful circles showed
   Unpitied faces turned from Zeus and light—
   Wan swimmers wasted with their agony,
   And hopeless eyes and moaning mouths of men.
   But one held by the fragments of the wreck,
   And Ares knew him for Telegonus,
   Whom heavy-handed Fate had chained to deeds
   Of dreadful note with sin beyond a name.
   So, seeing this, the black-browed lord of war,
   Arrayed about by Jove's authentic light,
   Shot down amongst the shattered clouds and called
   With mighty strain, betwixt the gaps of storm
   "Oceanus! Oceanus!"  Whereat
   The surf sprang white, as when a keel divides
   The gleaming centre of a gathered wave;
   And, ringed with flakes of splendid fire of foam,
   The son of Terra rose half-way and blew
   The triple trumpet of the water-gods,
   At which great winds fell back and all the sea
   Grew dumb, as on the land a war-feast breaks
   When deep sleep falls upon the souls of men.
   Then Ares of the night-like brow made known
   The brass-clad hunter of the facile feet,
   Hard clinging to the slippery logs of pine,
   And told the omen to the hoary god
   That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;
   Wherefore Oceanus, with help of hand,
   Bore by the chin the warrior of the North,
   A moaning mass, across the shallowing surge,
   And cast him on the rocks of alien shores
   Against a wintry morning shot with storm.

   Hear also, thou, how mighty gods sustain
   The men set out to work the ends of Fate
   Which fill the world with tales of many tears
   And vex the sad face of humanity:
   Six days and nights the brass-clad chief abode
   Pent up in caverns by the straitening seas
   And fed on ferns and limpets; but the dawn,
   Before the strong sun of the seventh, brought
   A fume of fire and smells of savoury meat
   And much rejoicing, as from neighbouring feasts;
   At which the hunter, seized with sudden lust,
   Sprang up the crags, and, like a dream of fear,
   Leapt, shouting, at a huddled host of hinds
   Amongst the fragments of their steaming food;
   And as the hoarse wood-wind in autumn sweeps
   To every zone the hissing latter leaves,
   So fleet Telegonus, by dint of spear
   And strain of thunderous voice, did scatter these
   East, south, and north.  'Twas then the chief had rest,
   Hard by the outer coast of Ithaca,
   Unknown to him who ate the spoil and slept.
   Nor stayed he hand thereafter; but when noon
   Burned dead on misty hills of stunted fir,
   This man shook slumber from his limbs and sped
   Against hoar beaches and the kindled cliffs
   Of falling waters.  These he waded through,
   Beholding, past the forests of the West,
   A break of light and homes of many men,
   And shining corn, and flowers, and fruits of flowers.
   Yea, seeing these, the facile-footed chief
   Grasped by the knot the huge Aeaean lance
   And fell upon the farmers; wherefore they
   Left hoe and plough, and crouched in heights remote,
   Companioned with the grey-winged fogs; but he
   Made waste their fields and throve upon their toil—
   As throve the boar, the fierce four-footed curse
   Which Artemis did raise in Calydon
   To make stern mouths wax white with foreign fear,
   All in the wild beginning of the world.

   So one went down and told Laertes' son
   Of what the brass-clad stranger from the straits
   Had worked in Ithaca; whereat the King
   Rose, like a god, and called his mighty heir,
   Telemachus, the wisest of the wise;
   And these two, having counsel, strode without,
   And armed them with the arms of warlike days—
   The helm, the javelin, and the sun-like shield,
   And glancing greaves and quivering stars of steel.
   Yea, stern Ulysses, rusted not with rest,
   But dread as Ares, gleaming on his car
   Gave out the reins; and straightway all the lands
   Were struck by noise of steed and shouts of men,
   And furious dust, and splendid wheels of flame.
   Meanwhile the hunter (starting from a sleep
   In which the pieces of a broken dream
   Had shown him Circe with most tearful face),
   Caught at his spear, and stood like one at bay
   When Summer brings about Arcadian horns
   And headlong horses mixt with maddened hounds;
   Then huge Ulysses, like a fire of fight,
   Sprang sideways on the flying car, and drave
   Full at the brass-clad warrior of the North
   His massive spear; but fleet Telegonus
   Stooped from the death, but heard the speedy lance
   Sing like a thin wind through the steaming air;
   Yet he, dismayed not by the dreadful foe—
   Unknown to him—dealt out his strength, and aimed
   A strenuous stroke at great Laertes' son,
   Which missed the shield, but bit through flesh and bone,
   And drank the blood, and dragged the soul from thence.
   So fell the King!  And one cried "Ithaca!
   Ah, Ithaca!" and turned his face and wept.
   Then came another—wise Telemachus—
   Who knelt beside the man of many days
   And pored upon the face; but lo, the life
   Was like bright water spilt in sands of thirst,
   A wasted splendour swiftly drawn away.
   Yet held he by the dead:  he heeded not
   The moaning warrior who had learnt his sin—
   Who waited now, like one in lairs of pain,
   Apart with darkness, hungry for his fate;
   For had not wise Telemachus the lore
   Which makes the pale-mouthed seer content to sleep
   Amidst the desolations of the world?
   So therefore he, who knew Telegonus,
   The child of Circe by Laertes' son,
   Was set to be a scourge of Zeus, smote not,
   But rather sat with moody eyes, and mused,
   And watched the dead.  For who may brave the gods?

   Yet, O my fathers, when the people came,
   And brought the holy oils and perfect fire,
   And built the pile, and sang the tales of Troy—
   Of desperate travels in the olden time,
   By shadowy mountains and the roaring sea,
   Near windy sands and past the Thracian snows—
   The man who crossed them all to see his sire,
   And had a loyal heart to give the king,
   Instead of blows—this man did little more
   Than moan outside the fume of funeral rites,
   All in a rushing twilight full of rain,
   And clap his palms for sharper pains than swords.
   Yea, when the night broke out against the flame,
   And lonely noises loitered in the fens,
   This man nor stirred nor slept, but lay at wait,
   With fastened mouth.  For who may brave the gods?

Sitting by the Fire

   Ah! the solace in the sitting,
    Sitting by the fire,
   When the wind without is calling
   And the fourfold clouds are falling,
   With the rain-racks intermitting,
    Over slope and spire.
   Ah! the solace in the sitting,
    Sitting by the fire.

   Then, and then, a man may ponder,
    Sitting by the fire,
   Over fair far days, and faces
   Shining in sweet-coloured places
   Ere the thunder broke asunder
    Life and dear Desire.
   Thus, and thus, a man may ponder,
    Sitting by the fire.

   Waifs of song pursue, perplex me,
    Sitting by the fire:
   Just a note, and lo, the change then!
   Like a child, I turn and range then,
   Till a shadow starts to vex me—
    Passion's wasted pyre.
   So do songs pursue, perplex me,
    Sitting by the fire.

   Night by night—the old, old story—
    Sitting by the fire,
   Night by night, the dead leaves grieve me:
   Ah! the touch when youth shall leave me,
   Like my fathers, shrunken, hoary,
    With the years that tire.
   Night by night—that old, old story,
    Sitting by the fire.

   Sing for slumber, sister Clara,
    Sitting by the fire.
   I could hide my head and sleep now,
   Far from those who laugh and weep now,
   Like a trammelled, faint wayfarer,
    'Neath yon mountain-spire.
   Sing for slumber, sister Clara,
    Sitting by the fire.

Cleone

   Sing her a song of the sun:
    Fill it with tones of the stream,—
   Echoes of waters that run
    Glad with the gladdening gleam.
   Let it be sweeter than rain,
    Lit by a tropical moon:
   Light in the words of the strain,
    Love in the ways of the tune.

   Softer than seasons of sleep:
    Dearer than life at its best!
   Give her a ballad to keep,
    Wove of the passionate West:
   Give it and say of the hours—
    "Haunted and hallowed of thee,
   Flower-like woman of flowers,
    What shall the end of them be?"

   You that have loved her so much,
    Loved her asleep and awake,
   Trembled because of her touch,
    What have you said for her sake?
   Far in the falls of the day,
    Down in the meadows of myrrh,
   What has she left you to say
    Filled with the beauty of her?

   Take her the best of your thoughts,
    Let them be gentle and grave,
   Say, "I have come to thy courts,
    Maiden, with all that I have."
   So she may turn with her sweet
    Face to your love and to you,
   Learning the way to repeat
    Words that are brighter than dew.

Charles Harpur

   Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams,
    And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping,
   Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,
    And hoarse with sounds of storms unsleeping.

   Fit grave it is for one whose song
    Was tuned by tones he caught from torrents,
   And filled with mountain breaths, and strong,
    Wild notes of falling forest currents.

   So let him sleep, the rugged hymns
    And broken lights of woods above him!
   And let me sing how sorrow dims
    The eyes of those that used to love him.

   As April in the wilted wold
    Turns faded eyes on splendours waning,
   What time the latter leaves are old,
    And ruin strikes the strays remaining;

   So we that knew this singer dead,
    Whose hands attuned the harp Australian,
   May set the face and bow the head,
    And mourn his fate and fortunes alien.

   The burden of a perished faith
    Went sighing through his speech of sweetness,
   With human hints of time and death,
    And subtle notes of incompleteness.

   But when the fiery power of youth
    Had passed away and left him nameless,
   Serene as light, and strong as truth,
    He lived his life, untired and tameless.

   And, far and free, this man of men,
    With wintry hair and wasted feature,
   Had fellowship with gorge and glen,
    And learned the loves and runes of Nature.

   Strange words of wind, and rhymes of rain,
    And whispers from the inland fountains
   Are mingled, in his various strain,
    With leafy breaths of piny mountains.

   But as the undercurrents sigh
    Beneath the surface of a river,
   The music of humanity
    Dwells in his forest-psalms for ever.

   No soul was he to sit on heights
    And live with rocks apart and scornful:
   Delights of men were his delights,
    And common troubles made him mournful.

   The flying forms of unknown powers
    With lofty wonder caught and filled him;
   But there were days of gracious hours
    When sights and sounds familiar thrilled him.

   The pathos worn by wayside things,
    The passion found in simple faces,
   Struck deeper than the life of springs
    Or strength of storms and sea-swept places.

   But now he sleeps, the tired bard,
    The deepest sleep; and, lo! I proffer
   These tender leaves of my regard,
    With hands that falter as they offer.