Aboriginal Death-Song
Feet of the flying, and fierce
Tops of the sharp-headed spear,
Hard by the thickets that pierce,
Lo! they are nimble and near.
Women are we, and the wives
Strong Arrawatta hath won;
Weary because of our lives,
Sick of the face of the sun.
Koola, our love and our light,
What have they done unto you?
Man of the star-reaching sight,
Dipped in the fire and the dew.
Black-headed snakes in the grass
Struck at the fleet-footed lord—
Still is his voice at the pass,
Soundless his step at the ford.
Far by the forested glen,
Starkly he lies in the rain;
Kings of the council of men
Shout for their leader in vain.
Yea, and the fish-river clear
Never shall blacken below
Spear and the shadow of spear,
Bow and the shadow of bow.
Hunter and climber of trees,
Now doth his tomahawk rust,
(Dread of the cunning wild bees),
Hidden in hillocks of dust.
We, who were followed and bound,
Dashed under foot by the foe,
Sit with our eyes to the ground,
Faint from the brand and the blow.
Dumb with the sorrow that kills,
Sorrow for brother and chief,
Terror of thundering hills,
Having no hope in our grief,
Seeing the fathers are far
Seeking the spoils of the dead
Left on the path of the war,
Matted and mangled and red.
Sydney Harbour
Where Hornby, like a mighty fallen star,
Burns through the darkness with a splendid ring
Of tenfold light, and where the awful face
Of Sydney's northern headland stares all night
O'er dark, determined waters from the east,
From year to year a wild, Titanic voice
Of fierce aggressive sea shoots up and makes,—
When storm sails high through drifts of driving sleet,
And in the days when limpid waters glass
December's sunny hair and forest face,—
A roaring down by immemorial caves,
A thunder in the everlasting hills.
But calm and lucid as an English lake,
Beloved by beams and wooed by wind and wing,
Shut in from tempest-trampled wastes of wave,
And sheltered from white wraths of surge by walls—
Grand ramparts founded by the hand of God,
The lordly Harbour gleams. Yea, like a shield
Of marvellous gold dropped in his fiery flight
By some lost angel in the elder days,
When Satan faced and fought Omnipotence,
It shines amongst fair, flowering hills, and flows
By dells of glimmering greenness manifold.
And all day long, when soft-eyed Spring comes round
With gracious gifts of bird and leaf and grass—
And through the noon, when sumptuous Summer sleeps
By yellowing runnels under beetling cliffs,
This royal water blossoms far and wide
With ships from all the corners of the world.
And while sweet Autumn with her gipsy face
Stands in the gardens, splashed from heel to thigh
With spinning vine-blood—yea, and when the mild,
Wan face of our Australian Winter looks
Across the congregated southern fens,
Then low, melodious, shell-like songs are heard
Beneath proud hulls and pompous clouds of sail,
By yellow beaches under lisping leaves
And hidden nooks to Youth and Beauty dear,
And where the ear may catch the counter-voice
Of Ocean travelling over far, blue tracts.
Moreover, when the moon is gazing down
Upon her lovely reflex in the wave,
(What time she, sitting in the zenith, makes
A silver silence over stirless woods),
Then, where its echoes start at sudden bells,
And where its waters gleam with flying lights,
The haven lies, in all its beauty clad,
More lovely even than the golden lakes
The poet saw, while dreaming splendid dreams
Which showed his soul the far Hesperides.
A Birthday Trifle
Here in this gold-green evening end,
While air is soft and sky is clear,
What tender message shall I send
To her I hold so dear?
What rose of song with breath like myrrh,
And leaf of dew and fair pure beams
Shall I select and give to her—
The lady of my dreams?
Alas! the blossom I would take,
The song as sweet as Persian speech,
And carry for my lady's sake,
Is not within my reach.
I have no perfect gift of words,
Or I would hasten now to send
A ballad full of tunes of birds
To please my lovely friend.
But this pure pleasure is my own,
That I have power to waft away
A hope as bright as heaven's zone
On this her natal day.
May all her life be like the light
That softens down in spheres divine,
"As lovely as a Lapland night,"
All grace and chastened shine!