The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town;
My spirit revives in the morning breeze,
though it died when the sun went down;
The river is high and the stream is strong,
and the grass is green and tall,
And I fain would think that this world of ours is a good world after all.
The light of passion in dreamy eyes, and a page of truth well read,
The glorious thrill in a heart grown cold of the spirit I thought was dead,
A song that goes to a comrade's heart, and a tear of pride let fall —
And my soul is strong! and the world to me is a grand world after all!
Let our enemies go by their old dull tracks,
and theirs be the fault or shame
(The man is bitter against the world who has only himself to blame);
Let the darkest side of the past be dark, and only the good recall;
For I must believe that the world, my dear, is a kind world after all.
It well may be that I saw too plain, and it may be I was blind;
But I'll keep my face to the dawning light,
though the devil may stand behind!
Though the devil may stand behind my back, I'll not see his shadow fall,
But read the signs in the morning stars of a good world after all.
Rest, for your eyes are weary, girl — you have driven the worst away —
The ghost of the man that I might have been is gone from my heart to-day;
We'll live for life and the best it brings till our twilight shadows fall;
My heart grows brave, and the world, my girl, is a good world after all.
Marshall's Mate
You almost heard the surface bake, and saw the gum-leaves turn —
You could have watched the grass scorch brown had there been grass to burn.
In such a drought the strongest heart might well grow faint and weak —
'Twould frighten Satan to his home — not far from Dingo Creek.
The tanks went dry on Ninety Mile, as tanks go dry out back,
The Half-Way Spring had failed at last when Marshall missed the track;
Beneath a dead tree on the plain we saw a pack-horse reel —
Too blind to see there was no shade, and too done-up to feel.
And charcoaled on the canvas bag ('twas written pretty clear)
We read the message Marshall wrote. It said: 'I'm taken queer —
I'm somewhere off of Deadman's Track, half-blind and nearly dead;
Find Crowbar, get him sobered up, and follow back,' it said.
'Let Mitchell go to Bandicoot. You'll find him there,' said Mack.
'I'll start the chaps from Starving Steers, and take the dry-holes back.'
We tramped till dark, and tried to track the pack-horse on the sands,
And just at daylight Crowbar came with Milroy's station hands.
His cheeks were drawn, his face was white, but he was sober then —
In times of trouble, fire, and flood, 'twas Crowbar led the men.
'Spread out as widely as you can each side the track,' said he;
'The first to find him make a smoke that all the rest can see.'
We took the track and followed back where Crowbar followed fate,
We found a dead man in the scrub — but 'twas not Crowbar's mate.
The station hands from Starving Steers were searching all the week —
But never news of Marshall's fate came back to Dingo Creek.
And no one, save the spirit of the sand-waste, fierce and lone,
Knew where Jack Marshall crawled to die — but Crowbar might have known.
He'd scarcely closed his quiet eyes or drawn a sleeping breath —
They say that Crowbar slept no more until he slept in death.
A careless, roving scamp, that loved to laugh and drink and joke,
But no man saw him smile again (and no one saw him smoke),
And, when we spelled at night, he'd lie with eyes still open wide,
And watch the stars as if they'd point the place where Marshall died.
The search was made as searches are (and often made in vain),
And on the seventh day we saw a smoke across the plain;
We left the track and followed back — 'twas Crowbar still that led,
And when his horse gave out at last he walked and ran ahead.
We reached the place and turned again — dragged back and no man spoke —
It was a bush-fire in the scrubs that made the cursed smoke.
And when we gave it best at last, he said, 'I'LL see it through,'
Although he knew we'd done as much as mortal men could do.
'I'll not — I won't give up!' he said, his hand pressed to his brow;
'My God! the cursed flies and ants, they might be at him now.
I'll see it so in twenty years, 'twill haunt me all my life —
I could not face his sister, and I could not face his wife.
It's no use talking to me now — I'm going back,' he said,
'I'm going back to find him, and I will — alive or dead!'
. . . . .
He packed his horse with water and provisions for a week,
And then, at sunset, crossed the plain, away from Dingo Creek.
We watched him tramp beside the horse till we, as it grew late,
Could not tell which was Bonypart and which was Marshall's mate.
The dam went dry at Dingo Creek, and we were driven back,
And none dared face the Ninety Mile when Crowbar took the track.
They saw him at Dead Camel and along the Dry Hole Creeks —
There came a day when none had heard of Marshall's mate for weeks;
They'd seen him at No Sunday, he called at Starving Steers —
There came a time when none had heard of Marshall's mate for years.
They found old Bonypart at last, picked clean by hungry crows,
But no one knew how Crowbar died — the soul of Marshall knows!
And now, way out on Dingo Creek, when winter days are late,
The bushmen talk of Crowbar's ghost 'what's looking for his mate';
For let the fools indulge their mirth, and let the wise men doubt —
The soul of Crowbar and his mate have travelled further out.
Beyond the furthest two-rail fence, Colanne and Nevertire —
Beyond the furthest rabbit-proof, barbed wire and common wire —
Beyond the furthest 'Gov'ment' tank, and past the furthest bore —
The Never-Never, No Man's Land, No More, and Nevermore —
Beyond the Land o' Break-o'-Day, and Sunset and the Dawn,
The soul of Marshall and the soul of Marshall's mate have gone
Unto that Loving, Laughing Land where life is fresh and clean —
Where the rivers flow all summer, and the grass is always green.
The Poets of the Tomb
The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead,
'Tis time the people passed a law to knock 'em on the head,
For 'twould be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave —
Those bards of 'tears' and 'vanished hopes', those poets of the grave.
They say that life's an awful thing, and full of care and gloom,
They talk of peace and restfulness connected with the tomb.
They say that man is made of dirt, and die, of course, he must;
But, all the same, a man is made of pretty solid dust.
There is a thing that they forget, so let it here be writ,
That some are made of common mud, and some are made of GRIT;
Some try to help the world along while others fret and fume
And wish that they were slumbering in the silence of the tomb.
'Twixt mother's arms and coffin-gear a man has work to do!
And if he does his very best he mostly worries through,
And while there is a wrong to right, and while the world goes round,
An honest man alive is worth a million underground.
And yet, as long as sheoaks sigh and wattle-blossoms bloom,
The world shall hear the drivel of the poets of the tomb.
And though the graveyard poets long to vanish from the scene,
I notice that they mostly wish their resting-place kept green.
Now, were I rotting underground, I do not think I'd care
If wombats rooted on the mound or if the cows camped there;
And should I have some feelings left when I have gone before,
I think a ton of solid stone would hurt my feelings more.
Such wormy songs of mouldy joys can give me no delight;
I'll take my chances with the world, I'd rather live and fight.
Though Fortune laughs along my track, or wears her blackest frown,
I'll try to do the world some good before I tumble down.
Let's fight for things that ought to be, and try to make 'em boom;
We cannot help mankind when we are ashes in the tomb.
Australian Bards and Bush Reviewers
While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse
The gambling and the drink which are your country's greatest curse,
While you glorify the bully and take the spieler's part —
You're a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte.
If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks,
And discover shining rivers where there's only mud and sticks;
If you picture 'mighty forests' where the mulga spoils the view —
You're superior to Kendall, and ahead of Gordon too.
If you swear there's not a country like the land that gave you birth,
And its sons are just the noblest and most glorious chaps on earth;
If in every girl a Venus your poetic eye discerns,
You are gracefully referred to as the 'young Australian Burns'.
But if you should find that bushmen — spite of all the poets say —
Are just common brother-sinners, and you're quite as good as they —
You're a drunkard, and a liar, and a cynic, and a sneak,
Your grammar's simply awful and your intellect is weak.