Part 7
The false strength of fever, that deadly deceiver, Gives foot to each famishing beast; And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten, The mirage gleams out in the east. Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and ridden In a stream where the cattle track dips; And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces, And the drouth is a fire on their lips.
It is far to the station, and gaunt Desolation Is a spectre that glooms in the way; Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is, And as flame are the feet of the day. The wastes are like metal that forges unsettle When the heat of the furnace is white; And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth, Is unknown to the wild desert night.
A cry of distress there! a horseman the less there! The mock-waters shine like a moon! It is "Speed, and speed faster from this hole of disaster! And hurrah for yon God-sent lagoon!" Doth a devil deceive them? Ah, now let us leave them-- We are burdened in life with the sad; Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble, And the gladdest is never too glad.
From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile, To a sweet river shadowed with reeds, Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly, The hoof-rutted cattle track leads. There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light; There fiery things falter and fall; And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now, And the wings of a peace over all.
Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy cover Away by the snow-smitten Pole! The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth; And what is the end of the whole? Some men are successful after seasons distressful [Now, masters, the drift of my tale]; But the brink of salvation is a lair of damnation For others who struggle, yet fail.
To Damascus
Where the sinister sun of the Syrians beat On the brittle, bright stubble, And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat, Came Saul, with a fire in the soles of his feet, And a forehead of trouble.
And terrified faces to left and to right, Before and behind him, Fled away with the speed of a maddening fright To the cloughs of the bat and the chasms of night, Each hoping the zealot would fail in his flight To find him and bind him.
For, behold you! the strong man of Tarsus came down With breathings of slaughter, From the priests of the city, the chiefs of the town (The lords with the sword, and the sires with the gown), To harry the Christians, and trample, and drown, And waste them like water.
He was ever a fighter, this son of the Jews-- A fighter in earnest; And the Lord took delight in the strength of his thews, For He knew he was one of the few He could choose To fight out His battles and carry His news Of a marvellous truth through the dark and the dews, And the desert lands furnaced!
He knew he was one of the few He could take For His mission supernal, Whose feet would not falter, whose limbs would not ache, Through the waterless lands of the thorn and the snake, And the ways of the wild--bearing up for the sake Of a Beauty eternal.
And therefore the road to Damascus was burned With a swift, sudden brightness; While Saul, with his face in the bitter dust, learned Of the sin which he did ere he tumbled, and turned Aghast at God's whiteness!
Of the sin which he did ere he covered his head From the strange revelation. But, thereafter, you know of the life that he led-- How he preached to the peoples, and suffered, and sped With the wonderful words which his Master had said, From nation to nation.
Now would we be like him, who suffer and see, If the Chooser should choose us! For I tell you, brave brothers, whoever you be, It is right, till all learn to look further, and see, That our Master should use us!
It is right, till all learn to discover and class, That our Master should task us: For now we may judge of the Truth through a glass; And the road over which they must evermore pass, Who would think for the many, and fight for the mass, Is the road to Damascus.
Bell-Birds
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling, And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling; It lives in the mountain, where moss and the sedges Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges; Through brakes of the cedar and sycamore bowers Struggles the light that is love to the flowers. And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing, The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.
The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time, They sing in September their songs of the May-time. When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle, They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle; When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together They start up like fairies that follow fair weather, And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.
October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses, Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses; Loiters knee-deep in the grasses to listen, Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten. Then is the time when the water-moons splendid Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the morning.
Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers. When fiery December sets foot in the forest, And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest, Pent in the ridges for ever and ever. The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river, With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrents Are toned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.
Often I sit, looking back to a childhood Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood, Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of passion-- Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest rafters; So I might keep in the city and alleys The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys, Charming to slumber the pain of my losses With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.
A Death in the Bush
The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs, That wore the marks of many rains, and showed Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot. Moreover, round the bases of the bark Were left the tracks of flying forest fires, As you may see them on the lower bole Of every elder of the native woods.
For, ere the early settlers came and stocked These wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grew So that they took the passing pilgrim in And whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.
And therefore, through the fiercer summer months, While all the swamps were rotten; while the flats Were baked and broken; when the clayey rifts Yawned wide, half-choked with drifted herbage past, Spontaneous flames would burst from thence and race Across the prairies all day long.
At night The winds were up, and then, with four-fold speed A harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fire Would roar along the bottoms, in the wake Of fainting flocks of parrots, wallaroos, And 'wildered wild things, scattering right and left, For safety vague, throughout the general gloom.
Anon the nearer hillside-growing trees Would take the surges; thus from bough to bough Was borne the flaming terror! Bole and spire, Rank after rank, now pillared, ringed, and rolled In blinding blaze, stood out against the dead, Down-smothered dark, for fifty leagues away.
For fifty leagues; and when the winds were strong For fifty more! But in the olden time These fires were counted as the harbingers Of life-essential storms, since out of smoke And heat there came across the midnight ways Abundant comfort, with upgathered clouds And runnels babbling of a plenteous fall.
So comes the southern gale at evenfall (The swift brick-fielder of the local folk), About the streets of Sydney, when the dust Lies burnt on glaring windows, and the men Look forth from doors of drouth and drink the change With thirsty haste, and that most thankful cry Of "Here it is--the cool, bright, blessed rain!"
The hut, I say, was built of bark and slabs, And stood, the centre of a clearing, hemmed By hurdle-yards, and ancients of the blacks; These moped about their lazy fires, and sang Wild ditties of the old days, with a sound Of sorrow, like an everlasting wind Which mingled with the echoes of the noon And moaned amongst the noises of the night.
From thence a cattle track, with link to link, Ran off against the fish-pools to the gap Which sets you face to face with gleaming miles Of broad Orara*, winding in amongst Black, barren ridges, where the nether spurs Are fenced about by cotton scrub, and grass Blue-bitten with the salt of many droughts.
-- * A tributary of the river Clarence, N.S.W. --
'Twas here the shepherd housed him every night, And faced the prospect like a patient soul, Borne up by some vague hope of better days, And God's fine blessing in his faithful wife, Until the humour of his malady Took cunning changes from the good to bad, And laid him lastly on a bed of death.
Two months thereafter, when the summer heat Had roused the serpent from his rotten lair, And made a noise of locusts in the boughs, It came to this, that as the blood-red sun Of one fierce day of many slanted down Obliquely past the nether jags of peaks And gulfs of mist, the tardy night came vexed By belted clouds and scuds that wheeled and whirled To left and right about the brazen clifts Of ridges, rigid with a leaden gloom.
Then took the cattle to the forest camps With vacant terror, and the hustled sheep Stood dumb against the hurdles, even like A fallen patch of shadowed mountain snow; And ever through the curlew's call afar, The storm grew on, while round the stinted slabs Sharp snaps and hisses came, and went, and came, The huddled tokens of a mighty blast Which ran with an exceeding bitter cry Across the tumbled fragments of the hills, And through the sluices of the gorge and glen.
So, therefore, all about the shepherd's hut That space was mute, save when the fastened dog, Without a kennel, caught a passing glimpse Of firelight moving through the lighted chinks, For then he knew the hints of warmth within, And stood and set his great pathetic eyes, In wind and wet, imploring to be loosed.
Not often now the watcher left the couch Of him she watched, since in his fitful sleep His lips would stir to wayward themes, and close With bodeful catches. Once she moved away, Half-deafened by terrific claps, and stooped And looked without--to see a pillar dim Of gathered gusts and fiery rain.
Anon The sick man woke, and, startled by the noise, Stared round the room with dull, delirious sight, At this wild thing and that: for through his eyes The place took fearful shapes, and fever showed Strange crosswise lights about his pillow-head. He, catching there at some phantasmic help, Sat upright on the bolster with a cry Of "Where is Jesus? It is bitter cold!" And then, because the thunder-calls outside Were mixed for him with slanders of the past, He called his weeping wife by name, and said, "Come closer, darling! We shall speed away Across the seas, and seek some mountain home Shut in from liars and the wicked words That track us day and night and night and day." So waned the sad refrain. And those poor lips, Whose latest phrases were for peace, grew mute, And into everlasting silence passed.
As fares a swimmer who hath lost his breath In 'wildering seas afar from any help-- Who, fronting Death, can never realize The dreadful Presence, but is prone to clutch At every weed upon the weltering wave-- So fared the watcher, poring o'er the last Of him she loved, with dazed and stupid stare; Half conscious of the sudden loss and lack Of all that bound her life, but yet without The power to take her mighty sorrow in.
Then came a patch or two of starry sky, And through a reef of cloven thunder-cloud The soft moon looked: a patient face beyond The fierce impatient shadows of the slopes And the harsh voices of the broken hills! A patient face, and one which came and wrought A lovely silence, like a silver mist, Across the rainy relics of the storm.
For in the breaks and pauses of her light The gale died out in gusts: yet, evermore About the roof-tree on the dripping eaves, The damp wind loitered, and a fitful drift Sloped through the silent curtains, and athwart The dead.
There, when the glare had dropped behind A mighty ridge of gloom, the woman turned And sat in darkness, face to face with God, And said, "I know," she said, "that Thou art wise; That when we build and hope, and hope and build, And see our best things fall, it comes to pass For evermore that we must turn to Thee! And therefore, now, because I cannot find The faintest token of Divinity In this my latest sorrow, let Thy light Inform mine eyes, so I may learn to look On something past the sight which shuts and blinds And seems to drive me wholly, Lord, from Thee."
Now waned the moon beyond complaining depths, And as the dawn looked forth from showery woods (Whereon had dropped a hint of red and gold) There went about the crooked cavern-eaves Low flute-like echoes, with a noise of wings, And waters flying down far-hidden fells. Then might be seen the solitary owl Perched in the clefts, scared at the coming light, And staring outward (like a sea-shelled thing Chased to his cover by some bright, fierce foe), As at a monster in the middle waste.
At last the great kingfisher came, and called Across the hollows, loud with early whips, And lighted, laughing, on the shepherd's hut, And roused the widow from a swoon like death.
This day, and after it was noised abroad By blacks, and straggling horsemen on the roads, That he was dead "who had been sick so long", There flocked a troop from far-surrounding runs, To see their neighbour, and to bury him; And men who had forgotten how to cry (Rough, flinty fellows of the native bush) Now learned the bitter way, beholding there The wasted shadow of an iron frame, Brought down so low by years of fearful pain, And marking, too, the woman's gentle face, And all the pathos in her moaned reply Of "Masters, we have lived in better days."
One stooped--a stockman from the nearer hills-- To loose his wallet-strings, from whence he took A bag of tea, and laid it on her lap; Then sobbing, "God will help you, missus, yet," He sought his horse, with most bewildered eyes, And, spurring, swiftly galloped down the glen.
Where black Orara nightly chafes his brink, Midway between lamenting lines of oak And Warra's Gap, the shepherd's grave was built; And there the wild dog pauses, in the midst Of moonless watches, howling through the gloom At hopeless shadows flitting to and fro, What time the east wind hums his darkest hymn, And rains beat heavy on the ruined leaf.
There, while the autumn in the cedar trees Sat cooped about by cloudy evergreens The widow sojourned on the silent road, And mutely faced the barren mound, and plucked A straggling shrub from thence, and passed away, Heart-broken, on to Sydney, where she took Her passage in an English vessel bound To London, for her home of other years.
At rest! Not near, with Sorrow on his grave, And roses quickened into beauty--wrapt In all the pathos of perennial bloom; But far from these, beneath the fretful clay Of lands within the lone perpetual cry Of hermit plovers and the night-like oaks, All moaning for the peace which never comes.
At rest! And she who sits and waits behind Is in the shadows; but her faith is sure, And _one_ fine promise of the coming days Is breaking, like a blessed morning, far On hills that "slope through darkness up to God."
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.