Chapter 10

Mary Gilmore.

A Little Ghost

The moonlight flutters from the sky To meet her at the door, A little ghost, whose steps have passed Across the creaking floor.

And rustling vines that lightly tap Against the window-pane, Throw shadows on the white-washed walls To blot them out again.

The moonlight leads her as she goes Across a narrow plain, By all the old, familiar ways That know her steps again.

And through the scrub it leads her on And brings her to the creek, But by the broken dam she stops And seems as she would speak.

She moves her lips, but not a sound Ripples the silent air; She wrings her little hands, ah, me! The sadness of despair!

While overhead the black-duck's wing Cuts like a flash upon The startled air, that scarcely shrinks Ere he afar is gone.

And curlews wake, and wailing cry Cur-lew! cur-lew! cur-lew! Till all the Bush, with nameless dread Is pulsing through and through.

The moonlight leads her back again And leaves her at the door, A little ghost whose steps have passed Across the creaking floor.

Good-Night

Good-night! . . . my darling sleeps so sound She cannot hear me where she lies; White lilies watch the closed eyes, Red roses guard the folded hands.

Good-night! O woman who once lay Upon my breast, so still, so sweet That all my pulses, throbbing, beat And flamed -- I cannot touch you now.

Good-night, my own! God knows we loved So well, that all things else seemed slight -- We part forever in the night, We two poor souls who loved so well.

Bernard O'Dowd.

Love's Substitute

This love, that dares not warm before its flame Our yearning hands, or from its tempting tree Yield fruit we may consume, or let us claim In Hymen's scroll of happy heraldry The twining glyphs of perfect you and me -- May kindle social fires whence curls no blame, Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be, And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame.

For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waits For such as you to cherish it to Youth: Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verve That Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates: And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuth The perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!"

Our Duty

Yet what were Love if man remains unfree, And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise: If children's Hope is blasted ere they see Its shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise: If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and Lies Enthroned as Law befoul posterity, And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguise Insults the face of God where'er men be?

Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not love Our stricken brothers so, as to resign For Its own sake, the foison of Its dower: That, so, we two may help them mount above These layers of charnel air in which they pine, To seek with us the Presence and the Power?

Edwin James Brady.

The Wardens of the Seas

Like star points in the ether to guide a homing soul Towards God's Eternal Haven; above the wash and roll, Across and o'er the oceans, on all the coasts they stand Tall seneschals of commerce, High Wardens of the Strand -- The white lights slowly turning Their kind eyes far and wide, The red and green lights burning Along the waterside.

When Night with breath of aloes, magnolia, spice, and balm Creeps down the darkened jungles and mantles reef and palm, By velvet waters making soft music as they surge The shore lights of dark Asia will one by one emerge -- Oh, Ras Marshig by Aden Shows dull on hazy nights; And Bombay Channel's laid in Its "In" and "Outer" lights.

When Night, in rain-wet garments comes sobbing cold and grey Across the German Ocean and South from Stornoway, Thro' snarling darkness slowly, some fixed and some a-turn, The bright shore-lights of Europe like welcome tapers burn, -- From fierce Fruholmen streaming O'er Northern ice and snow, To Cape St. Vincent gleaming, -- These lamps of danger glow.

The dark Etruscan tending his watchfires by the shore, On sacred altars burning, the world shall know no more; His temple's column standing against the ancient stars Is gone; Now bright catoptrics flash out electric bars, -- Slow swung his stately Argos Unto the Tiber's mouth; But now the Tuscan cargoes Screw-driven, stagger South.

The lantern of Genoa guides home no Eastern fleets As when the boy Columbus played in its narrow streets: No more the Keltic `dolmens' their fitful warnings throw Across the lone Atlantic, so long, so long ago -- No more the beaked prows dashing Shall dare a shoreward foam; No more will great oars threshing Sweep Dorian galleys home.

No more the Vikings roaring their sagas wild and weird Proclaim that Rome has fallen; no more a consul feared Shall quench the Roman pharos lest Northern pirates free Be pointed to their plunder on coasts of Italy -- Nor shall unwilling lovers, From Lethean pleasures torn, Fare nor'ward with those rovers, To frozen lands forlorn.

The bale-fires and the watch-fires, the wrecker's foul false lure No more shall vex the shipmen; and on their course secure Past Pharos in the starlight the tow'ring hulls of Trade Race in and out from Suez in iron cavalcade, -- So rode one sunset olden Across the dark'ning sea, With banners silk and golden, The Barge of Antony!

They loom along the foreshores; they gleam across the Straits; They guide the feet of Commerce unto the harbor gates. In nights of storm and thunder, thro' fog and sleet and rain, Like stars on angels' foreheads, they give man heart again, -- Oh, hear the high waves smashing On Patagonia's shore! Oh, hear the black waves threshing Their weight on Skerryvore!

He searches night's grim chances upon his bridge alone And seeks the distant glimmer of hopeful Eddystone: And thro' a thick fog creeping, with chart and book and lead, The homeward skipper follows their green and white and red -- By day his lighthouse wardens In sunlit quiet stand, But in the night the burdens Are theirs of Sea and Land.

They fill that night with Knowledge. A thousand ships go by, A thousand captains bless them, so bright and proud and high: The world's dark capes they glamour; or low on sand banks dread, They, crouching, mark a pathway between the Quick and Dead -- Like star points in the ether They bring the seamen ease, These Lords of Wind and Weather These Wardens of the Seas!

Will. H. Ogilvie.

Queensland Opal

Opal, little opal, with the red fire glancing, Set my blood a-spinning, set my pulse a-stir, Strike the harp of memory, set my dull heart dancing Southward to the Sunny Land and the love of Her!

Opal, shining opal, let them call you luckless jewel, Let them curse or let them covet, you are still my heart's desire, You that robbed the sun and moon and green earth for fuel To gather to your milky breast and fill your veins with fire!

Green of fluttering gum-leaves above dim water-courses, Red of rolling dust-clouds, blue of summer skies, Flash of flints afire beneath the hoofs of racing horses, Sunlight and moonlight and light of lovers' eyes

Pink clasping hands amid a Southern summer gloaming, Green of August grasses, white of dew-sprung pearls, Grey of winging wild geese into the Sunset homing, Twined with all the kisses of a Queen of Queensland girls!

Wind o' the Autumn

I love you, wind o' the Autumn, that came from I know not where, To lead me out of the toiling world to a ballroom fresh and fair, Where the poplars tall and golden and the beeches rosy and red Are setting to woodland partners and dancing the stars to bed!

Oh! say, wild wind o' the Autumn, may I dance this dance with you Decked out in your gown of moonmist and jewelled with drops of dew? For I know no waiting lover with arms that so softly twine, And I know no dancing partner whose step is so made for mine!

Daffodils

Ho! You there, selling daffodils along the windy street, Poor drooping, dusty daffodils -- but oh! so Summer sweet! Green stems that stab with loveliness, rich petal-cups to hold The wine of Spring to lips that cling like bees about their gold!

What price to you for daffodils? I'll give what price you please, For light and love and memory lie leaf by leaf with these! And if I bought all Sydney Town I could not hope to buy The wealth you bring of everything that goes with open sky!

My money for your daffodils: why do you thank me so? If I have paid a reckless price, take up my gift and go, And from the golden garden beds where gold the sunbeams shine Bring in more flowers to light the hours for lover-hearts like mine!

A Queen of Yore

Slowly she hobbles past the town, grown old at heart and gray; With misty eyes she stumbles down along the well-known way; She sees her maiden march unrolled by billabong and bend, And every gum's a comrade old and every oak's a friend; But gone the smiling faces that welcomed her of yore -- They crowd her tented places and hold her hand no more. And she, the friend they once could trust to serve their eager wish, Shall show no more the golden dust that hides in many a dish; And through the dismal mullock-heaps she threads her mournful way Where here and there some gray-beard keeps his windlass-watch to-day; Half-flood no more she looses her reins as once of old To wash the busy sluices and whisper through the gold. She sees no wild-eyed steers above stand spear-horned on the brink; The brumby mobs she used to love come down no more to drink; Where green the grasses used to twine above them, shoulder-deep, Through the red dust -- a long, slow line -- crawl in the starving sheep; She sees no crossing cattle that Western drovers bring, No swimming steeds that battle to block them when they ring.

She sees no barricaded roofs, no loop-holed station wall, No foaming steed with flying hoofs to bring the word "Ben Hall!" She sees no reckless robbers stoop behind their ambush stone, No coach-and-four, no escort troop; -- but, very lorn and lone, Watches the sunsets redden along the mountain side Where round the spurs of Weddin the wraiths of Weddin ride.

Tho' fettered with her earthen bars and chained with bridge and weir She goes her own way with the stars; she knows the course to steer! And when her thousand rocky rills foam, angry, to her feet, Rain-heavy from the Cowra hills she takes her vengeance sweet, And leaps with roar of thunder, and buries bridge and ford, That all the world may wonder when the Lachlan bares her sword!

Gray River! let me take your hand for all your memories old -- Your cattle-kings, your outlaw-band, your wealth of virgin gold; For once you held, and hold it now, the sceptre of a queen, And still upon your furrowed brow the royal wreaths are green; Hold wide your arms, the waters! Lay bare your silver breast To nurse the sons and daughters that spread your empire west!

Drought

My road is fenced with the bleached, white bones And strewn with the blind, white sand, Beside me a suffering, dumb world moans On the breast of a lonely land.

On the rim of the world the lightnings play, The heat-waves quiver and dance, And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay And the sunbeams each a lance.

I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread, I have whitened the sapless trees, I have driven the faint-heart rains ahead To hide in their soft green seas.

I have bound the plains with an iron band, I have stricken the slow streams dumb! To the charge of my vanguards who shall stand? Who stay when my cohorts come?

The dust-storms follow and wrap me round; The hot winds ride as a guard; Before me the fret of the swamps is bound And the way of the wild-fowl barred.

I drop the whips on the loose-flanked steers; I burn their necks with the bow; And the green-hide rips and the iron sears Where the staggering, lean beasts go.

I lure the swagman out of the road To the gleam of a phantom lake; I have laid him down, I have taken his load, And he sleeps till the dead men wake.

My hurrying hoofs in the night go by, And the great flocks bleat their fear And follow the curve of the creeks burnt dry And the plains scorched brown and sere.

The worn men start from their sleepless rest With faces haggard and drawn; They cursed the red Sun into the west And they curse him out of the dawn.

They have carried their outposts far, far out, But -- blade of my sword for a sign! -- I am the Master, the dread King Drought, And the great West Land is mine!

The Shadow on the Blind

Last night I walked among the lamps that gleamed, And saw a shadow on a window blind, A moving shadow; and the picture seemed To call some scene to mind.

I looked again; a dark form to and fro Swayed softly as to music full of rest, Bent low, bent lower: -- Still I did not know. And then, at last, I guessed.

And through the night came all old memories flocking, White memories like the snowflakes round me whirled. "All's well!" I said; "The mothers still sit rocking The cradles of the world!"

Roderic Quinn.

The House of the Commonwealth

We sent a word across the seas that said, "The house is finished and the doors are wide, Come, enter in. A stately house it is, with tables spread, Where men in liberty and love abide With hearts akin.

"Behold, how high our hands have lifted it! The soil it stands upon is pure and sweet As are our skies. Our title deeds in holy sweat are writ, Not red accusing blood -- and 'neath our feet No foeman lies."

And England, Mother England, leans her face Upon her hand and feels her blood burn young At what she sees: The image here of that fair strength and grace That made her feared and loved and sought and sung Through centuries.

What chorus shall we lift, what song of joy, What boom of seaward cannon, roll of drums? The majesty of nationhood demands A burst of royal sounds, as when a victor comes From peril of a thousand foes; An empire's honour saved from death Brought home again; an added rose Of victory upon its wreath. In this wise men have greeted kings, In name or fame, But such acclaim Were vain and emptiest of things If love were silent, drawn apart, And mute the People's mighty heart.

The love that ivy-like an ancient land doth cherish, It grows not in a day, nor in a year doth perish. But, little leaf by leaf, It creeps along the walls and wreathes the ramparts hoary. The sun that gives it strength -- it is a nation's glory; The dew, a people's grief.

The love that ivy-like around a home-land lingers, With soft embrace of breast and green, caressive fingers, We are too young to know. Not ours the glory-dome, the monuments and arches At thought of which takes arms the blood, and proudly marches Exultant o'er the foe.

Green lands undesolated For no avengement cry; No feud of race unsated Leaps out again to triumph, Leaps out again to triumph, or to die!

Attendant here to-day in heart and mind Must be all lovers of mankind, Attendant, too, the souls sublime -- The Prophet-souls of every clime, Who, living, in a tyrant's time, Yet thought and wrought and sought to break The chains about mankind and make A man where men had made a slave: Who all intent to lift and save Beheld the flag of Freedom wave And scorned the prison or the grave; For whom the darkness failed to mar The vision of a world afar, The shining of the Morning Star. Attendant here, then, they must be, And gathering close with eyes elate Behold the vision of a State Where men are equal, just, and free: A State that hath no stain upon her, No taint to hurt her maiden honour; A Home where love and kindness centre; A People's House where all may enter. And, being entered, meet no dearth Of welcome round a common hearth; A People's House not built of stone, Nor wrought by hand and brain alone, But formed and founded on the heart; A People's House, A People's Home, En-isled in foam and far apart; A People's House, where all may roam The many rooms and be at ease; A People's House, with tower and dome; And over all a People's Flag -- A Flag upon the breeze.

The Lotus-Flower

All the heights of the high shores gleam Red and gold at the sunset hour: There comes the spell of a magic dream, And the Harbour seems a lotus-flower;

A blue flower tinted at dawn with gold, A broad flower blazing with light at noon, A flower forever with charms to hold His heart, who sees it by sun or moon.

Its beauty burns like a ceaseless fire, And tower looks over the top of tower; For all mute things it would seem, aspire To catch a glimpse of the lotus-flower.

Men meet its beauty with furrowed face, And straight the furrows are smoothed away; They buy and sell in the market-place, And languor leadens their blood all day.

At night they look on the flower, and lo! The City passes with all its cares: They dream no more in its azure glow, Of gold and silver and stocks and shares.

The Lotus dreams 'neath the dreaming skies, Its beauty touching with spell divine The grey old town, till the old town lies Like one half-drunk with a magic wine.

Star-loved, it breathes at the midnight hour A sense of peace from its velvet mouth. Though flowers be fair -- is there any flower Like this blue flower of the radiant South?

Sun-loved and lit by the moon it yields A challenge-glory or glow serene, And men bethink them of jewelled shields, A turquoise lighting a ground of green.

Fond lovers pacing beside it see Not death and darkness, but life and light, And dream no dream of the witchery The Lotus sheds on the silent night.

Pale watchers weary of watching stars That fall, and fall, and forever fall, Tear-worn and troubled with many scars, They seek the Lotus and end life's thrall.

The spirit spelled by the Lotus swoons, Its beauty summons the artist mood; And thus, perchance, in a thousand moons Its spell shall work in our waiting blood.

Then souls shall shine with an old-time grace, And sense be wrapped in a golden trance, And art be crowned in the market-place With Love and Beauty and fair Romance.

David McKee Wright.

An Old Colonist's Reverie

Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn, Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn; It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang, The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea -- "The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free."

The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away, All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay -- I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again; But the good new days are better -- I would not be heard to complain; It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.

Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid, Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade, And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie, With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.

And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know, Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow; All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea, But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.

There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking in bloom I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom. Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May, But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey; While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted haze of the sea, To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.

The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom, The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue, Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life running through; And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.

Christopher John Brennan.

Romance

Of old, on her terrace at evening ...not here...in some long-gone kingdom O, folded close to her breast!...

--our gaze dwelt wide on the blackness (was it trees? or a shadowy passion the pain of an old-world longing that it sobb'd, that it swell'd, that it shrank?) --the gloom of the forest blurr'd soft on the skirt of the night-skies that shut in our lonely world.

...not here...in some long-gone world...

close-lock'd in that passionate arm-clasp no word did we utter, we stirr'd not: the silence of Death, or of Love... only, round and over us that tearless infinite yearning and the Night with her spread wings rustling folding us with the stars.

...not here...in some long-gone kingdom of old, on her terrace at evening O, folded close to her heart!...

Poppies

Where the poppy-banners flow in and out amongst the corn, spotless morn ever saw us come and go

hand in hand, as girl and boy warming fast to youth and maid, half afraid at the hint of passionate joy

still in Summer's rose unshown: yet we heard nor knew a fear; strong and clear summer's eager clarion blown

from the sunrise to the set: now our feet are far away, night and day, do the old-known spots forget?

Sweet, I wonder if those hours breathe of us now parted thence, if a sense of our love-birth thrill their flowers.

Poppies flush all tremulous -- has our love grown into them, root and stem; are the red blooms red with us?

Summer's standards are outroll'd, other lovers wander slow; I would know if the morn is that of old.

Here our days bloom fuller yet, happiness is all our task; still I ask -- do the vanish'd days forget?

John Le Gay Brereton.

The Sea Maid

In what pearl-paven mossy cave By what green sea Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave, In realms more full of splendid mystery Than that strong northern flood whence came The rise and fall of music in thy name -- Thy waiting name, Oithona!

The magic of the sea's own change In depth and height, From where the eternal order'd billows range To unknown regions of sleep-weary night, Fills, like a wonder-waking spell Whispered by lips of some lone-murmuring shell, Thy dreaming soul, Oithona.

In gladness of thy reverie What gracious form Will fly the errand of our love to thee, By ways with winged messengers aswarm Through dawn of opalescent skies, To say the time is come and bid thee rise And be our child, Oithona?

Home

"Where shall we dwell?" say you. Wandering winds reply: "In a temple with roof of blue -- Under the splendid sky."

Never a nobler home We'll find though an age we try Than is arched by the azure dome Of the all-enfolding sky.

Here we are wed, and here We live under God's own eye. "Where shall we dwell," my dear? Under the splendid sky.

Wilfred

What of these tender feet That have never toddled yet? What dances shall they beat, With what red vintage wet? In what wild way will they march or stray, by what sly paynims met?

The toil of it none may share; By yourself must the way be won Through fervid or frozen air Till the overland journey's done; And I would not take, for your own dear sake, one thorn from your track, my son.

Go forth to your hill and dale, Yet take in your hand from me A staff when your footsteps fail, A weapon if need there be; 'Twill hum in your ear when the foeman's near, athirst for the victory.

In the desert of dusty death It will point to the hidden spring; Should you weary and fail for breath, It will burgeon and branch and swing Till you sink to sleep in its shadow deep to the sound of its murmuring.

. . . . .