Chapter 2

Several attempts have been made to maintain magazines and reviews in Sydney and Melbourne, but none of them could compete successfully with the imported English periodicals. `The Colonial Monthly', `The Melbourne Review', `The Sydney Quarterly', and `The Centennial Magazine' were the most important of these. They cost more to produce than their English models, and the fact that their contents were Australian was not sufficient in itself to obtain for them adequate support. Newspapers have played a far more important part in our literary world. `The Australasian', `Sydney Mail' and `Queenslander' have done a good deal to encourage local writers, but the most powerful influence has been that of `The Bulletin', started in Sydney in 1880. Its racy, irreverent tone and its humour are characteristically Australian, and through its columns the first realistic Australian verse of any importance -- the writings of Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson -- became widely known. When published in book form, their verses met with phenomenal success; Paterson's "The Man from Snowy River" (1895) having already attained a circulation of over thirty thousand copies. It is the first of a long series of volumes, issued during the last ten years, whose character is far more distinctively Australian than that of their predecessors. Their number and success are evidences of the lively interest taken by the present generation here in its native literature.

Australia has now come of age, and is becoming conscious of its strength and its possibilities. Its writers to-day are, as a rule, self-reliant and hopeful. They have faith in their own country; they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry in the grand manner, and that some of it is lacking in technical finish; but it is a vivid and faithful portrayal of Australia, and its ruggedness is in character. It is hoped that this selection from the verse that has been written up to the present time will be found a not unworthy contribution to the great literature of the English-speaking peoples.

William Charles Wentworth.

Australasia

Celestial poesy! whose genial sway Earth's furthest habitable shores obey; Whose inspirations shed their sacred light, Far as the regions of the Arctic night, And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam, -- Descend thou also on my native land, And on some mountain-summit take thy stand; Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene; And there a richer, nobler fane arise, Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes. And tho', bright goddess, on the far blue hills, That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills Where Warragamba's rage has rent in twain Opposing mountains, thundering to the plain, No child of song has yet invoked thy aid 'Neath their primeval solitary shade, -- Still, gracious Pow'r, some kindling soul inspire, To wake to life my country's unknown lyre, That from creation's date has slumbering lain, Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain; And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along, -- An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page To nature true may charm in ev'ry age; -- And that an Austral Pindar daring soar, Where not the Theban eagle reach'd before. And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide; -- Should thy tamed Lion -- spent his former might, -- No longer roar the terror of the fight; -- Should e'er arrive that dark disastrous hour, When bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r; -- When thou, no longer freest of the free, To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee; -- May all thy glories in another sphere Relume, and shine more brightly still than here; May this, thy last-born infant, then arise, To glad thy heart and greet thy parent eyes; And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, A new Britannia in another world.

Charles Harpur.

Love

She loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips The live confession came, like rich perfume From crimson petals bursting into bloom! And still my heart at the remembrance skips Like a young lion, and my tongue, too, trips As drunk with joy! while every object seen In life's diurnal round wears in its mien A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse. And if the common things of nature now Are like old faces flushed with new delight, Much more the consciousness of that rich vow Deepens the beauteous, and refines the bright, While throned I seem on love's divinest height 'Mid all the glories glowing round its brow.

Words

Words are deeds. The words we hear May revolutionize or rear A mighty state. The words we read May be a spiritual deed Excelling any fleshly one, As much as the celestial sun Transcends a bonfire, made to throw A light upon some raree-show. A simple proverb tagged with rhyme May colour half the course of time; The pregnant saying of a sage May influence every coming age; A song in its effects may be More glorious than Thermopylae, And many a lay that schoolboys scan A nobler feat than Inkerman.

A Coast View

High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet Riseth in Babylonian mass above, In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone, And gaze with a keen wondering happiness Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream -- Into great spaces mapped by light and shade In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds The billows darken, or they shimmer bright In sunny scopes of measureless expanse. 'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour, Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God! What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled In slumber, under that wide-shining face! While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen, Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still Comes rising with them from the void beyond, Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep And carried upward by ethereal hands.

William Forster.

`The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping'

The love in her eyes lay sleeping, As stars that unconscious shine, Till, under the pink lids peeping, I wakened it up with mine; And we pledged our troth to a brimming oath In a bumper of blood-red wine. Alas! too well I know That it happened long ago; Those memories yet remain, And sting, like throbs of pain, And I'm alone below, But still the red wine warms, and the rosy goblets glow; If love be the heart's enslaver, 'Tis wine that subdues the head. But which has the fairest flavour, And whose is the soonest shed? Wine waxes in power in that desolate hour When the glory of love is dead. Love lives on beauty's ray, But night comes after day, And when the exhausted sun His high career has run, The stars behind him stay, And then the light that lasts consoles our darkening way. When beauty and love are over, And passion has spent its rage, And the spectres of memory hover, And glare on life's lonely stage, 'Tis wine that remains to kindle the veins And strengthen the steps of age. Love takes the taint of years, And beauty disappears, But wine in worth matures The longer it endures, And more divinely cheers, And ripens with the suns and mellows with the spheres.

James Lionel Michael.

`Through Pleasant Paths'

Through pleasant paths, through dainty ways, Love leads my feet; Where beauty shines with living rays, Soft, gentle, sweet; The placid heart at random strays, And sings, and smiles, and laughs and plays, And gathers from the summer days Their light and heat, That in its chambers burn and blaze And beam and beat.

I throw myself among the ferns Under the shade, And watch the summer sun that burns On dell and glade; To thee, my dear, my fancy turns, In thee its Paradise discerns, For thee it sighs, for thee it yearns, My chosen maid; And that still depth of passion learns Which cannot fade.

The wind that whispers in the night, Subtle and free, The gorgeous noonday's blinding light, On hill and tree, All lovely things that meet my sight, All shifting lovelinesses bright, Speak to my heart with calm delight, Seeming to be Cloth'd with enchantment, robed in white, To sing of thee.

The ways of life are hard and cold To one alone; Bitter the strife for place and gold -- We weep and groan: But when love warms the heart grows bold; And when our arms the prize enfold, Dearest! the heart can hardly hold The bliss unknown, Unspoken, never to be told -- My own, my own!

Personality

"Death is to us change, not consummation." Heart of Midlothian.

A change! no, surely, not a change, The change must be before we die; Death may confer a wider range, From pole to pole, from sea to sky, It cannot make me new or strange To mine own Personality!

For what am I? -- this mortal flesh, These shrinking nerves, this feeble frame, For ever racked with ailments fresh And scarce from day to day the same -- A fly within the spider's mesh, A moth that plays around the flame!

THIS is not I -- within such coil The immortal spirit rests awhile: When this shall lie beneath the soil, Which its mere mortal parts defile, THAT shall for ever live and foil Mortality, and pain, and guile.

Whatever Time may make of me Eternity must see me still Clear from the dross of earth, and free From every stain of every ill; Yet still, where-e'er -- what-e'er I be, Time's work Eternity must fill.

When all the worlds have ceased to roll, When the long light has ceased to quiver When we have reached our final goal And stand beside the Living River, This vital spark -- this loving soul, Must last for ever and for ever.

To choose what I must be is mine, Mine in these few and fleeting days, I may be if I will, divine, Standing before God's throne in praise, -- Through all Eternity to shine In yonder Heaven's sapphire blaze.

Father, the soul that counts it gain To love Thee and Thy law on earth, Unchanged but free from mortal stain, Increased in knowledge and in worth, And purified from this world's pain, Shall find through Thee a second birth.

A change! no surely not a change! The change must be before we die; Death may confer a wider range From world to world, from sky to sky, It cannot make me new or strange To mine own Personality!

Daniel Henry Deniehy.

Love in a Cottage

A cottage small be mine, with porch Enwreathed with ivy green, And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells, 'Mid brown old wattles seen.

And one to wait at shut of eve, With eyes as fountain clear, And braided hair, and simple dress, My homeward step to hear.

On summer eves to sing old songs, And talk o'er early vows, While stars look down like angels' eyes Amid the leafy boughs.

When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells, And bright-winged parrots call, In forest paths be ours to rove Till purple evenings fall.

The curtains closed, by taper clear To read some page divine, On winter nights, the hearth beside, Her soft, warm hand in mine.

And so to glide through busy life, Like some small brook alone, That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls, Its music all its own.

A Song for the Night

O the Night, the Night, the solemn Night, When Earth is bound with her silent zone, And the spangled sky seems a temple wide, Where the star-tribes kneel at the Godhead's throne; O the Night, the Night, the wizard Night, When the garish reign of day is o'er, And the myriad barques of the dream-elves come In a brightsome fleet from Slumber's shore! O the Night for me, When blithe and free, Go the zephyr-hounds on their airy chase; When the moon is high In the dewy sky, And the air is sweet as a bride's embrace!

O the Night, the Night, the charming Night! From the fountain side in the myrtle shade, All softly creep on the slumbrous air The waking notes of the serenade; While bright eyes shine 'mid the lattice-vines, And white arms droop o'er the sculptured sills, And accents fall to the knights below, Like the babblings soft of mountain rills. Love in their eyes, Love in their sighs, Love in the heave of each lily-bright bosom; In words so clear, Lest the listening ear And the waiting heart may lose them.

O the silent Night, when the student dreams Of kneeling crowds round a sage's tomb; And the mother's eyes o'er the cradle rain Tears for her baby's fading bloom; O the peaceful Night, when stilled and o'er Is the charger's tramp on the battle plain, And the bugle's sound and the sabre's flash, While the moon looks sad over heaps of slain; And tears bespeak On the iron cheek Of the sentinel lonely pacing, Thoughts which roll Through his fearless soul, Day's sterner mood replacing.

O the sacred Night, when memory comes With an aspect mild and sweet to me, But her tones are sad as a ballad air In childhood heard on a nurse's knee; And round her throng fair forms long fled, With brows of snow and hair of gold, And eyes with the light of summer skies, And lips that speak of the days of old. Wide is your flight, O spirits of Night, By strath, and stream, and grove, But most in the gloom Of the Poet's room Ye choose, fair ones, to rove.

Richard Rowe.

Superstites Rosae

The grass is green upon her grave, The west wind whispers low; "The corn is changed, come forth, come forth, Ere all the blossoms go!"

In vain. Her laughing eyes are sealed, And cold her sunny brow; Last year she smiled upon the flowers -- They smile above her now!

Soul Ferry

High and dry upon the shingle lies the fisher's boat to-night; From his roof-beam dankly drooping, raying phosphorescent light, Spectral in its pale-blue splendour, hangs his heap of scaly nets, And the fisher, lapt in slumber, surge and seine alike forgets.

Hark! there comes a sudden knocking, and the fisher starts from sleep, As a hollow voice and ghostly bids him once more seek the deep; Wearily across his shoulder flingeth he the ashen oar, And upon the beach descending finds a skiff beside the shore.

'Tis not his, but he must enter -- rocking on the waters dim, Awful in their hidden presence, who are they that wait for him? Who are they that sit so silent, as he pulleth from the land -- Nothing heard save rumbling rowlock, wave soft-breaking on the sand?

Chill adown the tossing channel blows the wailing, wand'ring breeze, Lonely in the murky midnight, mutt'ring mournful memories, -- Summer lands where once it brooded, wrecks that widows' hearts have wrung -- Swift the dreary boat flies onwards, spray, like rain, around it flung.

On a pebbled strand it grateth, ghastly cliffs around it loom, Thin and melancholy voices faintly murmur through the gloom; Voices only, lipless voices, and the fisherman turns pale, As the mother greets her children, sisters landing brothers hail.

Lightened of its unseen burden, cork-like rides the rocking bark, Fast the fisherman flies homewards o'er the billows deep and dark; THAT boat needs no mortal's mooring -- sad at heart he seeks his bed, For his life henceforth is clouded -- he hath piloted the Dead!

Sir Henry Parkes.

The Buried Chief

(November 6th, 1886)

With speechless lips and solemn tread They brought the Lawyer-Statesman home: They laid him with the gather'd dead, Where rich and poor like brothers come.

How bravely did the stripling climb, From step to step the rugged hill: His gaze thro' that benighted time Fix'd on the far-off beacon still.

He faced the storm that o'er him burst, With pride to match the proudest born: He bore unblench'd Detraction's worst, -- Paid blow for blow, and scorn for scorn.

He scaled the summit while the sun Yet shone upon his conquer'd track: Nor falter'd till the goal was won, Nor struggling upward, once look'd back.

But what avails the "pride of place", Or winged chariot rolling past? He heeds not now who wins the race, Alike to him the first or last.

Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood').

Perdita

She is beautiful yet, with her wondrous hair And eyes that are stormy with fitful light, The delicate hues of brow and cheek Are unmarred all, rose-clear and bright; That matchless frame yet holds at bay The crouching bloodhounds, Remorse, Decay.

There is no fear in her great dark eyes -- No hope, no love, no care, Stately and proud she looks around With a fierce, defiant stare; Wild words deform her reckless speech, Her laugh has a sadness tears never reach.

Whom should she fear on earth? Can Fate One direr torment lend To her few little years of glitter and gloom With the sad old story to end When the spectres of Loneliness, Want and Pain Shall arise one night with Death in their train?

. . . . .

I see in a vision a woman like her Trip down an orchard slope, With rosy prattlers that shout a name In tones of rapture and hope; While the yeoman, gazing at children and wife, Thanks God for the pride and joy of his life.

. . . . .

Whose conscience is heavy with this dark guilt? Who pays at the final day For a wasted body, a murdered soul, And how shall he answer, I say, For her outlawed years, her early doom, And despair -- despair -- beyond the tomb?

Adam Lindsay Gordon.

A Dedication

They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less Of sound than of words, In lands where bright blossoms are scentless, And songless bright birds; Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses, Insatiable summer oppresses Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses, And faint flocks and herds.

Where in dreariest days, when all dews end, And all winds are warm, Wild Winter's large flood-gates are loosen'd, And floods, freed from storm, From broken-up fountain heads, dash on Dry deserts with long pent up passion -- Here rhyme was first framed without fashion -- Song shaped without form.

Whence gather'd? -- The locust's glad chirrup May furnish a stave; The ring of a rowel and stirrup, The wash of a wave; The chaunt of the marsh frog in rushes, That chimes through the pauses and hushes Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes, The tempests that rave;

In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples The dusk of the sky, With streaks like the redd'ning of apples, The ripening of rye. To eastward, when cluster by cluster, Dim stars and dull planets, that muster, Wax wan in a world of white lustre That spreads far and high;

In the gathering of night gloom o'erhead, in The still silent change, All fire-flush'd when forest trees redden On slopes of the range. When the gnarl'd, knotted trunks Eucalyptian Seem carved, like weird columns Egyptian, With curious device, quaint inscription, And hieroglyph strange;

In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles 'Twixt shadow and shine, When each dew-laden air draught resembles A long draught of wine; When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance Makes deeper the dreamiest distance, Some song in all hearts hath existence, -- Such songs have been mine.

Thora's Song

We severed in Autumn early, Ere the earth was torn by the plough; The wheat and the oats and the barley Are ripe for the harvest now. We sunder'd one misty morning Ere the hills were dimm'd by the rain; Through the flowers those hills adorning -- Thou comest not back again.

My heart is heavy and weary With the weight of a weary soul; The mid-day glare grows dreary, And dreary the midnight scroll. The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle, 'Neath the load of their golden grain; I sigh for a mate more fickle -- Thou comest not back again.

The warm sun riseth and setteth, The night bringeth moistening dew, But the soul that longeth forgetteth The warmth and the moisture too. In the hot sun rising and setting There is naught save feverish pain; There are tears in the night-dews wetting -- Thou comest not back again.

Thy voice in my ear still mingles With the voices of whisp'ring trees, Thy kiss on my cheek still tingles At each kiss of the summer breeze. While dreams of the past are thronging For substance of shades in vain, I am waiting, watching and longing -- Thou comest not back again.

Waiting and watching ever, Longing and lingering yet; Leaves rustle and corn-stalks quiver, Winds murmur and waters fret. No answer they bring, no greeting, No speech, save that sad refrain, Nor voice, save an echo repeating -- He cometh not back again.

The Sick Stock-rider

Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade. Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed, All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride. The dawn at "Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense, The sun-rise was a sullen, sluggish lamp; I was dozing in the gateway at Arbuthnot's bound'ry fence, I was dreaming on the Limestone cattle camp. We crossed the creek at Carricksford, and sharply through the haze, And suddenly the sun shot flaming forth; To southward lay "Katawa", with the sand peaks all ablaze, And the flushed fields of Glen Lomond lay to north. Now westward winds the bridle-path that leads to Lindisfarm, And yonder looms the double-headed Bluff; From the far side of the first hill, when the skies are clear and calm, You can see Sylvester's woolshed fair enough. Five miles we used to call it from our homestead to the place Where the big tree spans the roadway like an arch; 'Twas here we ran the dingo down that gave us such a chase Eight years ago -- or was it nine? -- last March. 'Twas merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass, To wander as we've wandered many a mile, And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass, Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while. 'Twas merry 'mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs, To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard, With a running fire of stock whips and a fiery run of hoofs; Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard! Aye! we had a glorious gallop after "Starlight" and his gang, When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat; How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang, To the strokes of "Mountaineer" and "Acrobat". Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath, Close beside them through the tea-tree scrub we dash'd; And the golden-tinted fern leaves, how they rustled underneath; And the honeysuckle osiers, how they crash'd! We led the hunt throughout, Ned, on the chestnut and the grey, And the troopers were three hundred yards behind, While we emptied our six-shooters on the bushrangers at bay, In the creek with stunted box-trees for a blind! There you grappled with the leader, man to man, and horse to horse, And you roll'd together when the chestnut rear'd; He blazed away and missed you in that shallow water-course -- A narrow shave -- his powder singed your beard!