Chapter 7

For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his arts -- They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts. But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs above -- The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.

Well have we held our father's creed. No call has passed us by. We faced and fought the wilderness, we sent our sons to die. And we have hearts to do and dare, and yet, o'er all the rest, The hearts that made the Nation were the Women of the West.

Mary Colborne-Veel.

`What Look hath She?'

What look hath she, What majestie, That must so high approve her? What graces move That I so love, That I so greatly love her?

No majestie But Truth hath She; Thoughts sweet and gracious move her; That straight approve My heart to love, And all my life to love her!

Saturday Night

Saturday night in the crowded town; Pleasure and pain going up and down, Murmuring low on the ear there beat Echoes unceasing of voice and feet. Withered age, with its load of care, Come in this tumult of life to share, Childhood glad in its radiance brief, Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief, Meet alike, as the stars look down Week by week on the crowded town.

~And in a kingdom of mystery, Rapt from this weariful world to see Magic sights in the yellow glare, Breathing delight in the gas-lit air, Careless of sorrow, of grief or pain, Two by two, again and again, Strephon and Chloe together move, Walking in Arcady, land of love.~

What are the meanings that burden all These murmuring voices that rise and fall? Tragedies whispered of, secrets told, Over the baskets of bought and sold; Joyous speech of the lately wed; Broken lamentings that name the dead: Endless runes of the gossip's rede, And gathered home with the weekly need, Kindly greetings as neighbours meet There in the stir of the busy street.

Then is the glare of the gaslight ray Gifted with potency strange to-day, Records of time-written history Flash into sight as each face goes by. There, as the hundreds slow moving go, Each with his burden of joy or woe, Souls, in the meeting of stranger's eyes, Startled this kinship to recognise, -- Meet and part, as the stars look down, Week by week on the crowded town.

~And still, in the midst of the busy hum, Rapt in their dream of delight they come. Heedless of sorrow, of grief or care, Wandering on in enchanted air, Far from the haunting shadow of pain: Two by two, again and again, Strephon and Chloe together move, Walking in Arcady, land of love.~

`Resurgam'

(Autumn Song)

Chill breezes moaning are Where leaves hang yellow: O'er the grey hills afar Flies the last swallow; To come again, my love, to come again Blithe with the summer. But Ah! the long months ere we welcome then That bright new comer.

Cold lie the flowers and dead Where leaves are falling. Meekly they bowed and sped At Autumn's calling. To come again, my love, to come again Blithe with the swallow. Ah! might I dreaming lie at rest till then, Or rise and follow!

The summer blooms are gone, And bright birds darting; Cold lies the earth forlorn; And we are parting. To meet again, my love, to meet again In deathless greeting, But ah! what wintry bitterness of pain Ere that far meeting!

Distant Authors

"Aqui esta encerrada el alma licenciado Pedro Garcias."

Dear books! and each the living soul, Our hearts aver, of men unseen, Whose power to strengthen, charm, control, Surmounts all earth's green miles between.

For us at least the artists show Apart from fret of work-day jars: We know them but as friends may know, Or they are known beyond the stars.

Their mirth, their grief, their soul's desire, When twilight murmuring of streams, Or skies far touched by sunset fire, Exalt them to pure worlds of dreams;

Their love of good; their rage at wrong; Their hours when struggling thought makes way; Their hours when fancy drifts to song Lightly and glad as bird-trills may;

All these are truths. And if as true More graceless scrutiny that reads, "These fruits amid strange husking grew;" "These lilies blossomed amongst weeds;"

Here no despoiling doubts shall blow, No fret of feud, of work-day jars. We know them but as friends may know, Or they are known beyond the stars.

John Bernard O'Hara.

Happy Creek

The little creek goes winding Thro' gums of white and blue, A silver arm Around the farm It flings, a lover true; And softly, where the rushes lean, It sings (O sweet and low) A lover's song, And winds along, How happy -- lovers know!

The little creek goes singing By maidenhair and moss, Along its banks In rosy ranks The wild flowers wave and toss; And ever where the ferns dip down It sings (O sweet and low) A lover's song, And winds along, How happy -- lovers know!

The little creek takes colour, From summer skies above; Now blue, now gold, Its waters fold The clouds in closest love; But loudly when the thunders roll It sings (nor sweet, nor low) No lover's song, But sweeps along, How angry -- lovers know!

The little creek for ever Goes winding, winding down, Away, away, By night, by day, Where dark the ranges frown; But ever as it glides it sings, It sings (O sweet and low) A lover's song, And winds along, How happy -- lovers know!

A Country Village

Among the folding hills It lies, a quiet nook, Where dreaming nature fills Sweet pages of her book, While through the meadow flowers She sings in summer hours, Or weds the woodland rills Low-laughing to the brook.

The graveyard whitely gleams Across the soundless vale, So sad, so sweet, yet seems A watcher cold and pale That waits through many springs The tribute old Time brings, And knows, though life be loud, The reaper may not fail.

Here come not feet of change From year to fading year; Ringed by the rolling range No world-wide notes men hear. The wheels of time may stand Here in a lonely land, Age after age may pass Untouched of change or cheer;

As still the farmer keeps The same dull round of things; He reaps and sows and reaps, And clings, as ivy clings, To old-time trust, nor cares What science does or dares, What lever moves the world, What progress spreads its wings.

Yet here, of woman born, Are lives that know not rest, With fierce desires that scorn The quiet life as best; That see in wider ways Life's richer splendours blaze, And feel ambition's fire Burn in their ardent breast.

Yea, some that fain would know Life's purpose strange and vast, How wide is human woe, What wailing of the past Still strikes the present dumb, What phantoms go and come Of wrongs that cry aloud, "At last, O God! at last!"

Here, too, are dreams that wing Rich regions of Romance; Love waking when the Spring Begins its first wild dance, Love redder than the rose, Love paler than the snows, Love frail as corn that tilts With morning winds a lance.

For never land so lone That love could find not wings In every wind that's blown By lips of jewelled springs, For love is life's sweet pain, And when sweet life is slain It finds a radiant rest Beyond the change of things.

Beyond the shocks that jar, The chance of changing fate, Where fraud and violence are, And heedless lust and hate; Yet still where faith is clear, And honour held most dear, And hope that seeks the dawn Looks up with heart elate.

Flinders

He left his island home For leagues of sleepless foam, For stress of alien seas, Where wild winds ever blow; For England's sake he sought Fresh fields of fame, and fought A stormy world for these A hundred years ago.

And where the Austral shore Heard southward far the roar Of rising tides that came From lands of ice and snow, Beneath a gracious sky To fadeless memory He left a deathless name A hundred years ago.

Yea, left a name sublime From that wild dawn of Time, Whose light he haply saw In supreme sunrise flow, And from the shadows vast, That filled the dim dead past, A brighter glory draw, A hundred years ago.

Perchance, he saw in dreams Beside our sunlit streams In some majestic hour Old England's banners blow; Mayhap, the radiant morn Of this great nation born, August with perfect power, A hundred years ago.

We know not, -- yet for thee Far may the season be, Whose harp in shameful sleep Is soundless lying low! Far be the noteless hour That holds of fame no flower For those who dared our deep A hundred years ago.

M. A. Sinclair.

The Chatelaine

I have built one, so have you; Paved with marble, domed with blue, Battlement and ladies' bower, Donjon keep and watchman's tower.

I have climbed, as you have done, To the tower at set of sun -- Crying from its parlous height, "Watchman, tell us of the night."

I have stolen at midnight bell, Like you, to the secret cell, Shuddering at its charnel breath -- Left lockfast the spectre, Death.

I have used your lure to call Choice guests to my golden hall: Rarely welcome, rarely free To my hospitality.

In a glow of rosy light Hours, like minutes, take their flight -- As from you they fled away, When, like you, I bade them stay.

Ah! the pretty flow of wit, And the good hearts under it; While the wheels of life go round With a most melodious sound.

Not a vestige anywhere Of our grim familiar, Care -- Roses! from the trees of yore Blooming by the rivers four.

Not a jar, and not a fret; Ecstasy and longing met. But why should I thus define -- Is not your chateau like mine?

Scarcely were it strange to meet In that magic realm so sweet, So! I'll take this dreamland train Bound for my chateau in Spain.

Sydney Jephcott.

Chaucer

O gracious morning eglantine, Making the far old English ways divine! Though from thy stock our mateless rose was bred, Staining the world's skies with its red, Our garden gives no scent so fresh as thine, Sweet, thorny-seeming eglantine.

White Paper

Smooth white paper 'neath the pen; Richest field that iron ploughs, Germinating thoughts of men, Though no heaven its rain allows;

Till they ripen, thousand fold, And our spirits reap the corn, In a day-long dream of gold; Food for all the souls unborn.

Like the murmur of the earth, When we listen stooping low; Like the sap that sings in mirth, Hastening up the trees that grow;

Evermore a tiny song Sings the pen unto it, while Thought's elixir flows along, Diviner than the holy Nile.

Greater than the sphering sea, For it holds the sea and land; Seed of all ideas to be Down its current borne like sand.

How our fathers in the dark Pored on it the plans obscure, By star-light or stake-fires stark Tracing there the path secure.

The poor paper drawn askance With the spell of Truth half-known, Holds back Hell of ignorance, Roaring round us, thronged, alone.

O white list of champions, Spirit born, and schooled for fight, Mailed in armour of the sun's Who shall win our utmost right!

Think of paper lightly sold, Which few pence had made too dear On its blank to have enscrolled Beatrice, Lucifer, or Lear!

Think of paper Milton took, Written, in his hands to feel, Musing of what things a look Down its pages would reveal.

O the glorious Heaven wrought By Cadmean souls of yore, From pure element of thought! And thy leaves they are its door!

Light they open, and we stand Past the sovereignty of Fate, Glad amongst them, calm and grand, The Creators and Create!

Splitting

Morning.

Out from the hut at break of day, And up the hills in the dawning grey; With the young wind flowing From the blue east, growing Red with the white sun's ray!

Lone and clear as a deep-bright dream Under mid-night's and mid-slumber's stream, Up rises the mount against the sunrise shower, Vast as a kingdom, fair as a flower: O'er it doth the foam of foliage ream

In vivid softness serene, Pearly-purple and marble green; Clear in their mingling tinges, Up away to the crest that fringes Skies studded with cloud-crags sheen.

Day.

Like birds frayed from their lurking-shaw, Like ripples fleet 'neath a furious flaw, The echoes re-echo, flying Down from the mauls hot-plying; Clatter the axes, grides the saw.

Ruddy and white the chips out-spring, Like money sown by a pageant king; The free wood yields to the driven wedges, With its white sap-edges, And heart in the sunshine glistening.

Broadly the ice-clear azure floods down, Where the great tree-tops are overthrown; As on through the endless day we labour; The sun for our nearest neighbour, Up o'er the mountains lone.

And so intensely it doth illume, That it shuts by times to gloom; In the open spaces thrilling; From the dead leaves distilling A hot and harsh perfume.

Evening.

Give over! All the valleys in sight Fill, fill with the rising tide of night; While the sunset with gold-dust bridges The black-ravined ridges, Whose mighty muscles curve in its light.

In our weary climb, while night dyes deep, Down the broken and stony steep, How our jaded bodies are shaken By each step in half-blindness taken -- One's thoughts lie heaped like brutes asleep.

Open the door of the dismal hut, Silence and darkness lone were shut In it, as a tidal pool, until returning Night drowns the land, -- no ember's burning, -- One is too weary the food to cut.

Body and soul with every blow, Wasted for ever, and who will know, Where, past this mountained night of toiling, Red life in its thousand veins is boiling, Of chips scattered on the mountain's brow?

Home-woe

The wreckage of some name-forgotten barque, Half-buried by the dolorous shore; Whereto the living waters never more Their urgent billows pour; But the salt spray can reach and cark --

So lies my spirit, lonely and forlorn, On Being's strange and perilous strand. And rusted sword and fleshless hand Point from the smothering sand; And anchor chainless and out-worn.

But o'er what Deep, unconquered and uncharted, And steering by what vanished star; And where my dim-imagined consorts are, Or hidden harbour far, From whence my sails, unblessed, departed,

Can memory, nor still intuition teach. And so I watch with alien eyes This World's remote and unremembered skies; While around me weary rise The babblings of a foreign speech.

A Ballad of the last King of Thule

There was a King of Thule Whom a Witch-wife stole at birth; In a country known but newly, All under the dumb, huge Earth.

That King's in a Forest toiling; And he never the green sward delves But he sees all his green waves boiling Over his sands and shelves;

In these sunsets vast and fiery, In these dawns divine he sees Hy-Brasil, Mannan and Eire, And the Isle of Appletrees;

He watches, heart-still and breathless, The clouds through the deep day trailing, As the white-winged vessels gathered, Into his harbours sailing;

Ranked Ibis and lazy Eagles In the great blue flame may rise, But ne'er Sea-mew or Solan beating Up through their grey low skies;

When the storm-led fires are breaking, Great waves of the molten night, Deep in his eyes comes aching The icy Boreal Light.

. . . . .

O, lost King, and O, people perished, Your Thule has grown one grave! Unvisited as uncherished, Save by the wandering wave!

The billows burst in his doorways, The spray swoops over his walls! -- O, his banners that throb dishonoured O'er arms that hide in his halls --

Deserved is your desolation! -- Why could you not stir and save The last-born heir of your nation? -- Sold into the South, a slave

Till he dies, and is buried duly In the hot Australian earth -- The lorn, lost King of Thule, Whom a Witch-wife stole at birth.

A Fragment

But, under all, my heart believes the day Was not diviner over Athens, nor The West wind sweeter thro' the Cyclades Than here and now; and from the altar of To-day The eloquent, quick tongues of flame uprise As fervid, if not unfaltering as of old, And life atones with speed and plenitude For coarser texture. Our poor present will, Far in the brooding future, make a past Full of the morning's music still, and starred With great tears shining on the eyelids' eaves Of our immortal faces yearning t'wards the sun.

Andrew Barton Paterson (`Banjo').

The Daylight is Dying

The daylight is dying Away in the west, The wild birds are flying In silence to rest; In leafage and frondage Where shadows are deep, They pass to their bondage -- The kingdom of sleep. And watched in their sleeping By stars in the height, They rest in your keeping, Oh, wonderful night.

When night doth her glories Of starshine unfold, 'Tis then that the stories Of bushland are told. Unnumbered I hold them In memories bright, But who could unfold them, Or read them aright?

Beyond all denials The stars in their glories The breeze in the myalls Are part of these stories. The waving of grasses, The song of the river That sings as it passes For ever and ever, The hobble-chains' rattle, The calling of birds, The lowing of cattle Must blend with the words. Without these, indeed, you Would find it ere long, As though I should read you The words of a song That lamely would linger When lacking the rune, The voice of the singer, The lilt of the tune.

But, as one half-hearing An old-time refrain, With memory clearing, Recalls it again, These tales, roughly wrought of The bush and its ways, May call back a thought of The wandering days. And, blending with each In the mem'ries that throng, There haply shall reach You some echo of song.

Clancy of the Overflow

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago, He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, (And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar) 'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

. . . . .

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go; As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing, For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars, And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

. . . . .

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall, And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city, Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street, And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting, Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste, With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy, For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy, Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go, While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal -- But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".

Black Swans

As I lie at rest on a patch of clover In the Western Park when the day is done, I watch as the wild black swans fly over With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; And I hear the clang of their leader crying To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, And they fade away in the darkness dying, Where the stars are mustering one by one.

Oh! ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder For a while to join in your westward flight, With the stars above and the dim earth under, Through the cooling air of the glorious night. As we swept along on our pinions winging, We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing, Or the distant note of a torrent singing, Or the far-off flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes, Where the hills are clothed with a purple haze, Where the bell-birds chime and the songs of thrushes Make music sweet in the jungle maze, They will hold their course to the westward ever, Till they reach the banks of the old grey river, Where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiver In the burning heat of the summer days.

Oh! ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greeting To the folk that live in that western land? Then for every sweep of your pinions beating, Ye shall bear a wish to the sunburnt band, To the stalwart men who are stoutly fighting With the heat and drought and the dust-storm smiting, Yet whose life somehow has a strange inviting, When once to the work they have put their hand.

Facing it yet! Oh, my friend stout-hearted, What does it matter for rain or shine, For the hopes deferred and the gain departed? Nothing could conquer that heart of thine. And thy health and strength are beyond confessing As the only joys that are worth possessing. May the days to come be as rich in blessing As the days we spent in the auld lang syne.

I would fain go back to the old grey river, To the old bush days when our hearts were light, But, alas! those days they have fled for ever, They are like the swans that have swept from sight. And I know full well that the strangers' faces Would meet us now in our dearest places; For our day is dead and has left no traces But the thoughts that live in my mind to-night.

There are folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken -- We would grieve for them with a bitter pain, If the past could live and the dead could quicken, We then might turn to that life again. But on lonely nights we would hear them calling, We should hear their steps on the pathways falling, We should loathe the life with a hate appalling In our lonely rides by the ridge and plain.

. . . . .

In the silent park is a scent of clover, And the distant roar of the town is dead, And I hear once more as the swans fly over Their far-off clamour from overhead. They are flying west, by their instinct guided, And for man likewise is his fate decided, And griefs apportioned and joys divided By a mighty power with a purpose dread.

The Travelling Post Office

The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway, The sleepy river murmurs low, and loiters on its way, It is the land of lots o' time along the Castlereagh.

. . . . .

The old man's son had left the farm, he found it dull and slow, He drifted to the great North-west where all the rovers go. "He's gone so long," the old man said, "he's dropped right out of mind, But if you'd write a line to him I'd take it very kind; He's shearing here and fencing there, a kind of waif and stray, He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh. The sheep are travelling for the grass, and travelling very slow; They may be at Mundooran now, or past the Overflow, Or tramping down the black soil flats across by Waddiwong, But all those little country towns would send the letter wrong, The mailman, if he's extra tired, would pass them in his sleep, It's safest to address the note to `Care of Conroy's sheep', For five and twenty thousand head can scarcely go astray, You write to `Care of Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh'."

. . . . .