An Anthology of Australian Verse Part 12

John Liddell Kelly.

Immortality

At twenty-five I cast my horoscope, And saw a future with all good things rife -- A firm a.s.surance of eternal life In worlds beyond, and in this world the hope Of deathless fame. But now my sun doth slope To setting, and the toil of sordid strife, The care of food and raiment, child and wife, Have dimmed and narrowed all my spirit's scope.

Eternal life -- a river gulphed in sands!

Undying fame -- a rainbow lost in clouds!

What hope of immortality remains But this: "Some soul that loves and understands Shall save thee from the darkness that enshrouds"; And this: "Thy blood shall course in others' veins"?

Heredity

More than a fleshly immortality Is mine. Though I myself return again To dust, my qualities of heart and brain, Of soul and spirit, shall not cease to be.

I view them growing, day by day, in thee, My first-begotten son; I trace them plain In you, my daughters; and I count it gain Myself renewed and multiplied to see.

But sadness mingles with my selfish joy, At thought of what you may be called to bear.

Oh, pa.s.sionate maid! Oh, glad, impulsive boy!

Your father's sad experience you must share -- Self-torture, the unfeeling world's annoy, Gross pleasure, fierce exultance, grim despair!

Robert Richardson.

A Ballade of Wattle Blossom

There's a land that is happy and fair, Set gem-like in halcyon seas; The white winters visit not there, To sadden its blossoming leas, More bland than the Hesperides, Or any warm isle of the West, Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

When the oak and the elm are bare, And wild winds vex the shuddering trees; There the clematis whitens the air, And the husbandman laughs as he sees The gra.s.s rippling green to his knees, And his vineyards in emerald drest -- Where the wattle-bloom bends in the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

What land is with this to compare?

Not the green hills of Hybla, with bees Honey-sweet, are more radiant and rare In colour and fragrance than these Boon sh.o.r.es, where the storm-clouds cease, And the wind and the wave are at rest -- Where the wattle-bloom waves in the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

Envoy.

Sweetheart, let them praise as they please Other lands, but we know which is best -- Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, And the bell-bird builds her nest.

A Song

Above us only The Southern stars, And the moon o'er br.i.m.m.i.n.g Her golden bars.

And a song sweet and clear As the bell-bird's plaint, Hums low in my ear Like a dream-echo faint.

The kind old song -- How did it go?

With its ripple and flow, That you used to sing, dear, Long ago.

Hand fast in hand, I, love, and thou; Hand locked in hand, And on my brow Your perfumed lips Breathing love and life -- The love of the maiden, The trust of the wife.

And I'm listening still To the ripple and flow -- How did it go? -- Of the little French song Of that long ago.

Can you recall it Across the years?

You used to sing it With laughter and tears.

If you sang it now, dear, That kind old refrain, It would bring back the fragrance Of the dead years again.

Le printemps pour l'amour -- How did it go?

Only we know; Sing it, sweetheart, to-night, As you did long ago.

James Lister Cuthbertson.

Australia Federata

Australia! land of lonely lake And serpent-haunted fen; Land of the torrent and the fire And forest-sundered men: Thou art not now as thou shalt be When the stern invaders come, In the hush before the hurricane, The dread before the drum.

A louder thunder shall be heard Than echoes on thy sh.o.r.e, When o'er the blackened basalt cliffs The foreign cannon roar -- When the stand is made in the sheoaks' shade When heroes fall for thee, And the creeks in gloomy gullies run Dark crimson to the sea:

When under honeysuckles gray, And wattles' swaying gold, The stalwart arm may strike no more, The valiant heart is cold -- When thou shalt know the agony, The fever, and the strife Of those who wrestle against odds For liberty and life:

Then is the great Dominion born, The seven sisters bound, From Sydney's greenly wooded port To lone King George's Sound -- Then shall the islands of the south, The lands of bloom and snow, Forth from their isolation come To meet the common foe.

Then, only then -- when after war Is peace with honour born, When from the bosom of the night Comes golden-sandalled morn, When laurelled victory is thine, And the day of battle done, Shall the heart of a mighty people stir, And Australia be as one.

At Cape Schanck

Down to the lighthouse pillar The rolling woodland comes, Gay with the gold of she-oaks And the green of the stunted gums, With the silver-grey of honeysuckle, With the wasted bracken red, With a tuft of softest emerald And a cloud-flecked sky o'erhead.

We climbed by ridge and boulder, Umber and yellow scarred, Out to the utmost precipice, To the point that was ocean-barred, Till we looked below on the fastness Of the breeding eagle's nest, And Cape Wollomai opened eastward And the Otway on the west.

Over the mirror of azure The purple shadows crept, League upon league of rollers Landward evermore swept, And burst upon gleaming basalt, And foamed in cranny and crack, And mounted in sheets of silver, And hurried reluctant back.