An Anthology of Australian Verse Part 29

When, with low moanings on the distant sh.o.r.e, Like vain regrets, the ocean-tide is rolled: When, thro' bare boughs, the tale of death is told By breezes sighing, "Summer days are o'er"; When all the days we loved -- the days of yore -- Lie in their vaults, dead Kings who ruled of old -- Unrobed and sceptreless, uncrowned with gold, Conquered, and to be crowned, ah! never more.

If o'er the bare fields, cold and whitening With the first snow-flakes, I should see thy form, And meet and kiss thee, that were enough of Spring; Enough of suns.h.i.+ne, could I feel the warm Glad beating of thy heart 'neath Winter's wing, Tho' Earth were full of whirlwind and of storm.

Mary Gilmore.

A Little Ghost

The moonlight flutters from the sky To meet her at the door, A little ghost, whose steps have pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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! G.o.d 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 Subst.i.tute

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 sh.o.r.e lights of dark Asia will one by one emerge -- Oh, Ras Mars.h.i.+g 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 sh.o.r.e-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 sh.o.r.e, 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 das.h.i.+ng Shall dare a sh.o.r.eward foam; No more will great oars thres.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+pmen; 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 foresh.o.r.es; 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 smas.h.i.+ng On Patagonia's sh.o.r.e!

Oh, hear the black waves thres.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ps 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!