POEMS

BALLAARAT

A VISION OF GOLD
I see a lone stream, rolling down
Through valleys green, by ranges brown
Of hills that bear no name,
The dawn's full blush in crimson flakes
Is traced on palest blue, as breaks
The morn in Orient flame.
I see—whence comes that eager gaze?
Why rein the steed, in wild amaze?
The water's hue is gold!
Golden its wavelets foam and glide,
Through tenderest green to ocean-tide
The fairy streamlet rolled.
"Forward, 'Hope!' forward! truest steed,
Of tireless hoof and desert speed,
Up the weird water bound,
Till, echoing far and sounding deep,
I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweep
O'er this enchanted ground?"
[Pg 238]The sea!—wild fancy! Many a mile
Of changeful Nature's frown and smile
Ere stand we on the shore.
And, yet! that murmur, hoarse and deep,
None save the ocean-surges keep?
It is—"the cradles' roar!"
Onward! we pass the grassy hill,
Around the base the waters still
Shimmer in golden foam;
O wanderer of the voiceless wild,
Of this far southern land the child,
How changed thy quiet home!
For, close as bees in countless hive,
Like emmet hosts that earnest strive,
Swarmed, toiled, a vast, strange crowd:
Haggard each worker's features seem,
Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam,
Nor cry, nor accent loud.
But each man dug, or rocked, or bore,
As if salvation with the ore
Of the mine-monarch lay.
Gold strung each arm to giant might,
Gold flashed before each aching sight,
Gold turned the night to day.
Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom,
And, in his halls of endless doom
Lost souls for ever roam,
They wander (says the Eastern tale),
Nor ever startles moan or wail
Despair's eternal home.
[Pg 239]Less silent scarce than that pale host
These toiled, as if each moment lost
Were the red life-drop spilt;
While, heavy, rough, and darkly bright,
In every shape, rolled to the light
Man's hope, and pride, and guilt.
All ranks, all ages! Every land
Had sent its conscripts forth, to stand
In the gold-seekers' rank:
The stalwart bushman's sinewy limb,
The pale-faced son of trade—e'en him
Who knew the fetters' clank.
      *         *         *         *         *
'Tis night: her jewelled mantle fills
The busy valley, the dun hills,
'Tis a battle host's repose!
A thousand watch-fires redly gleam,
While ceaseless fusillades would seem
To warn approaching foes.
The night is older. On the sward
Stretched, I behold the heavens broad,
When—a Shape rises dim,
Then, clearer, fuller, I descry,
By the swart brow, the star-bright eye,
The Gnome-king's presence grim!
He stands upon a time-worn block;
His dark form shades the snowy rock
As cypress marble tomb:
Nor fierce yet wild and sad his mien,
His cloud-black tresses wave and stream,
His deep tones break the gloom.
[Pg 240]"Son of a tribe accursed, of those
Whose greed has broken our repose
Of the long ages dead,
Think ye, for nought our ancient race
Leaves olden haunts, the sacred place
Of toils for ever fled?
"List while I tell of days to come,
When men shall wish the hammers dumb
That ring so ceaseless now;
That every arm were palsy-tied,
Nor ever wet on grey hillside
Was the gold-seeker's brow.
"I see the old world's human tide
Set southward on the ocean wide.
I see a wood of masts,
While crime or want, disease or death,
With each sigh of the north-wind's breath,
He on this fair shore casts.
"I see the murderer's barrel gleam,
I hear the victim's hopeless scream
Ring through these crimeless wastes;
While each base son of elder lands
Each witless dastard, in vast bands
To the gold-city hastes.
"Disease shall claim her ready toll,
Flushed vice and brutal crime the dole
Of life shall ne'er deny;
Danger and death shall stalk your streets,
While staggering idiocy greets
The horror-stricken eye!
[Pg 241]"All men shall roll in the gold mire—
The height, the depth of man's desire—
Till come the famine years;
Then all the land shall curse the day
When first they rifled the dull clay,
With deep remorseful tears.
"Fell want shall wake to fearful life
The fettered demons. Civil strife
Rears high a gory hand!
I see a blood-splashed barricade,
While dimly lights the twilight glade
The soldier's flashing brand.
"But thou, son of the forest free!
Thou art not, wert not foe to me,
Frank tamer of the wild!
Thou hast not sought the sunless home
Where darkly delves the toiling Gnome,
The mid-earth's swarthy child.
"Then, be thou ever, as of yore,
A dweller in the woods, and o'er
Fresh plains thy herds shall roam.
Join not the vain and reckless crowd
Who swell the city's pageant proud,
But prize thy forest home."
He said: and, with an eldritch scream,
The Gnome-king vanished—and my dream:
Dawn's waking hour returned;
Yet still the wild tones echoed clear,
For many a day in reason's ear,
And my heart inly burned.

[Pg 242]
THE DEATH OF WELFORD[1]

[1] A young Englishman, "killed by blacks on the Barcoo."
Out by the far west-waters,
On the sea-land of the South,
Untombed the bones of a white man lay,
Slowly crumbling to kindred clay—
Sad prayer from Death's mute mouth!
Alone, far from his people,
The sun of his life went down.
A cry for help? No time—not a prayer:
As red blood splashed thro' riven hair,
His soul rose to Heaven's throne.
Ah! well for those felon hands
Which the strong man foully slew,
The cry from the Cross when our Saviour died
"Father, forgive"—as they pierced His side—
"For they know not what they do."
They have souls, say the teachers
Hereafter, the same as we:
If so, it is hid from human grace
By blood-writ crimes of savage race
So deep, that we cannot see.
[Pg 243]Fear than love is far stronger:
The cruel have seldom to rue:
The neck is bowed 'neath the heavy heel,
Love's covenant with Death they seal;
"For they know not what they do."
This Dead, by the far sun-down,
This man whom they idly slew,
Was lover and friend to those who had slain
With him all human love, like Cain;
But "they know not what they do."
'Twixt laws Divine and human
To judge, if we only knew,
When the blood is hot, to part wrong from right,
When to forgive and when to smite
Foes who "know not what they do."
The wronger and wronged shall meet
For judgment, to die, or live;
And the heathen shall cry, in anguish fell,
At sight of the Bottomless Pit of Hell—
"We knew not, O Lord! Forgive."

[Pg 244]
SUNSET IN THE SOUTH
It is Autumn, it is sunset, magic shower of tint and hue;
All the west is hung with banners, white with golden, crimson, blue;
Drooping folds! far floating, mingling, falling on the river's face;
Upturned, placid, silver-mirrored, gazing into endless space.
Faint the breath of eve, low-sighing for bright summer's fading charms;
Woodland cries are echoing, chiming with the sounds from distant farms;
And the stubble fires are gleaming red athwart the wood's deep shade,
While the marsh mist, slowly rising, shrouds the greenery of the glade.
Redly still the day is dying, as if o'er the desert waste,
And we pictured camels, Arabs, and the solemn outline traced
Of a pillared lonely Fane, clear against the crimson rim,
Voiceless, but of empire telling, and the lore of ages dim.
[Pg 245]Low the deep voice of the ocean, whispering to the silent strand;
Gleam the stars, in silver ripples; stretches broad the milk-white sand;
And a long, low bark is lying underneath the island shore
Weird and dream-like, darksome, soundless, spell-struck now, and evermore.
Deeper, darker fall the shadows, and the charmed colours wane,
Fading, as the fay-gold changes into earth and dross again,
Wildfowl stream in swaying files landward to the marshy plain;
Louder sound the forest voices and the deep tones of the main.

[Pg 246]
"BALACLAVA"
The word is "Charge," the meaning "Death,"
Yet, welcome falls the sound
On every ear in the listening host,
Whose pennons flutter, zephyr-tossed,
That messenger around.
Among them Nolan reins a steed
Frost-white with gathered foam,
And pale and stern points to the foe,
In heavy mass, receding slow—
"Charge, comrades, charge them home!"
There rides one with fearless brow,
By time and sorrow scarred.
For him life knows no tale untold,
But empty names, love, hope, and gold,—
Cool player of Fate's last card!
Beside him, he whose golden youth
Is in its pride and bloom.
His thoughts are with a dear old home,
Its loved ones, and that other one,
And will she mourn his doom?
[Pg 247]Another knows of a sweet fond face
That will fade into ashy pale
As she hears the tale of that day of tears;
And a prayer rises to Him who hears
The widow and orphan's wail.
"We die," passed through each warrior's heart,
"And vainly, but the care
Rests not with us; 'tis ours to show
The world, old England, and the foe,
What Englishmen can dare."
Then bridle-reins are gathered up,
And sabres blaze on high,
And as each charger bounds away
Doubts flee like ghosts at opening day,
And each man joys to die.
St. George! it is a glorious sight
A splendid page of war,
To mark yon gorgeous, matchless troop,
Like some bright falcon, wildly swoop
On the sullen prey before.
Captain Martinet (loquitur).
"Hurrah for the hearts of Englishmen,
And the thoroughbred's long stride,
As the vibrating, turf-tearing hoof-thunder rolled,
'Twas worth a year of one's life, all told,
To have seen our fellows ride!"
[Pg 248]But what avails the sabre sweep?
There rolls the awful sound,
Telling through heart, and limb, and brain,
That the cannon mows its ghastly lane,
And corses strew the ground.
Ha! Nolan flings his arms apart,
And a death-cry rings in air;
And see, may Heaven its mercy yield!
His charger from a hopeless field
Doth a dead rider bear.
The gunners lie by their linstocks dead,
While deep on every brow,
In the bloody scroll of our island swords,
Is the tale of each horseman's dying words,
"Our memory is deathless now."
Staggering back goes a broken band,
With standards soiled and torn,
With gory saddles and reeling steeds,
And ranks that are swaying like surging reeds
On a wild autumn morn.
Despair has gazed on many a field
Won by our fearless race;
And well the night wind, sighing low,
Knows where, with breast broad to the foe,
Is the dead Briton's place.
But never living horsemen rode
So near the eternal marge,
As those who ran the tilt that day
With Death, and bore their lives away
From the Balaclava charge.

[Pg 249]
THE BUSHMAN'S LULLABY
Lift me down to the creek bank, Jack,
It must be fresher outside;
The long hot day is well-nigh done;
It's a chance if I see another one;
I should like to look on the setting sun,
And the water, cool and wide.
We didn't think it would be like this
Last week, as we rode together;
True mates we've been in this far land
For many a year, since Devon's strand
We left for these wastes of sun-scorched sand
In the blessed English weather.
We left when the leafy lanes were green
And the trees met overhead,
The rippling brooks ran clear and gay,
The air was sweet with the scent of hay,
How well I remember the very day
And the words my mother said!
We have toiled and striven and fought it out
Under the hard blue sky,
[Pg 250]Where the plains glowed red in tremulous light,
Where the haunting mirage mocked the sight
Of desperate men from morn till night,—
And the streams had long been dry.
Where we dug for gold on the mountain-side,
Where the ice-fed river ran;
In frost and blast, through fire and snow,
Where an Englishman could live and go,
We've followed our luck through weal and woe,
And never asked help from man.
And now it's over, it's hard to die
Ere the summer of life is o'er,
When the pulse beats high and the limbs are stark,
Ere time has printed one warning mark,
To quit the light for the unknown dark,
And, O God! to see home no more!
No more! no more! I that always vowed
That, whether or rich or poor,
Whatever the years might bring or change,
I would one day stand by the grey old grange,
And the children would gather, all shy and strange,
As I entered the well-known door.
You will go home to the old place, Jack;
Then tell my mother for me,
That I thought of the words she used to say,
Her looks, her tones, as I dying lay,
That I prayed to God, as I used to pray
When I knelt beside her knee.
[Pg 251]By the lonely water they made their couch,
And the southern night fast fled;
They heard the wildfowl splash and cry,
They heard the mourning reeds' low sigh,
Such was the Bushman's lullaby,—
With the dawn his soul was sped.

[Pg 252]
MORNING
Morn on the waters! the glad bird flings
The diamond spray from his glittering wings.
Old ocean lieth in dreamless sleep,
As the slumber of childhood calmly deep,
Light falls the stroke of the fisher's oar,
As he leaves his cot by the shingly shore;
While the young wife's gaze, half sad, half bright,
Follows the frail bark's flashing flight.
Noon on the waters! O rustling breeze,
Sweet stealer 'mid old forest trees,
Wilt thou not thy sweet whisper keep
Nigh him who journeys the shadeless deep?
The wanderer dreams of the shadowy dell,
And the green-turfed, fairy-haunted well,
While the shafts of the noon-king's merciless might
Mingle day with sorrow, and death with light.
Night on the waters! murmuring hoarse,
The vexed deep threatens the bold bark's course,
The thunder-growl and the tempest moan
Sound like spirits that watch for the dying groan.
The storm-fiend sweeps o'er the starless waste,
And the unchained blasts to the gathering haste;
Man alone, unshaken, his course retains,
While the elements combat and chaos reigns.

[Pg 253]
WANTED

A young Lady of twenty-three years of age, as a teacher in
a Ladies' School. Satisfactory references required.—
"Times" Advertisement.
Why should I be twenty-three?
What are the virtues they can see
Just about to bloom in me
In the magical year of twenty-three?
Does a maiden, fair and free,
Get prudent just at twenty-three?
Whatever can the reason be
That they want a girl just twenty-three?
Dignified matron, whoever you be,
Would not twenty-two do for thee?
Would twenty-one be shown to the door,
And twenty told to come no more?
Nineteen, perhaps, would hardly be fit,
Eighteen strikes one as rather a chit.
Why must you search o'er land and sea
For the golden age of twenty-three?
Still the years glide on—for you and for me,
We're nearer, or farther from, twenty-three.
[Pg 254]Oft, as I sit over my five o'clock tea,
I think, did she get her? age twenty-three!
When friends are cold and unkind to me,
I think there's a refuge when twenty-three.
On my birthday I'll write, unknown friend, to thee,
Exclaiming, "Here, take me, I'm twenty-three!"

[Pg 255]
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?
[Pg 256]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?

[Pg 257]
"PRIEZ POUR ELLE"

AN INCIDENT OF THE INDIAN MUTINY
In the old tower they stand at bay,
Where the Moslem fought of old;
True to their race, in that sad day
Their lives are dearly sold.
They are but three; a woman fair,
A boy of fearless brow,
He, whom she vowed to love is there—
God help her! then and now.
With fiercer leaguer never did
Those rugged stones resound,
As the swarthy yelling masses swayed
The time-worn keep around.
Our death-doomed brothers fired fast,
Our sister loaded well;
With each rifle-crack a spirit passed;
By scores the rebels fell.
[Pg 258]Though corses choke the narrow way,
Still swarms the demon hive;
Like a tolling bell each heart will say
"We ne'er go forth alive!"
Undaunted still—the leaden rain
Slacks not one moment's space—
With a crashing bullet through his brain,
The boy drops on his face!
With outstretched arms, with death-clutched hands,
His mother's darling lies,
No more, till rent the grave's dark bands,
To glad her loving eyes.
Gone the last hope! faint gleam of light—
Death stalks before their eyes—
While yells and screams of wild delight
From the frenzied crowd arise.
O God of mercy! can it be?
It is a hideous dream—
No!—nearer rolls the human sea,
Arms flash, and eyeballs gleam.
He thinks of her, pale, tender, fair—
To nameless tortures given,
Gore-stained and soiled the bright brown hair—
His very soul is riven.
He lifts the weapon. Did he think
Of a happy summer time—
Of the village meadow—river brink,
Of the merry wedding chime?
[Pg 259]Little he dreamed of this dreary Now,
Or that ever he should stand
With the pistol-muzzle at her brow,
The trigger in his hand!
They kissed—they clung in a last embrace,
They prayed a last deep prayer—
Then proudly she raised her tearful face,
And——a corse lay shuddering there!
He stooped, his love's soft eyes to close,
He smoothed the bright brown hair,
Smiled on the crowd of baffled foes,
Then, scattered his brains in air.

 

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

The End