An Anthology of Australian Verse Part 17

Hair with the red gold's luring tinge, Fine as the finest silk, Violet eyes with a golden fringe And cheeks of roses and milk.

Something of this you must have been, Something gentle and sweet, To have broken your heart at seventeen And died in such sad defeat.

Hardly one of your kinsfolk live, It was all so long ago, The tale of the cruel love to give That laid you here so low.

Loving, trusting, and foully paid -- The story is easily guessed, A blotted sun and skies that fade And this gra.s.s-grown grave the rest.

Whatever the cynic may sourly say, With a dash of truth, I ween, Of the girls of the period, in your day They had hearts at seventeen.

Dead of a fas.h.i.+on out of date, Such folly has pa.s.sed away Like the hoop and patch and modish gait That went out with an older day.

The stone is battered and all awry, The words can be scarcely read, The rank reeds cl.u.s.tering thick and high Over your buried head.

I pluck one straight as a Paynim's lance To keep your memory green, For the lordly sake of old Romance And your own, sad seventeen.

John Sandes.

`With Death's Prophetic Ear'

Lay my rifle here beside me, set my Bible on my breast, For a moment let the warning bugles cease; As the century is closing I am going to my rest, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant go in peace.

But loud through all the bugles rings a cadence in mine ear, And on the winds my hopes of peace are strowed.

Those winds that waft the voices that already I can hear Of the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.

Yes, the red-coats are returning, I can hear the steady tramp, After twenty years of waiting, lulled to sleep, Since rank and file at Potchefstroom we hemmed them in their camp, And cut them up at Bronkerspruit like sheep.

They sh.e.l.led us at Ingogo, but we galloped into range, And we shot the British gunners where they showed.

I guessed they would return to us, I knew the chance must change -- Hark! the rooi-baatjes singing on the road!

But now from snow-swept Canada, from India's torrid plains, From lone Australian outposts, hither led, Obeying their commando, as they heard the bugle's strains, The men in brown have joined the men in red.

They come to find the colours at Majuba left and lost, They come to pay us back the debt they owed; And I hear new voices lifted, and I see strange colours tossed, 'Mid the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.

The old, old faiths must falter, and the old, old creeds must fail -- I hear it in that distant murmur low -- The old, old order changes, and 'tis vain for us to rail, The great world does not want us -- we must go.

And veldt, and spruit, and kopje to the stranger will belong, No more to trek before him we shall load; Too well, too well, I know it, for I hear it in the song Of the rooi-baatjes singing on the road.

Inez K. Hyland.

To a Wave

Where were you yesterday? In Gulistan, With roses and the frenzied nightingales?

Rather would I believe you s.h.i.+ning ran With peaceful floods, where the soft voice prevails Of building doves in lordly trees set high, Trees which enclose a home where love abides -- His love and hers, a pa.s.sioned ecstasy; Your tone has caught its echo and derides My joyless lot, as face down pressed I lie Upon the s.h.i.+fting sand, and hear the reeds Voicing a thin, dissonant threnody Unto the cliff and wind-tormented weeds.

As with the faint half-lights of jade toward The sh.o.r.e you come and show a violet hue, I wonder if the face of my adored Was ever held importraitured by you.

Ah, no! if you had seen his face, still prest Within your hold the picture dear would be, Like that bright portrait which so moved the breast Of fairest Gurd with soft unrest that she, Born in ice halls, she who but raised her eyes And scornful questioned, "What is love, indeed?

None ever viewed it 'neath these northern skies," -- Seeing the face soon learned love's gentle creed; But you hold nothing to be counted dear -- Only a gift of weed and broken sh.e.l.ls; Yet I will gather one, so I can hear The soft remembrance which still in it dwells: For in the sh.e.l.l, though broken, ever lies The murmur of the sea whence it was torn -- So in a woman's heart there never dies The memory of love, though love be lorn.

Bread and Wine

A cup of opal Through which there glows The cream of the pearl, The heart of the rose; And the blue of the sea Where Australia lies, And the amber flush Of her sunset skies, And the emerald tints Of the dragon fly Shall stain my cup With their brilliant dye.

And into this cup I would pour the wine Of youth and health And the gifts divine Of music and song, And the sweet content Which must ever belong To a life well spent.

And what bread would I break With my wine, think you?

The bread of a love That is pure and true.

George Ess.e.x Evans.

An Australian Symphony

Not as the songs of other lands Her song shall be Where dim Her purple sh.o.r.e-line stands Above the sea!

As erst she stood, she stands alone; Her inspiration is her own.

From sunlit plains to mangrove strands Not as the songs of other lands Her song shall be.

O Southern Singers! Rich and sweet, Like chimes of bells, The cadence swings with rhythmic beat The music swells; But undertones, weird, mournful, strong, Sweep like swift currents thro' the song.

In deepest chords, with pa.s.sion fraught, In softest notes of sweetest thought, This sadness dwells.

Is this her song, so weirdly strange, So mixed with pain, That whereso'er her poets range Is heard the strain?

Broods there no spell upon the air But desolation and despair?

No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrude Upon her mountain solitude Or sun-kissed plain?

The silence and the suns.h.i.+ne creep With soft caress O'er billowy plain and mountain steep And wilderness -- A velvet touch, a subtle breath, As sweet as love, as calm as death, On earth, on air, so soft, so fine, Till all the soul a spell divine O'ershadoweth.

The gray gums by the lonely creek, The star-crowned height, The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak, The cold white light, The solitude spread near and far Around the camp-fire's tiny star, The horse-bell's melody remote, The curlew's melancholy note Across the night.

These have their message; yet from these Our songs have thrown O'er all our Austral hills and leas One sombre tone.

Whence doth the mournful keynote start?

From the pure depths of Nature's heart?

Or from the heart of him who sings And deems his hand upon the strings Is Nature's own?

Could tints be deeper, skies less dim, More soft and fair, Dappled with milk-white clouds that swim In faintest air?

The soft moss sleeps upon the stone, Green scrub-vine traceries enthrone The dead gray trunks, and boulders red, Roofed by the pine and carpeted With maidenhair.