Bush Songs 
 
 and 
 
 Oversea Voices 
 
 A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON
 
 UN1VER5 .■..-.'rORIWA
 
 Bush Songs & Oversea Voices
 
 OPINIONS OF 
 
 A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON'S FIRST 
 
 BOOK OF COLONIAL POETRY 
 
 Wm. M. Rosetti. — "A large amount of spirit, impulse, 
 and forcible expression, many striking verses and passages, 
 and generally a tone much superior to the commonplace 
 of ordinary verse writing." 
 
 Robert Bridges. — "The art of this book is very direct 
 and the feeling unmistakably sincere. . . . ' Gabriel ' is 
 an extremely forcible expression of the unfailing strength of 
 a true passion . . . much to admire and many fine 
 expressions." 
 
 The Atheneeum, Sept. 7th, 1912. — "A. Safroni-Middle- 
 ton's Bush and Sea Rhymes stand apart by virtue of the 
 genuine, forceful feeling, striking vividness of the images 
 and description. . . . Virile poems by a vigorous poet.' 
 'Comrades,' with its impression of the drought-swept 
 plain, the wide sweep of rocks and scrub, the derelict gum- 
 trees, the distant flocks of parrots curling across a sky like 
 molten-glass, is worth hundreds of the cultured uninspired 
 verses beneath which our English presses groan." 
 
 Contemporary Review, May, 1913. — "Many in their 
 direct appeal to the heart and with their vivid representa- 
 tion of nature and of human passion and yearning, offering 
 us poetic work of really high quality." 
 
 New York World. — "A really original Australian poet 
 . . . reveals that rarest of combinations — a true poet and 
 humorist — breezy, vigorous, spirited. ... an unaffected 
 poet ... a mind that can sing and think." 
 
 Eliciting Standard. — " Cleverness lurks in these verses, 
 and the ' Vagabond ' always says something worth saying, 
 some central thought." 
 
 Publishers' Circular — ' ' Of the few rising British Colonial 
 poets, the author of this volume promises to occupy a place 
 in the foremost rank. There is that touch in Mr. Middle- 
 ton's writing which appeals to the reader in the homeland, 
 and he has the supreme merit of presenting that which he 
 affirms. The volume is a notable addition to modem 
 poetical literature."
 
 Bush Songs & Oversea Voices 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 Songs of the South Sea Islands, 
 Australia, Etc. 
 
 By 
 Ai. Safroni-Middleton 
 
 Author of 
 
 "The Autobiography of a Sailor-Musician," etc., 
 
 Composer of British Army Marches, Entr'actes, etc., for the 
 
 Regimental Bands 
 
 London 
 
 John Long, Limited 
 
 Norris Street, Haymarket 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 '
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 l'AGE 
 
 Part I. 
 
 Foreword 7 
 
 To Robert Louis Stevenson n 
 
 Betrayed *3 
 
 Looking Back 15 
 
 Graves of the Outcasts 17 
 
 The Rivals 19 
 
 The Leper Isle 21 
 
 The Exile Trader 23 
 
 The Old Sailor 24 
 
 A Rover's Song 25 
 
 Why do I Sing? 27 
 
 Shea-Oaks 28 
 
 Desire of the Hills 3° 
 
 The Homestead 3 2 
 
 In the Forest 34 
 
 The Friendly Islands 35 
 
 Mafeleto's Philosophy 39 
 
 The Missing Earl 41 
 
 A Voice from the South Seas .... 43 
 
 The Storm 47 
 
 A Memory S 1 
 
 An Exile's Dream 53 
 
 Yesterday 55 
 
 Drifting 56 
 
 Years Parted 58 
 
 Pacific Islands 61 
 
 Samoa 64 
 
 Homeward Bound 66 
 
 The Chief Mate 68 
 
 In the Bush 70
 
 6 Contents 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 The Gold Coast 71 
 
 A Sailor's Grave 73 
 
 A Windy Night 75 
 
 The Bridal Night 76 
 
 A Study in Contrasts 78 
 
 A Bush Grave 80 
 
 Ere I am Old 82 
 
 I shall Dream and Dream . . , . . 83 
 
 Rhymes of a Beachcomber 85 
 
 After Many Years 100 
 
 Romance 101 
 
 Outward Bound 103 
 
 Part II. 
 
 A Pioneer's Song 109 
 
 The Bushman's Reverie m 
 
 Comrades 114 
 
 The Drought 116 
 
 The Deserted Hut 120 
 
 Bush Loneliness 123 
 
 The Old Skipper 125 
 
 Life 127 
 
 A Dream .... .... 129 
 
 Gabriel 130 
 
 Absent 132 
 
 Pat McPhizz 134 
 
 Bush Memories 136 
 
 The Cabin Boy 139 
 
 The Old Rustic's Request 142 
 
 The Wild Composer 144 
 
 A Voice from the Stockhold . . . .145 
 
 Sundowners 147 
 
 The Prodigal's Return 151 
 
 On the Rocks . . . . . . . 1 53 
 
 A Bush Dream 157 
 
 Modern London 158
 
 Bush Songs & Oversea Voices 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 May your eyes o'er my rhymes gaze kindly — 
 
 Small gifts, thoughts of mine, 
 Dreams gather'd where brave men drink blindly 
 
 The gall or the wine. 
 On ships thro' dead sunsets they're roving, 
 
 Or laughing camp-throngs, 
 The men who have lived and are moving 
 
 To-night thro' my songs. 
 
 Their ghosts thro' dead moonlight come creeping : 
 
 A wind from the sea 
 Faint ruffles deep water long sleeping, 
 
 In mists around me, 
 Faces shadowy, tenderly clinging, 
 
 Float steppes and the waves ; 
 By camp-fires again sitting singing 
 
 All out of their graves. 
 
 The winds thro' the shea-oaks are sighing 
 
 By deep forest night. 
 Time's castaways, rough men sleep, lying 
 
 Around me to-night. 
 The stars thro' dark branches are burning 
 
 Across the dusk skies ; 
 The seas on the skyline are churning 
 
 Up tints of moonrise. 
 
 By their tents in rows they are snoring, 
 Camped, hushed 'neath the gums, 
 
 The moon o'er their figures light pouring— 
 O'er my sleeping chums.
 
 8 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Hush, the winds drift whiffs from deep hollows- 
 Marsh flowers and gum-spray. 
 
 The grey ghost of dawn hunting follows — 
 They all rush away ! 
 
 They are gone, with their stories, their laughter, 
 
 And some with that song 
 That sang in their heads years after— 
 
 What grief or whose wrong ? 
 Sad exiles from homes o'er deep waters, 
 
 Alive, or long dead? 
 Eyes true as tall sons and fair daughters 
 
 That tramp overhead [ 
 
 For their souls still live in our cities, 
 
 They sat by your knees — 
 Old country, your children's blood it is 
 
 Here over the seas ; 
 And beware all foes of the " Home- Land " 
 
 Her stern flag still flies, 
 Ablaze in the blood, the grip of the hand, 
 
 The soul of their eyes. 
 
 So, take my songs, they are singing 
 
 Of waves by a shore 
 Where vines and wattles oft clinging 
 
 Close some shanty-door ; 
 And the hut's bright fireside embers 
 
 Outside o'er his grave — 
 (O'er the man that no one remembers) 
 
 Where the bush flowers wave.
 
 PART I
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 1 1 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LOUIS 
 STEVENSON 
 
 (buried on top of vailima mountain) 
 
 Where feathery trees stretch fan-shaped fingers streaming- 
 Dark coco-palms by tumbling waves, 
 
 'Neath skies of dusky blue as stars are dreaming 
 In still lagoons by coral-caves. 
 
 Where o'er the silent plateau's mosses creeping, 
 The stars and moons go stealing by, 
 
 With eyelids closed forever, he lies sleeping 
 
 Against the sky. 
 
 " Dead Lusitala " slumb'ring, yet still singing 
 
 Thro' feather'd throats of native-birds, 
 Sweet unborn poems to the sea-winds flinging 
 
 As come the roaming, homeless herds 
 Of seas that creep from other distant seas 
 
 To toss white hands below and die 
 'Gainst barrier reefs as bending island trees 
 
 To winds sing high. 
 
 A thrill lives in the heart of these my dreams, 
 Your living eyes, your voice I've known. 
 
 I did not dream, there by Samoan streams, 
 In forest depths with you alone, 
 
 Some day in other lands among strange men 
 I'd hear surfs beat against the joy 
 
 Of long ago — like grief — the change since when 
 
 I was a boy.
 
 12 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The ships their weary wings hang in the bay ; 
 
 Brown men roam shore tracks of moonlight, 
 And homeland sailors, 'ere they sail away 
 
 To fade with sunset down the night 
 Of solitude and stars as wild sails race 
 
 On with the dark the day's flight west, 
 But you have met the light beyond — God's Face, 
 
 And all the rest ? 
 
 Sleep on, dead poet of the sea-nursed South. 
 
 Still thro' the hearts of men you creep — 
 The frozen music of your long-dead mouth 
 
 Melts in the warmful passion leap 
 Of souls that move in living dreams along 
 
 The shores by your high silent home 
 Where lips must cease to sing sweet poet-song, 
 
 And eyes to roam. 
 
 A grave set 'neath warm skies of mountain'd isles, 
 Fenced by dim skylines of blue seas, 
 
 By typhoons swept — then noiseless velvet miles 
 Where stars reveal bright mysteries, 
 
 And o'er fair slopes, huts of brown savage men, 
 The South Sea race that mourning dies, 
 
 Before the Western tramp to vanish when 
 
 The cities rise ! 
 
 To fade forever as a wondrous dream 
 
 Of midnight drums and chieftain songs, 
 
 The ambushed tribe, the distant forest scream ! 
 Wild girls, and happy heathen-throngs 
 
 Of faces by small huts and glimmering fires, 
 As on the mountain height you lie 
 
 Like some dead Christ, with all your dead desires, 
 
 Against the sky.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 13 
 
 BETRAYED!* 
 
 (tahitian native girl) 
 
 As nude as God's first thought of woman plann'd 
 She stands — like stars her eyes aglow ; 
 
 Curved velvet limbs, the Apple in her hand 
 Of Scripture — in her breast the woe. 
 
 The forest winds kiss her uplifting hair, 
 
 The jungle-grass tares soft bare thighs, 
 
 A blood-stained blossom now she staggers there, 
 A hunted soul as daylight dies. 
 
 Her coral-lips have felt the white man's kiss ; — 
 Dark trouble lurks below her breast, 
 
 Girl, fool ! you heard impassioned lies, the bliss — 
 You Western cities know the rest. 
 
 Deserted stands her little hut to-night, 
 The Chieftains in the village prayed 
 
 With wrathful wives, the gods to curse, to smite 
 The helpless head of love betrayed ! 
 
 A child with quivering limbs on flight she stands, 
 How quickly gaze despairing eyes. 
 
 Hark ! death's tom-tom beats in these heathen lands- 
 Out seaward her last sunset dies ! 
 
 * A tribal form of justice that falls on the head of the South Sea native girl who 
 has been unfortunate enough to surrender herself to the lure of the white man.
 
 14 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The hunting tribes race at her heels with hate ; 
 
 She fades into the forest deep 
 To die — decreed by idols cruel as Fate. 
 
 Girl ! — may God give your sorrow sleep.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices i 5 
 
 LOOKING BACK 
 
 I've sat on these slopes 'neath tropic skies 
 As the stars crept over, heard 
 
 Lost voices of friends, bright meanings in eyes- 
 Expressed by the voice of a bird 
 
 As it sat safe-high on its skyward twig, 
 In the banyans by the sea 
 
 Chuckling its silver-song to the jig 
 
 Of wild men who danced round me ! 
 
 I've laid in my little doorless hut, 
 
 When the moon sailed high in the sky — 
 With dreaming eyes in the gloom half-shut, 
 
 Seen the night swans flying by 
 Out under the stars, far over the trees, 
 
 I've watched them fade in the dusk, 
 As wind-whiffs crept, came in from the seas 
 
 Damp, laden with flower-scent musk. 
 
 I've thrown my swag in the bush, cursed Fate, 
 
 With tears in my eyes I've stood 
 By the spot where men sleep on and wait 
 
 The Voice of Infinitude ! 
 Then I've crept along by the forest track, 
 
 In my ears heard steal the laughter 
 Of old dead days — a swag on my back 
 
 Of memories humped — years after.
 
 1 6 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Oh, I've sat in my dingy sea-port room, 
 
 Heard my new chum's tale of woe, 
 Thanked God for the deep surrounding gloom 
 
 As tears from my eyes did flow ! 
 Then, I shared my crust, as we men do 
 
 In distant lands afar, 
 But he stole my share. If we only knew 
 
 By sight who the best men are ! 
 
 So you see I've sorrowed, dreamed and thought 
 
 O'er the best, and worst, in men, 
 Plunged deep in the seas of life and sought, 
 
 Aye — found pearls beyond the ken 
 Of you men in cities beyond the plain, 
 
 Where the stern black walls arise ; 
 And so, I can gaze, nor seek in vain 
 
 Pale flowers of your stifled eyes. 
 
 And I dream and dream as the stars go by 
 
 O'er my hut, while far at sea 
 Waves toss and toss 'neath the moonlit sky 
 
 And in fellowship with me — 
 Taking my exiled heart o'er the seas, 
 
 Like sweet melody in pain — 
 The night-bird sings in the windy trees 
 
 Over and over again.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 17 
 
 GRAVES OF THE OUTCASTS 
 
 XUKA HIVA, (SOUTH SEA ISLANDS) 
 
 Here in this silent spot the dead men lie : 
 
 Hark ! to the singing banyan trees 
 O'er homesick men shut out from all the sky 
 
 Who came in haste from overseas ! 
 Near here they sat and sang their drunken songs, 
 
 Until their dreams hummed that refrain 
 That swept their hearts, from wild carousing throngs, 
 
 Out homeward to the past again. 
 
 Here, by small savage huts 'neath coco-palms ; 
 
 By starlight in the deep lagoon, 
 By love, caressed — some brown girl's clinging arms — 
 
 Eyes shining t'wards the white sea moon — 
 They sat. nor heard the maid's soft alien voice, 
 
 But something in the trade wind sighing — 
 Their soul the wild sea-shore and murmuring noise 
 
 Of tossing waves thro' menrry cning. 
 
 Outcasts of life, what scheme matured not right ? 
 
 What flaming passion out of hell 
 Seared o'er your souls ? ere from the forlorn fight 
 
 You cursed the game, (we've won !) then fell ? 
 Ere castaways adrift to these shores came, 
 
 From other lands your hunted eyes 
 To hide your (or may be another's) shame 
 
 Where death completes the grand disguise ! 
 
 On these sea slopes you built your exile homes ; 
 
 Your sad hearts thought to seal the past, 
 But night and silence wails up wandering foams 
 
 To, like remembrance, shoreward cast — 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Unto your ears what secret olden times ? 
 
 What night-bird sang on in your head 
 The lyric-song that God's thought kindly rhymes 
 
 Off at the end ? — when men lie dead. 
 
 Those jungle flowers that smudge the grass across 
 
 Where now forgotten quiet you sleep ; 
 I could half dream they write with blood the loss 
 
 That chance might give — the griefs men reap. 
 In that old shanty by the shore you slept, 
 
 Or heard the sleepless friendly trees 
 Bend 'neath the stars as night-winds wildly swept 
 
 Across impassioned typhoon seas. 
 
 With fierce-lit eyes, the savage girl there felt 
 That absence of your soul from hers : 
 
 But trustful till the end, grief-wailing knelt 
 
 Where now the bursting blood-flower stirs. 
 
 I know, impassioned love remembrance brings, 
 Though brown lips kiss to crimson flame, 
 
 The white girl in the heart still sits and sings 
 As dies the alien-dream — to shame. 
 
 Who nailed you down ? — the men who sang with you ! 
 
 The photo on your small hut wall, 
 Your dead hands held ? They, more than most men, knew 
 
 If heaven or hell, it was your all, 
 The truth revealed, the real man lying dead, 
 
 All changed, the beer-besotted face — 
 A pale school-boy in that rough coffin bed, 
 
 The devil ousted from the place ! 
 
 Comrades sleep well ! here on this heathen isle, 
 
 This savage land o'er seas afar, 
 God knows you mostly need His special smile — 
 
 Graves, where the sad lost children are.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 19 
 
 THE RIVALS 
 
 (samoa) 
 
 In my wattle hut by Maffalo I lay nor can I sleep, 
 Deep waters beat against my heart, thro' my head the 
 
 night winds sweep, 
 For the brown one sleeps by the forest track with the 
 
 banyans overhead, 
 And the white girl sleeps by the Channel cliffs where the 
 
 white men bury their dead. 
 And the tin roofs shine, as the traders rest by the beach 
 
 and still canoes, 
 Where the shoreline huts in silence stand by the wave- 
 less straight bamboos, 
 And when the moonlight whitely falls slantwise across 
 
 the hill, 
 And the palms and shore lagoons for miles, with the 
 
 sleeping winds, are still, 
 The brown one from the forest runs, the white girl from 
 
 the sea — 
 With shining eyes by my hut door in silence gaze on me. 
 And I cannot sleep as the dead eyes meet, fierce eyes 
 
 of ebon flame ! 
 The grey eyes gleam thro' shadowy hair, as of old she 
 
 moans my name. 
 In moonlight struggling silently they glimmer in the 
 
 gloom, 
 As wails the native dead child far in forest deep — of 
 
 doom ;
 
 20 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 And the wistful unborn children rise down by the shore- 
 ward palms, 
 Peep from the sea with anxious eyes, and toss their 
 
 small white arms ! 
 But deep in my heart the dead one screams — from its 
 
 grave across the steep, 
 And I know it will with frightened eyes soon out of the 
 
 forest creep ! 
 As I watch the figures ebon and gold oft brighten by 
 
 moonlight, 
 Till the white one wins and the brown one runs back to 
 
 the forest night — 
 And, in vain, I leap to shadowy arms, as she crying 
 
 flees from me, 
 Down shoreward runs, in a flash of flame dives back to 
 
 the moonlit sea. 
 So, I drink and drink as the nights go by, and the 
 
 schooners day by day, 
 Taking my heart with the white sails home, where the 
 
 sunsets fade away. 
 Till the sea-winds cease and the trees all sleep, and the 
 
 hushed waves are all still, 
 And the moonlight slantwise falls across the forest track 
 
 and hill 
 As I listening wait for the rustling sound with my 
 
 dreaming eyes — unshut ! 
 Till out in the night by the pale moonlight their 
 
 shadows seek my hut — 
 Out of the forest depth one runs, and the white girl up 
 
 the shore ; 
 Till the dead child screams and the unborn watch the 
 
 shadows by my door.
 
 Bush Solids and Oversea Voices 21 
 
 THE LEPER ISLE* 
 
 (molokai, Hawaii) 
 
 Out of grey crags by warder-seas they creep 
 With wailing voices as the stars steal by ; 
 Dead men fast rotting on dark shores of sleep, 
 Their earthly eyes still shape the shadowed sky ! 
 Poor skeletons, they moan, laugh, grin and weep ; 
 In loathsome, amorous arms some still lie. 
 Entombed, they curse the sun — Time's cruel dial 
 Above that vault, the South Sea Leper Isle. 
 
 Hark ! to the midnight scream, then silence after 
 
 Of desolation voiced by waves that leap 
 
 By sepulchres — damp huts of sheltered rafter, 
 
 Where dreaming dead men shout thro' shroudless sleep ! 
 
 As windy trees wail dreams of long dead laughter ; 
 
 As o'er each wattle hut the night winds sweep, 
 
 And dying eyes watch ships out o'er the night, 
 
 Past shores of death ! with port-holes gleaming bright. 
 
 'Twas on that Charnel Isle with watching eyes 
 He sat by dead men who still heard the waves 
 Beat shoreward, saw the south sea white moonrise 
 Bathe their own long forgotten fiowerless graves ! 
 Exiled, pale hero-priest, and oft their cries 
 
 " The missionary J. Damien, sacrificed his life on " Molokai," the Leper Isle, for 
 many years, and eventually contracted the disease. After his death, he was denied 
 his splendid self-sacrifice by jealous missionaries, men who quickly fell, impaled on the 
 mighty sword (the pen) of Robert Louis Stevenson, in his celebrated open letter to 
 the Rev. C. M. Hyde.
 
 22 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Smote his sad listening ears, like unto caves 
 That voice the mournful tone of ocean's roll, 
 Infinity entombed sang in his soul. 
 
 Lonely as God, he sat enthroned o'er pain, 
 Brave music made of desolation's sorrow, 
 Christ-like gazed o'er the deathless crying slain ! 
 Eyes breathing light, foretelling some bright morrow ; 
 Till from their tombs they rose — the dead again ! 
 Dark skeletons of woe, arose to borrow 
 Life from Molokai's hero; — men denied 
 That leper priest (like Christ) when Damien died.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 23 
 
 THE EXILE TRADER 
 
 What is life worth when fate-waters are breaking 
 'Gainst the gloom of the night the dreaming man hears ! 
 When the best men are gone and time's stern hand is making 
 Dark walls 'tween the silence of old and new years. 
 When the letters that came with small flowers inside, 
 And memories sweet, a girl's laughing brown eyes, 
 Cease, and you feel in your heart she has died, 
 By the sickening gaze of the sun in the skies. 
 
 As you lay in your bunk, in your hut in the dark, 
 
 Hear wings of night-birds, tap-tapping outside ; 
 
 See shadows glide moonlight, by clumps of iron-bark — 
 
 Trooping dead men out on some lonely night ride ! 
 
 Pale campfires bright-burning lit by the moonbeams, 
 
 Out over the hillsides all gleaming again, 
 
 The dead — sitting laughing, brave rollicking streams, 
 
 The men of the past in the dreams that remain. 
 
 The stars fade away, my soul wings the seas, 
 
 Till dawn like a maiden steps out of the night, 
 
 Springs out of the skyline as winds stir the trees, 
 
 Stands blushing, her sandals dipp'd, crimsoned with light ! 
 
 The village still sleeps, folks abed are still dreaming, 
 
 (All years ago dead) Oh, how my heart beats 
 
 As I creep, a sad ghost, ere children rush streaming 
 
 The grey stealing dawn of those small silent streets.
 
 24 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE OLD SAILOR 
 
 (reverie) 
 
 (marquesas islands) 
 
 I don't know why the Past comes back in dreams again 
 to-night, 
 But men, remembering, live this way again. 
 My old feet toil towards the stars, just like a fly for light, 
 
 That slipping climbs the window pain in vain ! 
 I've had my day ; men all must die, yet life seems sweet, 
 heaven knows 
 We grabbed the chances in wild lands afar. 
 And now, the lads are dead and gone until the grand storm 
 blows 
 Me out to meet them all where'er they are. 
 
 God, drift my soul away to sea, aye ! as the lone ship flies — 
 
 The derelict's torn sails and trailing spars — 
 That in some tropic calm afar, into the sunset dies 
 
 Away as night's great sorrow sighs the stars. 
 Nor shall I be dead utterly ; in sea-ports of the world 
 
 Rosy boys and girls will have some look of me ! 
 Though dead, my passions in young limbs and eyes will 
 dance unfurl'd 
 
 Where'er tired ships come creeping in from sea.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 25 
 
 A ROVER'S SONG 
 
 Old comrades, by my fire in dreams 
 
 Your hands I clasp to-night; 
 Heaven starlit o'er the forest gleams 
 
 As 'neath the blood-wood's height 
 You lie with folded hands asleep 
 
 By shores of tumbling waves, 
 As I creep up each silent steep 
 
 To kiss forgotten graves. 
 
 The soul of all the songs I sing, 
 
 Whatever sounds most true, 
 I dedicate each wild true ring, 
 
 Inspired, old chums, by you. 
 The world grieves not that you are dead — 
 
 Brave, reckless men who died, 
 Crept from their camp-fires back to bed 
 
 Along the wild hill-side. 
 
 But, comrades, 'neath the hills or waves, 
 
 Could one sad song of mine 
 Reveal dead souls of far-off graves, 
 
 'Twould be a song divine. 
 As pure and sweet as flowers that grow 
 
 Where once with wild delight 
 You sang, where bush-flowers, bursting, blow 
 
 Thro' dead fire-ash to-night.
 
 26 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 And so in dreams I take your hands, 
 
 In long-dead eyes I gaze, 
 And half in tears from other lands 
 
 Bring back the dear old days. 
 In other lands 'neath greyer skies 
 
 Wild rides again recall, 
 Your songs, your laughing, manly eyes — 
 
 The boy who loved you all. 
 
 Lies in my sea-chest 'neath my bed 
 
 The fiddle, stringless, still ; 
 Old chums, since all of you are dead, 
 
 'Neath forest steep and hill, 
 I cannot play the songs you loved ; 
 
 But with tired eyes and pen 
 I strive to tell the truth, who roved, 
 
 And found you — God's best men.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 27 
 
 WHY DO I SING 
 
 Why do I sing of sunsets far, where the dying skyline ends, 
 And why, oh why, are the world's worst men my very dear, 
 
 best friends ? 
 Deep in my heart I somehow know 'tis the sad lips say 
 
 those things, 
 That fluttering cry and steal away to God on Angel-wings. 
 
 Why do I sing of homeless men and happy, singing birds, 
 Of sunsets on the boundless seas with tender, poet words ? 
 Because I know men, birds, and flowers on lands 'neath all 
 
 the skies 
 Are beautiful, are sorrow-tears of God's creating eyes.
 
 28 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 SHEA-OAKS 
 
 (AUSTRALIA) 
 
 The breeze-wail of myalls, and shea-oaks 
 
 I can hear ; on the steep 
 Faint echoes the wood-cutter's axe-strokes 
 
 From forest glooms deep ; 
 And sweet sounds, — oh, a girl's bright laughter 
 
 Comes back like a song 
 That brings tears to our eyes years after 
 
 As memories throng. 
 
 I know that time's hand has rung changes, 
 
 That only in dreams 
 Moonlight falls asleep on the ranges. 
 
 The voices of streams 
 To my ears in moonlight are singing 
 
 Beneath the gum-trees. 
 Yet only one voice is still ringing — 
 
 The voice of the seas. 
 
 Old comrades, with ships down the skylines, 
 
 Have faded away 
 With sunsets, and only one star shines — 
 
 My soul's mystic ray. 
 In the mist and rain of the long nights 
 
 My dreaming remains ; 
 But I'm happy in dreams of those old fights 
 
 O'er seas and the plains.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 29 
 
 And I greet you all of the old times — 
 
 Brave sea-chums afar. 
 Here's a toast ! The soul of my rough rhymes 
 
 Wherever you are ! 
 I gaze in your eyes, dead or living, 
 
 In alien lands. 
 If in heaven you'll cherish this giving, 
 
 This clasp of the hands.
 
 30 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 DESIRE OF THE HILLS 
 
 I love the hills, the wilds, the hollows ; I somehow 
 know a sweet dead swallow's 
 Fluttering soul imprisoned in mine cries; 
 I never see the dying flowers and mists of sunset autumn 
 hours, 
 Out on the hills, but southward turn my eyes. 
 I hear the reckless drover singing, the scatter'd stock all 
 homeward bringing, 
 Across the plains where bushmen racing go ! 
 I see the tall red woods stand sleeping, thro' moon-bright 
 branches 'possoms leaping, 
 As men move by their small tents just below. 
 
 Where life is one unpolished song of rhythms as you jog 
 along, 
 Old trees your friends, night and the starry skies ; 
 A sweet bird singing in the trees to serenade your 
 memories, 
 As in the camp-fire stare your dreaming eyes. 
 Oh, for the sea-slopes curved and slanting, the tree-frogs 
 round me weirdly chanting, 
 And in the moonlit, marsh-flowered scented swamp ; 
 And far off, on the dim sky-line, the swagman's tiny 
 bush-fire shine, 
 Where, homeless on the plains, he's pitched his camp. 
 
 Oh, for the cattle o'er plains crawling, the chuckling 
 cockatoos soft-calling, 
 Big, bright-winged blossoms breathing on a branch,
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 31 
 
 As creeping ragged from the gums, the swagman safe 
 at sunset comes, 
 To sleep inside the friendly squatter's ranch. 
 And o'er the slopes the flame-tree blooms, all fiery in 
 soft twilight glooms ; 
 As westward o'er the skyline's scant gum-trees 
 The parrots all fade far away, ring-specks dim down the 
 dying day. 
 In tiny fleets, o'er sunset's golden seas, 
 As o'er the hills tired sea- winds drifting creep down deep 
 hollows, leaves uplifting, 
 And whiffs from bush flowers and sweet-scented musk 
 The day's death-blood far westward flushing. 
 The woods asleep, the birds all hushing, 
 
 As God sighs all the stars across the dusk. 
 There in my hut on some lone steep I long to lay my 
 head and sleep, 
 Half-dream the night-bird's clandestine refrain 
 Is some dead girl's voice outside singing, as moonlit 
 flowers the walls soft clinging, 
 Scent dreams that drift me o'er the seas again !
 
 32 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD 
 
 (QUEENSLAND) 
 
 I can still see the forest trees 
 
 All waving in the dusk, 
 Smell from damp glooms, sweet whiffs of breeze, 
 
 Dead wattle blooms and musk. 
 Where sunset floods the dying day — 
 
 Ring-specked, where parrots flock — 
 Roams o'er the plateau far away 
 
 The drover with his stock. 
 
 The small bush homestead by the sea 
 
 Still stands, the front door swings 
 As on the tall, gaunt dead gum-tree 
 
 The magpie sits and sings. 
 There, by the door, the stockman sits 
 
 And smokes. On her red rug 
 His pale wife sits just by and knits — 
 
 His beard three children tug ! 
 
 And as I stand and dreaming gaze, 
 
 The years have taken wing, 
 And from my heart out of old days, 
 
 Comes this sad song I sing. 
 That garden where those children ran, 
 
 Raced me, laughed, screamed with joy, 
 Is overgrown — and I, a man, 
 
 Have overgrown the boy. 
 
 1 know the redwood forest height — 
 Big branches thrilled with words, 
 
 Rich-laden'd with God's golden light, 
 Songs of soft, bright-winged birds —
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 33 
 
 Has blazed to ash in homestead fires 
 
 Of cities o'er the plains ; 
 Of all those woods and sweet desires 
 
 This poem now remains. 
 
 Sweet Ellen, curled hair and brown eyes, 
 
 I loved her pretty ways ; 
 And as I dream sad heart-mists rise 
 
 From those wild boyhood days. 
 My love was half a passion then, 
 
 That pure love God earth gave, 
 That comes in after years to men 
 
 For some one in a grave. 
 
 Their shanty where I sweetly slept 
 
 And heard the night-bird screams — 
 As thro' the scrub the dingo crept — 
 
 Has rotted into dreams : 
 Now thro' those hills the echoes fly 
 
 Of hearts o'er shining rails, 
 The night express fast thundering by 
 
 That brings the English mails. 
 
 Yet often I go back again 
 
 To where the homestead stands, 
 Gaze in old eyes thro' mists of pain 
 
 And clasp old shadow hands ; 
 Kiss Ellen, Bertha, and Lurline : 
 
 Those pretty children three 
 May some day read these lines of mine 
 
 And all remember me.
 
 34 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 IN THE FOREST 
 
 Thro' dark-branched glooms oft do I creep, smell old 
 
 campfires, and know 
 Some strange delight deep in my heart, dead ages long 
 
 ago; 
 Lost in the forest far, I creep 'neath thick-mossed ancient 
 
 trees, 
 My listening ears echoing shells of immemorial seas ; 
 Old winds drift damp scents o'er a lake, whiffs by my 
 
 nostrils stray, 
 The wild men in canoes afar in sunset steal away ! 
 Blue flowers, blood-fringed, peep wistfully 'tween crags 
 
 where damp-drip curls, 
 Gaze up — are half-remembered eyes of lovely wild dead 
 
 girls. 
 Then in the stillness sadly cries a lone-bird's song above 
 And thrills my heart to tears for some forgotten voice of 
 
 love.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 35 
 
 THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS 
 
 The seas I've roamed, hypocrisy I hate ; 
 
 God grafted in my soul sweet fire of song ; 
 On life's dark hills I've wrestled, fought with fate. 
 
 Stuck in South Seas, still young I jog along. 
 'Neath strange stars sit, o'er me the banyan bends 
 These heathens round about their huts my friends. 
 
 We call them heathens — well, 'tis habit most ; 
 
 King Mafeleto is my royal friend ; 
 His ancestors, 'tis true, did eat on toast 
 
 Their mortal enemies, but heaven defend 
 That I should judge men by their long past crimes — 
 We Christians too have had some fine old times. 
 
 They're shouting heathen songs by their hut fires ! 
 
 At each brown breast clings one sweet little mouth, 
 Their busy babes, unsatisfied desires — 
 
 Eyes sparkling starlight of the sea-nursed south ! 
 As down the forest-track, from hut to hut 
 
 Pass natives dressed in half a coco-nut ! 
 
 Writhes that grand pain — where dark Pacific Seas 
 Lash tiny isles 'neath midnight's crystal skies, 
 
 Like tumbling silver glimmering thro' dark trees 
 
 O'er wild shore reefs sea-dark waves, curling, rise ; 
 
 Through bamboo branches shine wild eyes, those sins, 
 
 Savages clothed in loin strip and their own skins.
 
 36 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Some nights I creep down, visit my brown brothers 
 In hive-shaped den, each on a small mat squats, 
 
 Wild jabbering men and rough-haired squatting mothers, 
 All eating fish stuff steaming in earth pots. 
 
 They turn, smile, show white teeth as I creep in, 
 
 Such pleased dark eyes, as knees support each chin. 
 
 Big tattooed men like statues thrilled with life, 
 
 They roam these forests old. Lithe curved-limbed 
 girls, 
 
 In modest ridi's dressed, laugh, race with strife, 
 
 My prize to win as fade their sun-flashed curls, 
 
 Gleam o'er the slopes as long legs, racing, run, 
 
 Their bright eyes flying back — my brass ring won ! 
 
 Sweet eyes of innocence, so clear, wherein 
 
 Surprised you gaze, to see calm virgin light ; 
 
 Real colour shades of life, and still the sin 
 
 Bright bubbling with sweet laughter in God's sight — 
 
 Our sins unborn, those diamond-sparkling eggs 
 
 That hatched are spiders creeping on black legs. 
 
 I've seen wild orgies 'neath these moonlit palms, 
 
 Like skeletons men dance thro' moonbeams white ; 
 
 The midnight tribal drums beat loud alarms ! 
 
 A glimpse of whirling legs glide thro' moonlight. 
 
 All come and vanish with the tom-tom's tune 
 
 As clouds passed one by one across the moon. 
 
 And silently swayed shadows to and fro 
 
 In sheets of glass that mirror'd curved dark limbs — 
 All imaged in lagoons ! — where now below 
 
 Night's one small imaged cloud across soft-swims — 
 When Bingo took to wife Melango fair, 
 
 Hot-blushing in soft bridal robe — her hair !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 37 
 
 I've seen their King in solemn state enthroned, 
 
 And fire-majestic gleam in his big eyes, 
 As maidens swayed their bodies, chanting, moaned 
 
 Fierce tribal songs of deathless histories. 
 In dead of night as tom-toms loud did beat 
 The grim Court jester tickled his big feet. 
 
 Like cherubims by each small hive-hut door 
 
 Peeped small wild faces with sweet wondering eyes 
 
 As that old King, to hear such ancient lore, 
 
 Did lift long arms and chin towards the skies, 
 
 To call down spirits of the mighty dead, 
 
 To bless his isle and fat anointed head ! 
 
 Then have I, dreaming, safe there up a tree, 
 
 Thought of my England's splendour and royal Courts, 
 Gazed sadly at stars out across the sea, 
 
 And wondered why creation changed first thoughts, 
 Made cities with crimes shuffling round in boots, 
 When men so happy seemed in their skin suits ! 
 
 Men say mosquitoes' fever, South Sea damp 
 On velvet skins, and such like living lies ! 
 
 By heaven ! here's half the truth, it is the tramp 
 
 Of white men that the brown ones die like flies. 
 
 Nor could I sleep last night for traders' rows, 
 
 And Germans with wild women for their frows ! 
 
 You could run out a regiment of wild men, 
 Parade them up and down for fifty years, 
 
 Peer in their eyes, and bury them, and then 
 
 Swear from your soul those fearless pioneers, 
 
 That build a nation's glory, pomp and pride, 
 
 Had less of virtue than the helpless side !
 
 38 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I've sailed the seas, the lost brigade, those wrecks, 
 
 I've chummed with them on their wild flight of haste, 
 
 They'd killed some one, may be passed those bad 
 
 cheques. 
 
 Rough diamonds ? well, yes, some just bits of paste ! 
 
 There's two here now, clean-shaved, dyed ! bless your 
 
 hearts, 
 I've seen some funny beggars round these parts ! 
 
 They'll build a church ! a prison's gloomy walls 
 
 Where wild men by their huts now squat and sing. 
 
 Erect a gallows ! when the trap-door falls, 
 Civilisation will be in full swing ! 
 
 Nor is this satire, but my modest pun 
 
 On justice and grim truth beneath the sun ! 
 
 Where are the unknown seas where they'll ne'er come ? 
 
 Wild, hurrying souls, the poet's pioneers ! 
 Sing me a song of silent tribal drum, 
 
 Dead camp-fires and bush griefs of other years. 
 God, where's the wave that runs up singing, soars 
 And breaks to spray on undiscovered shores ? 
 
 Old world, good-bye ! my dreams have ceased to borrow, 
 Strange gleam of stars across this mystic isle. 
 
 Heaven's calm face brightens like an eye from sorrow, 
 
 As dawn swamps skyline dark where drift clouds 
 smile, 
 
 And tumbling down the slopes, rush, plump and brown, 
 
 The wild man's children from the small hut town !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 39 
 
 MAFELETO'S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 (south sea islands) 
 
 An old South Sea Islander's real opinion of the white 
 man's trek with his creed into his primeval provinces, 
 and interesting, inasmuch as it gives one an insight into 
 his view of thinking and seeing things as they are. 
 
 Come round me, kinsmen, let the white man go, 
 What knows he of our soul, to heathen us, 
 Who drink the virgin forest sap ? We know 
 This much — enough, he is a knowing cuss. 
 Are there no shadows 'neath his native sky, 
 No children starving by his forest tent 
 As from the Royal King's comes the roystering cry 
 Of festive song, no souls, no heart's grief rent ? 
 
 Let him shout on, pass me the full nut-bowl, 
 I'm old, would I trust to his wretched creed ? 
 I, with my fifty gods, that soothe my soul, 
 Must fail them all — trust to one god — indeed ! 
 Look you — I'm wise, a dead white man is dead 
 Should he offend his Heav'n while 'neath the sun — 
 And we? — well, at the worst, when our soul's fled, 
 If fifty fail, we've still his Mighty One ! 
 
 He'd steal our souls, curse him, his lying race 
 Claimed by blue seas and this my ancient isle ! 
 Remember well do I that first white face 
 That blessed my head, with hand t'wards heaven did 
 smile,
 
 4o Bush? Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Pah ! I believed that grin ! — had I known then 
 Those eyes gazed from the spirit heart of hell 
 I'd slain him ! — faith, 'tis true these strange white men 
 One virtue have when cooked — yes, do eat well ! 
 
 Pass me the bowl, time 'tis to grieve, at most, 
 
 When in sick dying eyes the last stars sleep. 
 
 We've won our battles too, enjoyed the roast 
 
 Of what sweet foes ! 'tis even so we reap 
 
 Sweet vengeance ! They, those prating white men 
 
 skunks, 
 Our wives defiled, our land made one vile hell ; 
 Cursed missionaries, and traders on night-drunks — 
 Ah ! I've a tale, when dead, their God to tell !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 41 
 
 THE MISSING EARL 
 
 (FIJI) 
 
 Here, 'neath strange skies, the South Sea moon 
 
 Doth ghostly fire the helmet fringe — 
 
 The regiment line of seas in tune 
 
 That charge the shore, where monsters cringe — 
 
 Those huge dark rocks— while round me whirls, 
 
 In moonlight, wild men and wild girls ! 
 
 Hark ! how they jump and joyous shriek 
 'Neath palms, as falls the moonbeam rain ! 
 As with brown legs my white legs weak 
 Strive, likewise toss and jerk in vain, 
 As spitefully I throw them higher, 
 Think of old England and perspire. 
 
 I'm happy being dead ; I stand 
 
 An exile in dark ages grim, 
 
 This other world, this magic land, 
 
 This unknown isle of Ocean dim, 
 
 As like grey souls that 'scape the grave, 
 
 Outrigged canoes come o'er the wave. 
 
 There sits the royal queen, and black king 
 With chin on knees, dressed in no clothes, 
 As round the dusky-maiden ring 
 Whirls in moonlight, his fat broad nose 
 A bone ring shakes ; what sadder sight 
 For me whose king once made a knight !
 
 42 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I, who have watch'd white bodies shine 
 Thro' gauzy veils in splendid halls, 
 And eyes that sparkled rich with wine, 
 And now, ye gods, hear that applause, 
 As white-teethed maidens clap and praise 
 Each effort, as my knees I raise ! 
 
 I have discarded evil dress, 
 
 What care I now for life's sweet chance, 
 
 As naked in my fig-leaf-ness 
 
 Beneath the South Sea moon I dance ! 
 
 Gaze in these dusky lovelit eyes — 
 
 This thing I'll love thro' changeless doom, 
 
 For she, my wife, 'neath English skies, 
 
 Alas ! did vanish — with my groom.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 43 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Cool under the gums a river runs down Murrumbidgee 
 
 way, 
 And every night in the redwood height the star-eyed 
 
 'possums play 
 Till over the slopes the stockwhip rings and the echoing 
 
 hoofs faint beat 
 As up in the hills the lyre-bird fills the bush with music 
 
 sweel ; 
 And far away by the eyes of day the big black swans in 
 
 lines 
 Of curling wings like paddling things glide where the 
 
 sunrise shines. 
 Out over the mountain ridge they pass, while far o'er 
 
 the velvet steep 
 The stockmen ride the scrub slope side chasing the flying 
 
 sheep ! 
 And miles away the dim sea waves like white moss rise 
 
 and fall 
 As the deep-sea ships where the skyline dips across the 
 
 wide world crawl, 
 As the sea winds roam from their wild storm home to 
 
 kiss the rich bush-flowers, 
 And threading the slopes the green vine gropes where the 
 
 karri-karri towers, 
 While over the western slopes away on the winds I 
 
 dreaming go ! 
 Away with my comrades of the hills where the scented 
 
 wattles blow.
 
 44 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 As the galloping hoofs beat to the tune of the landscape 
 
 flitting by ! 
 And the screaming cockatoos above as we crash 'neath 
 
 the blue gums high, 
 Till scrambling from the dead scrubwood to their roosts 
 
 they flapping scream, 
 As far away the deep sea waves toss in the moon's 
 
 white dream, 
 As racing the mossy open slopes we hear their fading cries. 
 And bending my head I kiss my mare, gaze down in her 
 
 beautiful eyes 
 And the wild star-flowers seem dancing through the 
 
 lakes of all the skies. 
 Then down in the hollow gullies gloom, around the camp 
 
 bush-fire 
 The winds from seaweed creeping come to sweep each 
 
 leafy lyre, 
 With spirit fingers wail thro' trees and the shea-oaks o'er 
 
 the plains, 
 And we are the souls of the melodies of the all-night-long 
 
 refrains. 
 Ah, those were the days when life was sweet, when we 
 
 galloped side by side, 
 And where was the stockman who could race me over 
 
 the reaches wide 
 When I was a boy and all the world gazed in my eyes 
 
 with pride ? 
 
 ■ • • • • 
 
 Days follow days, nights follow nights, and the traders 
 
 come and go 
 As I watch the lonely schooner pass where the deep, 
 
 wide waters flow,
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 45 
 
 Fading away o'er ocean dark as the dying simooms blow, 
 Till the stars pale fall in the mirroring deep of each wild 
 
 shore lone lagoon 
 As the smoke-like sails all silver fired glide by the low 
 
 sea-moon. 
 And who am I that sings this song ? As the sunset wind 
 
 soft grieves 1 
 With the wild birds' bubbling music blown thro' scented 
 
 wild fruit leaves, 
 As I sit and dream of the old dead days here on these 
 
 South Sea isles, 
 With undressed blacks, shut in alone by the skyline's 
 
 wide sea-miles. 
 As toiling in for ever creep up ocean's breast of sands 
 The little South Sea wailing waves to toss their snow- 
 white hands — 
 Time's homeless waifs, they crying kiss wild red-lipped 
 
 coral lands. 
 Hark ! chanting on the steep slope-side the big brown 
 
 wild men squat 
 By beehive dens, while sadly I half-envy their wild lot ; 
 A white man I who sadder am to hear those old-world 
 
 tunes 
 That seem the sad survival of dead sunsets and dead 
 
 moons, 
 And I, a moral white-bleached thing, who left here long 
 
 ago, 
 And have returned to find, alas ! I am no better so ! 
 As seaward stare my weary eyes, for Fate has willed that I 
 Should wake the little conscious things that watch the 
 
 stars go by. 
 For oh ! I love their small plump backs and little demon 
 
 eyes —
 
 46 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Six of them romping on the slopes as lolling fat she lies, 
 My half-caste wife, the blacker for the blue of tropic skies. — 
 And me also ! — disgraced, exiled from all the family ties. 
 As the swallows swift are flying by the shores of English 
 
 seas, 
 And the swaying rooks hoarse calling from the inland 
 
 tall elm-trees, 
 As the scented hedgerow flowers' warm pulse are musical 
 
 with bees, 
 As I watch the dipping sunsets sink from skyline to 
 
 skyline, 
 O'er the whole wide world that lies between this isle and 
 
 dreams of mine.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 47 
 
 THE STORM 
 
 Crash ! over a world of wind and dark the thundering 
 
 wild seas leapt, 
 And the swaying sails cried overhead where the homeless 
 
 night-wind swept ; 
 Like monsters hungry from the deep, heaved up each giant- 
 
 back'd sea, 
 'Neath sailors clinging on the yards who swore most 
 
 fearfully ; 
 And the lightning whipp'd the wind-blown black, each vivid 
 
 sapphire flash, 
 Up-raising night's roof, beautiful, that fell with thunderous 
 
 crash ! 
 That boomed and roll'd 'way southward faint, as shouting 
 
 on the wind, 
 The Bo'sun's yelling trumpet-voice died phantom-like behind. 
 The old ship dived, crouched, shivering swerved, a moment 
 
 broadside laid ; 
 A flash revealed her figure-head, uplifted hands that prayed ! 
 The bearded skipper tramp'd the poop as lightning streaked 
 
 the clouds, 
 Breathed night's wild brilliance o'er the sea, and on the 
 
 tattered shrouds. 
 As we sailed along, and the skyline winked each flash and 
 
 muttering coughed 
 The thunder far, and the sailors climbed, singing high aloft, 
 And all the fierce wild hunting seas, like troops by night 
 
 turned out,
 
 48 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Wild regiments, charged and charged the ship ; the baffled 
 
 winds did shout; 
 Then lovely o'er wild ocean dark, swept moon-white 
 
 mystery, 
 And up the brave boat wounded sprang, o'er hollows of 
 
 the sea, 
 Like some wild-hunted, frighten'd stag, from chasing winds 
 
 did flee ! 
 
 Then we shouted a wild sea chanty, ' Blow ! blow ! blow ! 
 
 the man down ! ' 
 All English sailors flying along home bound for London 
 
 Town. 
 Till breathless stopp'd each shouting mouth, Death 
 
 screamed across the sky ; 
 It chilled our blood to creeping ice, a comrade's far lost 
 
 cry ! 
 To windward rose sheer breaking walls, the brave ship 
 
 swerved and stopped. 
 Like thundering icebergs, seas arose, crash over deckward 
 
 dropped ! 
 Wild, wrecking clouds the storm-moon smashed, left not 
 
 one little spark, 
 To light the travelling mountain seas' fierce charging — 
 
 ebon dark ! 
 We hove her to, each storm flash swept a bright dream o'er 
 
 the wave, 
 Revealed a crew of faces white, all huddled by a grave ! 
 Head over all the skipper stood, hand arched, out seaward 
 
 stared, 
 Each flash revealed his grand old face, winds sideways 
 
 swung his beard :
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 49 
 
 All ready stood, real brotherhood, staunch by the starboard 
 
 boat ; 
 Triumphant ran the seas, but we, gripp'd death hard by 
 
 the throat 
 And the ' old man ' roared away like hell, mad cursed the 
 
 whole night wild ; 
 Alone at sea, our father he, and every man his child. 
 There by the bulwarks all hands stood, as came the thrilling 
 
 cry — 
 ' Right ! lower away ! ' Up like a cork the lifeboat bobbed, 
 
 seas high. 
 As hairy-chested sailormen, strong shouldered, broad arms 
 
 bared, 
 Pulled from their hearts ! thro' one small chink the moon 
 
 from heaven stared ! 
 There, on the ramping wild dark seas, the tiny craft did 
 
 rise. 
 Like phantom voices on the wind swept by their ' Halloo ' 
 
 cries. 
 As white-faced on the hove-to ship, like sculptured stone 
 
 men stood, 
 A comrade's dying cry, faint heard, that froze their very 
 
 blood. 
 With Fate wild wrestling in his grave, his tossed hands 
 
 clutching air, 
 They saved him ! caught him by the ear and grabbed him 
 
 by the hair ! 
 We warmed him up, the skipper cried to see we'd saved 
 
 our chum, 
 And every man with joy that night drank up one pint of 
 
 rum ! 
 And why keep back the sterling truth ? We danced, we 
 
 fought, we sang !
 
 50 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Forgot the ship, and for the storm — well, did not care a 
 
 hang ! 
 The wheelsman hung tight to the wheel, the skipper to 
 
 his bunk 
 We lifted up with due respect, and dropped him in — dead 
 
 drunk ! 
 And only God knows, I don't, why the old ship wasn't 
 
 sunk. 
 And if my brave chums of the sea by some strange chance 
 
 should look 
 And see these lines of mine rhymed out, the old days in 
 
 my book, 
 Although I'm now a country squire, whoever they may be, 
 If they be comrades of those days, come inland down 
 
 to me. 
 We'll drink and shout with wild delight here round this 
 
 friendly blaze, 
 And wake the silent village night with songs of other 
 
 days !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 51 
 
 A MEMORY 
 
 The grey old skipper on the poop 
 
 Sways on from left to right 
 Out on the moonlit, shining sea — 
 
 He's in his grave to-night ! 
 I see his bearded, sea-worn face, 
 
 Sea-boots rise to his knees, 
 His oilskin cap bashed o'er his eyes, 
 
 That gaze o'er unknown seas. 
 
 A travelling, windy, wooden world, 
 
 The scented sails o'erspread, 
 As like some pale beseeching Christ, 
 
 The praying figure-head 
 Voyaging fast roams Southern Seas. 
 
 The swaying masts and spars 
 With rhythmic chime swing heaven's vast dome 
 
 And silently the stars ! 
 
 As dreaming o'er the decks I move, 
 
 Thro' fo'c's'le gloom I creep ; 
 The oil lamp showers its dingy gleam 
 
 O'er sailors fast asleep. 
 Their slumbering faces glide along 
 
 Each in small tossed bunk-bed ; 
 I hear the muffled tramp, tramp, tramp — 
 
 The night watch overhead.
 
 52 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Out o'er the ocean's brink clouds rise, 
 
 Like phantom mountains driven ; 
 As though a door ope's silently 
 
 And shuts, stars steal in Heaven. 
 Hark ! on the winds the cry — ' 'Bout ship ! ' 
 
 The watch creep from below, 
 Like ghosts in oilskins, in moonlight 
 
 Aloft they climbing go ! 
 
 Their figures clinging to the yards 
 
 Move as the grey sails flop, 
 Their toiling shadows to the decks 
 
 Through moonlight softly drop. 
 But in their bunks for years, I know, 
 
 The ' Old Hands ' are asleep, 
 The thund'ring seas above, and God 
 
 The long night watch doth keep !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 53 
 
 AN EXILE'S DREAMS 
 
 Old dreams are dead, and blown life's magic rose. 
 
 As light of all dead women's eyes 
 The winter sunset gleams, the starving crows 
 
 Are flapping home where daylight dies. 
 Far off the deep-sea ships in twilight pass 
 
 Like shadows down some magic mirror-glass. 
 
 Heaven, send me dreams again of other lands, 
 Where women fair and brave men roam ; 
 
 Where love and hate clasped are fast by the hands ; 
 And sleeping lies my boyhood home, 
 
 As by my bed the old torn novel lies, 
 
 Its wild romance behind my sleeping eyes. 
 
 Oh, let me hear the robin sing again, 
 
 Where sunset streaks the winter sky ; 
 
 And hear the old piano's strummed refrain. 
 Oh, ne'er on earth, not till I die, 
 
 My soul will music touch and turn to tears, 
 
 Like songs remembered sweet of other years ! 
 
 Heaven send me love such as I've known in dreams 
 When winds and flowers with me did dance 
 
 As sails at sea died down the sunset streams 
 Bound for far shores of wild romance ! 
 
 Till slept my childish eyes, in bed upstairs, 
 
 Loved by old heroes, dead a thousand years !
 
 54 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Oh, maidens beautiful, in bed asleep, 
 
 Curl 'tween soft sheets, close your bright eyes. 
 Oh, wayward boys, dream on, in slumber deep, 
 
 Your wildest dreams there realize. 
 Let angels whisper ere unto your ears — 
 The sweetest singer's song is full of tears. 
 
 Let God's south wind kiss every wild flower dream 
 That bloweth in sweet fields of youth ; 
 
 And swallow-birds far down the valley gleam 
 Ere wails the winter wind of truth ; 
 
 Ere woods lie hushed, and o'er the sunset plain 
 The birds have flown that ne'er return again.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 55 
 
 YESTERDAY 
 
 To you, my saddest song I sing, 
 A song weaved from the breath 
 
 Of all sweet birds that thrill the spring, 
 And all the grey of death. 
 
 The calm, clear beauty of your eyes 
 Gleams far across the years, 
 
 A tiny sparkling bridge of sighs 
 From now — to boyhood tears. 
 
 Deep in my heart pale flowers grow, 
 Spring up in dreaming light, 
 
 And, shivering, softly burst and blow 
 In tears of mist to-night. 
 
 For years have flown away, dear girl, 
 Since on your lovely head 
 
 Winds kissed each sunlit golden curl, 
 And all our vows are dead.
 
 56 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 DRIFTING 
 
 My soul, dear, as a star out Heavenward burning, 
 
 Sings doom as deep as that unquiet sea, 
 And, as a star in darkness far is turning 
 
 Out glad blue days, your eyes return to me. 
 Blue shining depths of gladness to mine lifted — 
 
 As hung impassion'd souls 'twixt Earth and Heaven — 
 Oh, could the tide return that our lives drifted — 
 
 And bring me to your arms again — forgiven ! 
 
 Leave faults asleep — remember wild vows only, 
 
 The blue-gums, oh, the bush-bird, now years dead, 
 As mirror'd in your eyes we kiss'd, it lonely 
 
 Sang in the sunlit branches overhead. 
 The river in the hills still wanders, singing, 
 
 And, in those boughs by night the parrots sleep — 
 Like my old thoughts, the moonbeams, to leaves clinging, 
 
 Reveal their frightened eyes as possums leap. 
 
 No day breaks o'er the hills of that sad dream-land, 
 
 But from those boughs the birds awake and fly, 
 No sunset falls, but on those hills I lone stand 
 
 And watch them down the skyline fade and die. 
 Thick-overgrown, the shanty by the hillside 
 
 Still stands ; when through its doorless, moonlit room 
 The dead leaves fall, the creeping dingo's feet glide 
 
 Till sunrise streaks each day of changeless gloom.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 57 
 
 And, on the walls old picture frames are clinging ; 
 
 The fireside where we sang and dreamed for hours — 
 Sat o'er by nights, watch'd ember-bright flames flinging— 
 
 Moss-grown, now blossoms red and blue bush flowers. 
 Where are those dreams, your eyes and all the laughter ? 
 
 The comrades of " Dead Gum-tree Camp," hard by ? 
 All faded into sunsets — silence after 
 
 Of night and loneliness across the sky. 
 
 In dreams I watch the unborn Ages breaking — 
 
 As waves in moonlight toss white hands and climb 
 For ever up dark shores — new eyes awaking 
 
 Are romping round the skirts of aged Time, 
 Blue days, the stars behind for ever flying, 
 
 Bring music and strange voices with the years 
 And on the hills I stand with Autumn dying, 
 
 Her lakes asleep are deep with huddled tears. 
 
 Come to me, dear, in dreams of sleepless longing, 
 
 As moonlight falls where few sad flowers remain, 
 As southbound swallows 'neath the stars rush thronging 
 
 All homeward fly, come back to me again. 
 The winds asleep, keep secrets of the hollows, 
 
 The birds that sang — for years their songs have fled, 
 Come back, ere, all too soon, the darkness follows, 
 
 Come back, ere these few flowers my dreams, are dead.
 
 58 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 YEARS PARTED 
 
 I've loved and lost in this sad spirit sense — 
 My dreams have blossom'd as a field-wildflower 
 
 That breathes its fragrance to the Soul Immense, 
 Drops sodden in the mud in one brief hour. 
 
 God knows, my love once was as pure as this 
 
 And steadfast as a star's flame through the night ; 
 
 God knows, our lips met in one sacred kiss 
 Ere my star falling curved swept out of sight. 
 
 Love's mystery I've known, fair secret charms : 
 And as death steals the loveliest of Earth's eyes — 
 
 Dissolving them to dust — from out my arms 
 Winds scatter'd her as dust beneath the skies. 
 
 I shall love her when o'er the twilight falls ; 
 
 My soul will cling with trailing, beating wings 
 Among the stars till that lost voice soft-calls 
 
 My spirit through the dark from mortal things. 
 
 From men I've sat apart : stared at her book — 
 
 One verse marked off that praised love's length of years — 
 
 Whoe'er you are, may you, friend, never look 
 
 Till words seemed blurred as gaze your eyes through 
 tears. 
 
 Man shouts of Heav'n and what his soul is worth, 
 As though God bargains o'er some merchandise. 
 
 I pray eternal life is some sweet birth 
 
 Where my awakening]gaze sees Heav'n — her eyes.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 59 
 
 I've felt love's wildest passion stir my soul, 
 As singing winds do bending moonlit trees. 
 
 Wailed — as dead sailors 'neath dark Ocean's roll 
 Tossed white hands to the moons of southern seas ! 
 
 And where are you ? fair image of lost Heaven, 
 Your loveliness — 'twas my soul and these eyes 
 
 That fashion'd Earth's wild-angel soft thing driven 
 To my glad arms — out of dreamed Paradise. 
 
 Can dreams forget, can you forget, 'twas I 
 
 Gazed in those eyes, with rapture, saw strange light 
 
 Steal like sunrise across a midnight sky ? 
 Ah, God, the very stars abashed took flight. 
 
 Then, climbed the moon, peeped through that window- 
 pane, 
 
 Saw your face fast asleep on love's strong arm, 
 Thick hair unloosed o'er warm white bosom reign 
 
 As smiled your sleeping lips through moonlight's charm. 
 
 Is sorrow one sad song of earthly things ? 
 
 And trust in woman's love the dying day ? 
 Are dreams sunsets soft-specked with curling wings — 
 
 Birds o'er the skyline fading far away ? 
 
 Now — like to swallows lost far out at sea, 
 
 I seek love's south, warm spirit eyes, true lips; 
 
 And, as lost trembling birds cling — woe is me ! 
 With tiny feet to masts of passing ships, 
 
 My thoughts roam o'er the universe in vain 
 To find the splendour of some dream I knew, 
 
 Out to the stars cling fluttering, till again 
 
 My arms hold fast my loveliest dream — of you.
 
 60 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I've loved the stars — and all those things that shine 
 With happiness of pure enduring light, 
 
 Ere from your eyes across brief day of mine 
 Clouds crept, hid starlit Heaven out of sight. 
 
 And, now — my very faith in God seems dead ; 
 
 The music of my heart moans like the sea ; 
 My Heaven — where slumbering lies my tired head 
 
 As in a dream you come back, dear, to me.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 61 
 
 PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 (FIJI) 
 
 We watched, bewilder'd, 'neath the pale moonshine ; 
 
 The Bay's clear water mirror'd mighty trees. 
 Out o'er the shore's wild rampart curled the line — 
 
 The white-ridged line of long Pacific seas ! 
 The fireflies danced ; across the still lagoons 
 Canoes dark-floated o'er pale mirrored moons. 
 
 Out on the pale sea rode our full-rigged barque, 
 Fast anchor'd, rocking to the swinging tide ; 
 
 The hanging topsails silvered in the dark 
 
 As swung the poop-lamp o'er the wooden side. 
 
 We sniffed, like wine, as up the shore we crept, 
 
 Cool whiffs of flowers from leafy damp glooms swept. 
 
 We sighted tiny huts, neath coco-palms, 
 
 Big native men, like black ghosts wrapped in towels 
 Thro' moonlight passed, we heard faint-chanting psalms 
 
 Of ancient creeds, then silence brought the howls 
 And beat of drums that told our wondering ears 
 Some warrior encored was by tribal cheers ! 
 
 Far-off, beneath the sailing South Sea moon, 
 
 The boundless ocean crinkled. By dark caves 
 
 All hurrying up the shore — where each lagoon 
 Shone like a mirror, ran the singing waves 
 
 Like frighten'd children o'er the reefs to peep, 
 
 All imaged, curling in still water's deep.
 
 62 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 As though space lay in miniature outspread — 
 The Universes sparkling, dancing stars ! — 
 
 Firefly-swarms twinkled, where waved overhead 
 Dark tropic palms by leagues of coral bars 
 
 By leafy glooms and foams of Southern Seas ; 
 
 And like an Angel's flute blown in the trees, 
 
 A night-bird's throat poured forth its lovely song 
 As on we crept ; the boatswain brave, ahead ; 
 
 His pale bald pate in moonlight bobbed along, 
 
 The whole crew followed close, with noiseless tread, 
 
 My shipmate Wells and I with tremulous mind — 
 
 Both young — together bravely crept behind ! 
 
 Deep in the forest hid, big savage men 
 
 By camp-fires rose ; gleamed fiercely startled eyes ! 
 Wild women crept from out each bee-hive den, 
 
 Gazed on our faces white with glad surprise ! 
 Proud, sat the dark King on his bamboo throne; 
 A sailor's shirt about his bare limbs blown. 
 
 Three grim barbarians sat like long dead sages, 
 
 Like mummy things ; in wrinkles deep, their eyes 
 
 Gave wistful gleams — as though the dead dark ages 
 On watch sat by that moonlit Paradise — 
 
 Sat by a little fire 'neath three giant trees, 
 
 Their bowed heads touch'd their huddled thin bone knees. 
 
 One strange old man on that dim, far-off world — 
 
 Where round the waves in moonlight ran up singing — 
 
 Danced wildly, his thin legs oft skyward hurled, 
 
 To chanting maidens' bodies bare, arms flinging, 
 
 His shadow in moonlight oft jumped about, 
 
 Once thro' the forest height its head stuck out !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 63 
 
 Our old cook, through some strange drink maudlin drunk, 
 Stamped with delight the leafy forest floor 
 
 Where girls, bare limbed, half rose in flowers, then sunk ; 
 His big eyes stared, he shouted out ' Encore ! ' 
 
 In royal nude-state the old King fiercely sat, 
 
 His big fat feet spread on a little mat. 
 
 Like dead men on some unknown world we stood ; 
 
 Brown girls in moonlight danced, their glimmering 
 eyes, 
 Whirled ghost-like round the leafy solitude, 
 
 They touched our shirted bodies ; with wild cries 
 All joyous-circling, clapped and danced again 
 To find us real, warm-blooded sailor-men ! 
 
 Out flopp'd the sails. In shoals just o'er the side 
 
 Glad swimming eyes in sunset upturned gleamed ; 
 
 Safe on those wave-washed backs their babes did ride ; 
 By night did seem as though it had been dreamed, 
 
 Wild campfire and weird song of those far isles, 
 
 As wailed the swaying sails o'er lone sea miles.
 
 64 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 SAMOA 
 
 In the west the sunsets seaward sink, 
 
 Few sails fade over that ocean's brink 
 
 As Catamarans glide like ghostly wings 
 
 In moonlight, as each cargo sings, 
 
 Swarms of wild faces sailing along 
 
 O'er the South Sea Bay chanting wild song ; 
 
 We anchored down by the still lagoons, 
 
 By the dark-branched palms and mirrored moons ; 
 
 By the shore-bamboos, where moved wild eyes, 
 
 Peeping through leaves, bright with surprise. 
 
 Wild women ran from each secret den, 
 
 Admired, gazed at white sailor-men. 
 
 As we crept up shores of mystic-lands, 
 
 Our sea-boots tossing silver sands, 
 
 Out in the lovely vault of night 
 
 The South Sea moon was hanging bright; 
 
 Our shadows in still water glassed 
 
 Like crowds of ghosts, crept as we passed ! 
 
 There in a space sat the old king, 
 
 And women bare their legs did fling, 
 
 Danced silently in pale moonlight 
 
 As Mile-End cheered with wild delight ! 
 
 That old king's nose with grin immense 
 
 Did spread, revealed real innocence ! 
 
 His white teeth gleamed as all the crew 
 
 Laughed louder, still — Heavens, 'tis most true, 
 
 Up went her legs, the South Sea Queen,
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 65 
 
 Hysterical, the crew did lean 
 
 One on the other as supports, 
 
 They nudged each other, those old salts. 
 
 The cook forgot his place, did smack 
 
 Our stern Scotch skipper on the back ! 
 
 I'm glad they laughed and did not weep, 
 
 They're all now in their graves asleep. 
 
 £
 
 66 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 (cape horn) 
 
 We were thirty-four, and one behind where the seas raved 
 
 overhead. 
 And his empty bunk a coffin seemed — where his sea-chest lay 
 
 instead. 
 But we couldn't grieve for the slasher came and blew the 
 
 main-mast out ! 
 As they clung aloft, and the moon-bright clouds were 
 
 knocking the skies about ! 
 Six overboard ! the cook and the mate, and the stowaway, 
 
 young Jim. 
 How we reefed her up and we hove her to. On the heave 
 
 of a sea's ridged rim 
 We saw white struggling hands go up ! then the moon 
 
 smashed by a cloud 
 Covered them down alive beneath the blind sea's lifting 
 
 shroud ! 
 The Bo'sun shouted, roared on the wind, " clear the 
 
 tackle " and though he roared, 
 His voice whipped off like a pistol shot. Crash the crew 
 
 to the deck went floored, 
 The mast clear, overside ! up she came, in the hollows, 
 
 wallowing righted — 
 Ah ! they were the boys for pluck, my lads, brave souls 
 
 that God has knighted. 
 And the mammoth seas o'er the world came down ! the 
 
 winds their backs astride ;
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 67 
 
 How they rose and moaned as the sailors cheered — 
 
 struggling to get inside, 
 As the life-boat dropped ! Almighty Fate remember the 
 
 dark sea grave 
 If sailors forgotten, asleep, don't hear the last trump 
 
 down under the wave ; 
 Call first the plucky dead sailor-men, why, even the 
 
 cook's mate cried 
 For an oar to save his swearing boss ! nearly jumped o'er 
 
 the bulwark side ! 
 Then over the deck pale moonlight swept ; we saw the 
 
 small life-boat rise 
 And the figures of men out tossing beneath infinite 
 
 wind-whipped skies ! 
 And the " old man " stood on the poop, hand arched 
 
 watched his brave wild children go 
 To the dark and the shriek of the ramping seas. How the 
 
 fate-dark winds did blow ! 
 As we heard faint cries from the vast blind night, — 
 
 and I often see the wind 
 
 O'er the dark imagination seas, drift stars of the nights 
 behind — 
 
 O'er sailors asleep as over their heads the deep sea 
 
 clippers roam, 
 
 O'er the Life-boat men of our ship that turned — without 
 
 them all crept home !
 
 68 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE CHIEF MATE 
 
 My ship's at sea, the sails outspread, the moon flies 
 
 backward overhead, 
 The bow heaves up, the swell is strong, she broadside 
 
 lies and skims along ! 
 The figure-head with lifted hands — prays on, the skipper 
 
 staring stands 
 In full view on the poop, beard white — I know the old 
 
 man's sad to night. 
 The " ' off watch ' " restless, cannot sleep, as roam their 
 
 bunks across the deep. 
 Some, whispering by the foremast, smoke, where wind- 
 ward booms each wild sea-stroke ! 
 Here, on the endless waters hurled, we are half-way 
 
 across the world ! 
 My mate, young Wells, he's on watch too, my nose and 
 
 ears sting, with cold blue. 
 This is no Spanish Main, the breeze comes straight from 
 
 icy Arctic seas ! 
 We are both nervous, Wells and I ; there on the main- 
 hatch it doth lie, 
 In canvas wrapt, the chief mate's length, devoid of light 
 
 his eyes, his strength 
 Of limb and soul, and hand-grip warm, all vanished from 
 
 that silent form ! 
 He jumped at sunset in wild seas to save a sailor ! 
 
 grasped his knees ! 
 I saw it all ; two struggling men together fighting wild 
 
 seas, when
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 69 
 
 They went beneath the hissing waves. By God ! the 
 
 seas to-day did rave, 
 The skipper waved his arms, and roared, the thundering 
 
 seas leapt up on board 
 Like hissing fiends to stop the chase of comradeship with 
 
 flinchless face ! 
 We sat, a lump in every throat, out there tossed in the 
 
 small lifeboat. 
 We brought that dead form back alone, the other one he 
 
 had clean gone ! 
 The crew his orders had obeyed, but like a sleeping child 
 
 they laid 
 His wet head down ; his brave blue eyes looked through 
 
 their arms straight at the skies. 
 At sunset stood round pale with sorrow, they'll drop him 
 
 over there to-morrow ! 
 And now the lone ship flies along, as swaying 'neath the 
 
 stars in song 
 The sails are singing overhead, above the hatch where 
 
 he lies dead. 
 No wonder winds and sails fast flying sound something 
 
 like dead sailors crying.
 
 jo Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 IN THE BUSH 
 
 I'm back in the bush with a trustful chum, 
 
 With our drawing-room spread 'neath a gum ! 
 
 I was sick of myself and evil ways 
 
 And the splendid scheme that never pays ! 
 
 And life that is made up, O my brother, 
 
 Of one curs'd thing and then another ! 
 
 'Tis night and the forests sleep so still : 
 
 If I climb up there on that little hill, 
 
 And stand beneath those tall red trees, 
 
 I can spot the far-off moonlit seas ! 
 
 And the waves all tossing splash the sky, 
 
 Where the full-rigged home-bound pitches by ! 
 
 There sits my chum, old sober-side, 
 
 We've travelled, we two, the whole world wide. 
 
 He's thick-necked, low, but he has no fears, 
 
 And his mouth as he gapes ends near his ears ! 
 
 As we sit by this camp-fire blazing bright — 
 
 Here where we need not be polite, 
 
 And sit in a little chair upright 
 
 To a guest that will call every night ! 
 
 Where no one bangs at your shanty door, 
 
 And growls, ' I've been here twice before, 
 
 And I don't care a damn 'bout your good intent ; 
 
 All that I want is my overdue rent ! ' 
 
 If he did — these hills are silent, deep, 
 
 The gullies dark by the moonlit steep, 
 
 And here you could kill a man outright, 
 
 And no one know that he died that night ! 
 
 Though he stood by your door a month upright — 
 
 Till he shrank and his clothes flapped in moonlight. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis sweet to sit on this dead gum-log 
 
 As he waggeth his tail, my chum — my dog !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices yi 
 
 THE GOLD COAST 
 
 (homesick) 
 
 Here, sweltering 'neath blue tropic skies, 
 For miles and miles deep jungle lies, 
 Like big brown peg-tops upside down, 
 Just out there stands the black man's town. 
 And men call this the Golden South — 
 No wonder I'm down in the mouth ! 
 About five thousand hissing flies 
 Swarm round my sun-blazed, blinded eyes ! 
 And though the gold-mines are round here, 
 I'd sell my soul for English beer ! 
 I've sweated all night in these pants, 
 You dare not take them off; the ants, 
 The fleas, and awful crawling things, 
 Creep 'tween the sheets and flap their wings- 
 My body smarts now with their stings ! 
 
 Hot fevers own this cursed place, 
 Grip tight your throat, stare in your face, 
 And through your frenzied brain all night 
 Black devils leap with wild delight ! 
 Until you sleep, then from far lands, 
 Stretched o'er the seas come shadow hands 
 And lips that kiss your fevered brow — 
 Ah, God ! to feel such kisses now ! 
 On that small steep, the red trees by, 
 The dead white men all homesick lie ! 
 They cannot hear the tom-tom's tune
 
 J2 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 By night, when 'neath the Afric moon 
 The black's blood-curdling shriek, as run 
 From jungles dark things one by one, 
 In moonlight jump that silent steep : 
 Thank God, dead men lie deep in sleep ! 
 There's something shouting in my head — 
 1 Clear out, old man, before you're dead ! ' 
 And if when you all read these lines, 
 No letter comes, and no old signs, 
 To tell I'm back in London Town, 
 You'll know they too have got me down !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 73 
 
 A SAILOR'S GRAVE 
 
 Oh, sink me down deep under the sea, 
 
 And the wild waves will beat over me ; 
 
 The foam of my shroud toss under the sky 
 
 When over my head the ships go by, 
 
 As the south-bound swallows screaming go 
 
 From the mists where the wild lone shore looms low. 
 
 I will live in the beat of storms, though dead ! 
 
 As the tides sway over my moving bed, 
 
 And I'll hear collide the wild green waves 
 
 As they clash and meet the dark sea-caves ; 
 
 When sunset flames the low skyline far, 
 
 Till the waters deep around me are 
 
 A mirror wide for every star, 
 
 My dead eyes will stare up and be 
 
 With pale shadows in eternity. 
 
 When the shadow keels of the home-bound ships 
 
 Glide over my shroud as the moonlight slips 
 
 Thro' dark depths to kiss my pale dead lips, 
 
 I'll hear the sailors right over me singing, 
 
 In the moonlit flying rigging — clinging, 
 
 Till their voices fading leave the sound 
 
 Of deep moving waters lapping around. 
 
 Oh, my soul and the sea have been as one, 
 
 And the depth of my passion bright as the sun, 
 
 So in other years — oh, eyes to be — 
 
 Oh, unborn women, stare out to sea — 
 
 When the spring flowers blow dream then of me, 
 
 For I have loved the soul of your eyes,
 
 74 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 And am lying where round the cold wave cries 
 As my dead limbs lift with each deep tide rise. 
 Oh, maidens to grieve, unloved, come, creep 
 To the shore where the waters around me sweep, 
 And there dip your lovely warm, white limbs, 
 For dead eyes glide where the moonlight swims, 
 And your prayers — will they all be dreamed in vain 
 If a dead man is love-thrilled again ?
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 75 
 
 A WINDY NIGHT 
 
 The wild-night seas are thundering in my little moonlit 
 room, 
 All tossing, tossing by my lone bedside. 
 Across the silent dreaming night, deep moving waters boom, 
 
 As o'er my head the wailing torn-sails glide. 
 Death's hungering hounds are moaning on dark shores of 
 starlit doom 
 For tired sailors on the ocean wide. 
 
 The sailor-men are clinging to the broken floating mast, 
 Along Fate's phantom shore the hounds still cry. 
 
 As one by one the overboards, into the ocean cast, 
 In moonlight toss up white hands once — and die. 
 
 The old ship trembling wails her lonely sinking cry at last, 
 The blind seas onward roll beneath the sky. 
 
 Dawn creeps along the sea skyline, the waves are all asleep ; 
 
 The stars steal frighten'd home, all creep indoors. 
 A magic shore is looming up across the eastern deep. 
 
 Where on the emerald waves bright sunrise pours, 
 The sinful " ' Old Hands ' " from the sea together huddled 
 creep — 
 
 Half frightened — up God's silent, unknown shores.
 
 y6 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE BRIDAL NIGHT 
 
 (her confession) 
 
 For ever warm and lovely are my limbs, 
 
 For him each secret white, caressing curve. 
 
 Within my chamber glass my image swims, 
 
 As love bewitched my limbs I sway and swerve, 
 
 To sweeter show my body's bare outline, 
 
 As thro' my tumbling hair my pleased eyes shine. 
 
 For ever young I'll be, with warm desires 
 
 To be imprisoned in love's sweet, strong arms. 
 
 I shall for him create from my soul's fires 
 
 His image, or mine own, that his soul charms ! 
 
 I will curve these fond arms o'er him by night, 
 
 As thro' sweet dreams repose my warm limbs white. 
 
 For him my rich red blood, my eyes, this hair, 
 
 Unloosed, dark tumbling o'er my maiden breast, 
 
 Made lovelier for this thought — he'll clasp me there, 
 Whene'er at dawn our farewell lips are pressed. 
 
 His bearded face I'll kiss when moonlight creeps 
 
 His eyelids — quivering as still on he sleeps ! 
 
 O Heaven ! I thank thee that I live, that I 
 
 The thrill have felt thou hadst who sighed the skies ! 
 O midnight stars ! unloved, big dumb-struck sky ! 
 
 Since he so praised light of my violet eyes, 
 Where thro' my soul's love pleased, blushed as the rain 
 Kissed to a rainbow by the sun again.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices jj 
 
 Heaven made me as I am, with rounded form, 
 
 The splendid strength and frailness of the world ! 
 
 The universe I feel, of bright suns warm, 
 
 Flashed out and sang ! bright thoughts thro' darkness 
 whirled 
 
 Thro' love supreme, that found, that came to bless 
 
 God, brooding in eternal loneliness. 
 
 I do not fear the winds of heaven or sea, 
 
 Those breakers tumbling shoreward, far away ; 
 
 Or Him whose pale moon sheds beams silently 
 
 O'er hills where dark, tall trees oft silvered sway. 
 
 But those old ogres in the hills asleep, 
 
 'Twere death if from their beds they did unleap ! 
 
 My silken robe falls as I lean, o'erpeep 
 
 My window open wide, thro' lattice bars 
 
 Cool airs breath o'er sweet-scented flowers asleep ; 
 The cedars far beyond sway 'neath pale stars, 
 
 The thick leaves stir. Hush ! in cold moonlight dim 
 
 A shadow slips — O joy ! my love, 'tis him !
 
 78 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 
 
 Some day I shall command respect, 
 
 With earnest eyes men will acclaim 
 Some virtue mine, which to my shame 
 
 Is hidden by their sad neglect. 
 
 I shall be dead then, fast asleep ! 
 
 They'll shout and praise my published songs, 
 Make wild romance of all my wrongs. 
 
 My creditors will hear — and weep. 
 
 The friend who gave the loyal trust, 
 That in some weakness I forgot, 
 Will hear, and say, ' I hate him not ! ' 
 
 Why hate a little bit of dust? 
 
 They'll say, when stone-deaf I'm in bed, 
 
 Though of their name I am the worst — 
 ' He's dead, alas ! the best go first ! ' 
 
 True 'tis, the best men are men dead. 
 
 My shabbiest friend will knock the door, 
 Be ushered in, in tears stand mute ; 
 Gaze round my room, spot my best suit — 
 
 Depart, and will return no more ! 
 
 That night, around the festive board, 
 
 With glee they'll stuff, then one will cough, 
 And say, ' Poor chap, he's better off 
 
 Than we.' But shall I be, O Lord ?
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 79 
 
 Kind words they'll publish o'er my bones — 
 Alas ! that I, who so much need 
 Such praise cannot stand there and read ! 
 
 I wish for births there were tombstones ! 
 
 To think, they who looked in my face 
 
 With calm contempt, will gaze with awe, 
 All hushed, on me, who ne'er once saw 
 
 Such looks in life for a scapegrace ! 
 
 Oh, to sit there with pride and share 
 
 The pomp and state imperial 
 
 That will attend my funeral. 
 They'd blush with shame to see me there ! 
 
 So not on Earth, but underneath, 
 We're beautiful to eyes o'erhead 
 Have all the virtues when we're dead, 
 
 In life walk arm-in-arm with death. 
 
 So do I dream, in sad disguise, 
 
 Here in my attic-room to-night. 
 
 My pinched face in that mirror's light 
 Moves with my hungry, restless eyes. 
 
 This crust of bread my wealth ; a lent 
 
 Felt hat unpawned my hope in gloom, 
 
 As ticks the clock t'wards changeless doom, 
 
 That thumps and thumps my door for rent.
 
 8o Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 A BUSH GRAVE 
 
 I know a grave down Murrumbidgee way 
 
 Alone within the hills where no one goes, 
 
 Where years blow into sleep their leafy day ; 
 
 While overhead the bush-flower wakes and blows, 
 
 For spirit fingers visit there with flowers — 
 
 Where o'er one faithful friend a blue-gum towers. 
 
 And thro' thick, leafy clumps by sea-winds blown 
 Bright music of the woods with sunset dies, 
 
 Till every wild musician home has flown, 
 
 And o'er the darken'd waves the sea-gull cries, 
 
 Where, like a tunnel way for realms divine, 
 
 Upon the waves the big moonrise doth shine. 
 
 Oft o'er the slopes the night winds wailing blow, 
 While parrots in the gum-clumps roost asleep, 
 
 And dark things in the redwoods flitting go — 
 
 Where 'possums thro' the moonlit branches leap ; 
 
 While in the lonely hollow by the sea 
 
 Toils on the sweet night-bird in melody. 
 
 And when the gums in moonlight are all still, 
 
 And not a breath steals o'er the scented foam 
 
 Of forest leaves ; just by the seaward hill 
 
 A ghostly camp-fire brightens our hut-home ; 
 
 Out on the slope once more the hammock swings, 
 
 As in the shadows near he sits and sings.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 81 
 
 Where marsh-flowers' breathing scent the swamp's cool 
 damp, 
 
 And o'er the winter white mists creeping lie, 
 Stands pitched my old chum's silent last sad camp; 
 
 And far away the deep-sea ships go by. 
 Tired winds from seaward o'er the hollows creep 
 When on his grave the moonlight lies asleep. 
 
 I know a hut, strong-fashioned by our hands, 
 Upon a hill, half hid in thick bush grass, 
 
 Below an old dead gum alone it stands, 
 
 Where overhead the moonlit curlews pass, 
 
 I hear them piping low on westward flight, 
 
 'Way out across the dead years — far to-night. 
 
 And oft, the moonlight creeps those old log walls ; 
 
 And steals across each empty small bunk-bed, 
 Where only now within, the dead leaf falls 
 
 Thro' chinks from clinging wild vines overhead. 
 Lake flowers breathe earth's sweet poetry and die 
 O'er huddled tears — that fell from out the sky.
 
 82 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 ERE I AM OLD 
 
 Dear God, while flowers and fields are lovely 
 
 And all my dreams have wings, 
 While in my soul to you far-soaring 
 
 A skylark sings, 
 My eyelids close in slumber gently, 
 
 About my limbs enfold 
 The silence of the buried ages — 
 
 Ere I am old. 
 
 Bring sleep — ere stars sing hopeless sorrow, 
 
 While on the hedgerow spray 
 The blackbird is an angel singing 
 
 To me all day. 
 Death — hold me tight, leave no escaping, 
 
 Tight to my dead limbs cling 
 When swallows o'er my grave, returning, 
 
 Fly back to spring.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 83 
 
 I SHALL DREAM AND DREAM 
 
 I shall dream and dream, as the years fly by 
 
 Till my eyes are otherwhere — 
 Hid in the dark or ever so high 
 
 Far-shining somewhere out there, 
 Shining, shining, away up in the sky 
 As the stars go by. 
 
 I shall dream and dream while the night winds blow 
 
 Wild music out of the seas — 
 Sails under the moon, as the old ships go 
 
 Thro' the mists of memories. 
 I shall dream and dream this way, I know, 
 Wherever I go. 
 
 I shall never be happy, rich, poor or sad, 
 
 Excepting 'tis in my dreams ; 
 I shall tramp and tramp as I did when a lad 
 
 O'er plains and by forest streams 
 As the world goes wailing, wailing, or glad, 
 I shall be dreaming-mad ! 
 
 Oh ! I'm happy, I'm King ! the world's mine, all 
 The things that dreams can dream, 
 
 I climb on God's shoulders — He's not so tall. 
 Till His eyes in my own eyes gleam ! 
 
 So I'm sorry for. men who rise, sin and fall — 
 For I am them all.
 
 84 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The man dead thousands of years ago, — 
 The woman that loved his eyes — 
 
 The flowers that burst thro' their dead dust know- 
 For their breath on the wind still sighs — 
 
 That I love old sorrows, they know, that I know, 
 All the long ago. 
 
 Sad, beautiful women unloved — long dead 
 
 Eyes barren of mother-light ; 
 Their unborn children cry, curled in my head, 
 
 So they kiss all the dreams that I write. 
 They know I will kiss their dead lips instead — 
 In dreams, when I'm dead.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 85 
 
 RHYMES OF A BEACH-COMBER 
 
 (a voice from samoa) 
 
 Part I 
 
 Come, follow me friends, by the still lagoons 
 
 And the midnight dance by the waving palms, 
 
 Your white men (long missing), here singing tunes ! 
 
 They dance with delight in the brown maid's arms. 
 
 Or fighting like Hell shoot the black dragoons. 
 
 Oh ! the death scream, faint; the drum beat alarms 
 
 Of the ambushed tribe blown far out to sea, 
 
 Commercial eyes, cold eyes come follow me ! 
 
 Come, follow me friends, in my rhymes to-night ; 
 
 Creep out from your cities' ten thousand walls. 
 Oh, I've sailed the seas, and such songs I'd write, 
 
 'Tis the wild bird song of my soul that calls, 
 And the stars and moons of a world's delight — 
 
 Of my wildest dreams. As the warm wave falls 
 At my feet on this Isle afar, I'll say 
 And sing you the songs of the world's highway. 
 
 Come, follow me friends, be my comrades brave, 
 Remember my song, whenever it sneers, 
 
 From my native Isles to the South Sea wave 
 
 There are souls that sneer to hide their tears. 
 
 And I've loved sweet winds, and the storms that rave 
 
 In man's heart, that breathes God's truth in our ears. 
 
 From this lone sea-Isle 'tis a man's voice calls 
 
 I, the child of your own land's blacken'd walls.
 
 86 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Oh, waves cry on by the rugged sea Bay, 
 
 Sails flap overhead, Oh ! marvellous stars, 
 
 Forever, forever shine on far away, 
 
 Shine, down the lagoons by coral-reef bars, 
 
 Oh, mountains, inland, vast Gods, kneeling pray 
 
 In moonlight 'neath skies, as the cloud rift mars 
 
 Bright, lonely sea isles, palms, moveless as paint — 
 
 Coloured oils — till shore waves tossing, break faint 
 
 Up shores, dim sleeping mysterious lands, 
 
 Like altars where sea waves arriving, cry, 
 
 Time's homeless children toss your white hands, 
 
 Knock the dark cave doors outside 'neath the sky ! 
 
 As I watch by the palms where the dark shore stands, 
 White necks from the ocean arise ! wailing die ! 
 
 Sink back to the depths, lift white arms and fall 
 
 As I dream — and again comes back the call, 
 
 " Starboard, All Hands," as soft pattering feet, 
 Clambering bodies to the decks, fall, leap, 
 As the western eyes, and the wild eyes meet ! 
 
 Like phantoms come out from the shores of sleep, 
 Chanting wild song till they joyously greet 
 Sailors ! they fall, lithe sea daughters brown 
 In the amorous arms of old London Town ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 I am the Laureate of these wild South Seas ! 
 
 First Court Musician to the Royal throne ; 
 I've played the fiddle as giant forest trees 
 
 Wailed fitfully, night's grand orchestral moan. 
 My comrades danced a jig, sang sea chanties ; 
 
 Wild men delighted, blessed each silver tone. 
 Whirled round and round ; the old king got excited, 
 His fat lips touched my head, I rose up — knighted !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 87 
 
 Dark eyes of savage women at my face 
 
 Gazed ! rough-haired girls, bare-limbed crept to my side; 
 And beautiful are eyes wherein you trace 
 
 The wild flower innocence of mountains wide. 
 'Twas night, their ears caught true the rhythmic pace. 
 
 My fingers fast the fiddle strings did glide. 
 They danced, their shadows whirling in moonlight, 
 'Neath forest-trees, dark phantoms of delight. 
 
 The Queen nude on a stump, austere, amazed — 
 Red shawl upblown o'er skinny bosom bare, 
 And shrivelled thighs revealed. Eyelids upraised 
 
 Gave gleaming twinkles, faith, a noble pair 
 That Royal twain. Oft have I been much praised 
 By kings and queens of other lands, but ne'er, 
 I'll swear, have seen so much of Royal state, 
 More than my rough rhymes smoothly can relate. 
 
 In dreams I see the long shore line lagoons ; 
 
 Beech-combers creeping thro' tracks of moonlight — 
 Between drinks — by the sweltering hut saloons. 
 
 Once more I hear shouts o'er the wondrous night 
 By magic seas, dark palms, pale mirrored moons, 
 
 And swarthy men, a semi-human sight — 
 Brown figures in short shirts, belts, clubs, sheaf-knives, 
 And curved-limbed women, bare as poles — their wives ! 
 
 Our wooden sloop lies anchor'd in the Bay, 
 
 Warm night-airs ruffle sails to windy song ; 
 
 The moonlit shining waters imaged sway 
 
 Decks where our figures stealing move along — 
 
 The skipper's drunk, asleep ! We row away, 
 
 Creep up dark shores with tattooed men we throng ; 
 
 In starry vault across the forest height, 
 
 The lovely South Sea moon is hanging bright.
 
 88 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 A dim enchanted land, moonlit trees singing, 
 
 And tossing white-armed waves far seaward playing ; 
 
 The stealing night winds ghostly voices bringing 
 
 Of drunken traders, as brown maidens swaying, 
 
 Dance by their huts, bare arms and lithe limbs flinging, 
 Big chiefs to ancient gods, with much zest praying 
 
 In huddled rows ; as from the small Hut Town, 
 
 Toward the beach wild men creep up and down. 
 
 All long ago, but still the past camp fires 
 Are burning brightly thro' old dreams again 
 As native girls, like ghostly things on wires 
 Are dancing 'neath the palms and moonbeam rain 
 And in their arms each holds her heart's desires 
 The drunken trader-sailors, and like pain 
 For what has been the winds stir all the trees 
 That keep old secrets of these island seas, 
 
 And sighs my song, for 'tis a tuneless tongue 
 
 That cannot sing of love. Who e'er has roughed 
 The lands beyond the harbour foams, and sung 
 The spicy sweetness of a mummy stuffed ? 
 Ne'er felt life's splendid blood thrills, being young, 
 Oh, youthful eyes make haste ! ere sprouts the tuft — 
 Life's three grey hairs, cold eyes, and sad bald head ; 
 We're virtuous long enough — when we are dead ! 
 
 Awake ! for morning flowers the hour of bliss, 
 
 Smile, banish withering dreams of palsied age ! 
 
 You will die youthful by remembering this — 
 
 You are your Heaven, and Hell, on life's stern-page, 
 
 The wisest, saddest thoughts are those, I wis, 
 
 That we ourselves have writ. I am the Sage 
 
 Of sorrows o'er seas, lands 'neath many skies ; 
 
 So practise what I preach — were I as wise !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 89 
 
 Ambushed in woman's warm, white clinging arms, 
 Curved lip to lip, dishevelled upblown hair. 
 
 Dark eyes like sunset that the ocean charms — 
 
 Eyes glimmering 'tween the droop of lashes fair. 
 
 Pale moonlight by the shore's dark waving palms, 
 Enchanted isles, sea-tossed foams everywhere. 
 
 Love's wild bird music tremulous in your ears 
 
 Are dubious things — when men are old in years ! 
 
 There was Laoeta, beautiful her eyes, 
 
 Limbs soft as velvet, starlit-night of hair 
 
 About her shoulders ruffled to the sighs 
 
 Of forest winds that kissed her body bare — 
 
 Except for white loin cloth o'er brown, curved thighs — 
 Sweet bird-like music voice, no white man dare 
 
 Approach with meaning deeper in his gaze 
 
 Than friendship, she was not of Western ways ! 
 
 It chanced by fate one night — I mind it well — 
 A young apprentice, stranded, this way came. 
 
 They loved at sight. Alas ! the truth to tell, 
 
 The South Sea maid's blood, too, warms into flame 
 
 Of passion, from love's spark, and, so, she fell. 
 
 Chief Grimbo caught them in the arms of shame — 
 
 Faith, bristling with clasp knives, miles off that night 
 
 We found him — by the festive camp-fire light ! 
 
 Like drums our hearts beat fast, 'neath giant trees 
 We peered, big savage men and jealous wives 
 
 Licked their dark mouths expectant ! Hands and knees 
 Bound to a spit, he stood. We clutched our knives, 
 
 Leapt just in time, ay, desperate to seize 
 
 Our tight-trussed chum — then battled for our lives. 
 
 Three shots flashed out ; like madmen in a jig 
 
 They fought to save their supper of " long pig " !
 
 90 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Three men dead lay ; stuck in my leg a spear ; 
 
 Fierce, savage hags clawed like wild forest cats — 
 The Bo'sun yelled when one bit off his ear ! 
 
 They scampered off in shoals like mammoth rats 
 Deep in the moonlit forest. White with fear 
 
 Laoeta's lover was, as flapping bats 
 In droves o'erhead squeaked disappointed tones, 
 To be denied his roasted, clean-picked bones ! 
 
 They were the good old days of these South Seas 
 Ere missionaries came and made them sly, 
 
 And by their huts, a Bible on their knees, 
 Plan out old villainies beneath the sky, 
 
 Love ancient gods, sneak off on secret sprees, 
 
 Shout out, " Me Christian man," roll up each eye, 
 
 Cook their old mother to a turn — say grace ; 
 
 Eat her, with kindly eyes look in your face ! 
 
 I've seen them loafing 'neath the tropic sun, 
 
 By their small huts, sprawled bodies bare as eggs ! 
 
 'Mong bamboos sitting, yawning, one by one 
 
 Brown girls and boys outstretch their long thin legs, 
 
 Bask in sunlight, as romping round would run 
 
 Plump tiny kids, they'd stiff their calves like pegs, 
 
 Dive in the Bay like frogs, back from the sea, 
 
 Head over heels, come laughing merrily. 
 
 My chum and I oft got those boys and girls 
 
 Out on the seaward slopes and started races, 
 
 Bright scrambling eyes — small teeth like rows of pearls — 
 To win the prize uplifted to our faces. 
 
 I'd shout " Galoota," whiz, dark sun-flashed curls, 
 Bare flying legs of girls, outdid the paces 
 
 Of boys, and won the button — treasured prize — 
 
 They'd gaze up in my face with Christ like eyes.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 91 
 
 Stern are these Isles in ways of etiquette, 
 
 Waistbelts, sheath knives, no pants, means full court 
 dress ! 
 White traders in saloons drink, swear and bet, 
 
 Their beards brush o'er big broad chest nakedness. 
 With fearless eyes they lie — I've seldom met 
 
 Such downright brave heroic carelessness. 
 Or seen men o'er their shoulders spit so true 
 As shuffling cards, some listen, yarn and chew. 
 
 The High Courts of South Seas held are by night, 
 
 The scales of justice are bright shining flocks 
 Of eyes, and clubs in hands that itch to fight. 
 
 The ravished daughter in the witness box 
 Naked stands ; the trader bound, face ashen white, 
 
 Meets doom, as crash the stern judge club — whiz — 
 knocks 
 The skull right off, and if the body stands 
 
 Still upright ! loud the praise of clapping hands. 
 
 I've seen them by moonlight race for that head, 
 
 Like scrambling ghosts, puff! leap the silent night, 
 
 As white footballers do, 'tis caught and led 
 
 From hand to hand tossed high. A ghastly sight 
 
 I do admit. Alas ! but when all's said 
 
 The judge of my own land, crowned with wig white, 
 
 In style, with death's black cap, does just the same. 
 
 For me, I much prefer the football game ! 
 
 Real South Sea chivalry is on the wane, 
 
 They do not spear or club you by daylight, 
 
 But secretly get back their own again 
 
 On moonless nights. The good old honest fight
 
 92 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 O'er ravished daughters smarts still in the strain 
 
 Of tattooed men, with eyes that hate men white — 
 Some dyed, disguised, old England's long-missed wrecks, 
 They left their native land to save their necks ! 
 
 Just round the forest bend some sleeping lie, 
 
 Died, dead-blind drunk, or in some wild nightmare 
 
 O'er what old crime, 'neath their far native sky ? 
 Hot fever-stricken souls they to the air 
 
 Escaped life's doom. Oft when the forest sighs 
 You can hear wails by moonlight of despair, 
 
 As dead white men outbound o'er barrier-foams 
 
 On seaward flight flee — bound for English homes ! 
 
 There's caste the same here as my Western nation, 
 They strut with pride if they possess a shirt. 
 
 Old Mango owns a copra, Yam Plantation ; 
 His brother's fishing, to his eyes are dirt. 
 
 His wife one garment wears — 'tis a temptation 
 
 It's name to mention — Heavens, she looks a flirt ! 
 
 A trader's white wife lost them. Such a sight, 
 
 White frills to brown knees, baggy, at waist tight. 
 
 Stern sly old chiefs slink by her, gaze sideways 
 
 To see her plump brown limbs exposed to view 
 
 Through frills pure white ! With downcast modest gaze — 
 Just as stage beauties of my country do, 
 
 When in their tights they bow as men loud praise — 
 By her hut-door she stands 'neath skies of blue, 
 
 As envious eyes, for miles the old tribes come 
 
 To see winds fill them out — big, like a drum ! 
 
 I know a South Sea queen, her soul's turned white, 
 
 She's eaten men — old passion fires now smoulder — 
 Her tattooed limbs once made the big chiefs fight;
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 93 
 
 Ay, one by one they've had her, bought and sold her 
 To comrades when they sickened of her sight. 
 
 She's pious, virtuous, calm, sedate and older, 
 Sits by her hut, wears pince-nez, wrinkling, fat, 
 Stuck on her head — a large Parisian hat ! 
 
 One night old Gambo crept to her hut side, 
 
 By its small door we stole like creeping mice, 
 
 We peeped, we saw her squatting, eyes ope'd wide, 
 Her wrinkled face the breathing map of vice ! 
 
 She smiled, her figure nude surveyed with pride. 
 
 My foot slipped. Heavens I cursed, for in a trice — 
 
 Bang, crash ! a club whizzed by my peeping head, 
 
 Her husbands three — awake, sat up in bed ! 
 
 By faith, I'll ne'er forget that breathless race, 
 
 As down the slopes old Gambo came behind, 
 
 Hot, puffing, wild with fear to keep the pace, 
 In South Sea lingo giving me his mind. 
 
 Heavens ! how he ran — and me ! — I could just trace 
 Sea-breakers rolling — in moonlight denned 
 
 Far off, 'tis ever on my mind engraved 
 
 That night — our boat, wherein we jumped — both saved ! 
 
 Part II 
 (Samoa) 
 
 Brave R. L. S. sleeps up there in the tomb ; 
 
 His soul's poetic fire in moonlight singing, 
 As long Pacific breakers beat their doom 
 
 O'er barrier reefs, wild forest birds are flinging 
 His music to the winds. I see his room,
 
 94 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 His bent form reads — Alas ! how memory's bringing 
 Back olden days, till flowers and moonlit trees 
 Are waving thro' deep forest memories. 
 
 While fire-flies dance in bunches by lagoons, 
 
 Along deep shoreline glooms oft twinkling gleam 
 
 Like Universes sparkling, singing tunes — 
 
 Immensity squeezed in some tiny dream — 
 
 He sleeps for ever — where grave flowers are moons 
 
 From lands afar and Time's strange stealing stream — ■ 
 
 Blue tropic days, and stealing stars behind 
 
 Migrating o'er the universal Mind ! 
 
 " Three waters " * stands still by the forest there, 
 Men came from other lands across that Bay, 
 
 Old welcomed friends, ere as immortal air 
 
 Upon the Great-Trade-Wind he sailed away. 
 
 At dusk Samoan chiefs round here declare 
 When sunset seaward steals its dying ray, 
 
 He sits down shoreward gazing tenderly 
 
 Fast voyaging dreams his eyes far out at sea. 
 
 Still to this beach the traders come and go ; 
 
 And shouts of sailor-songs of many lands 
 Drift on warm winds as flapping to and fro 
 
 Sails gleam o'er ships deserted by all hands ; 
 As in the phantom light I gaze below, 
 
 See shadows move where each small beach hut 
 stands — 
 Groups of wild women move, spank their plump brats ! 
 All running round in moonlight like big rats ! 
 
 * Vailima, R. L. S's. Samoan Home.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 95 
 
 The sea miles gleam, a shining mirror glass 
 
 Of stars, as curling waves out shoreward rise 
 
 And break, as 'neath the white sea moon doth pass 
 The sleepless frigate bird, I see bright eyes — 
 
 My old friend, Pombo by me stands — Alas ! 
 He's dead, I know, but still his spirit sighs 
 
 Here by my side, and still I clasp his hands, 
 
 My dear brown friend gone to his shadow lands. 
 
 'Twas Pombo watched when stern chiefs lay asleep ; 
 
 And round her tent she peeped, my South Sea maid, 
 Dark velvet eyes, smooth-limbed, brown bosom deep ; 
 
 Her scant attire, a white loin cloth, betrayed 
 Her modesty. How fast my heart would leap 
 
 If night birds flapped ! I need have been afraid, 
 I knew brown men in white men had small faith, 
 Once caught I was quite sure of certain death ! 
 
 We still for ever stand on those night steeps, 
 Like images of stone clasped in moonlight 
 
 In perfect stillness, gazing down twin deeps — 
 
 Each other's eyes ! The moon enchanted night, 
 
 The windless seas, pale stars, still breathless sleeps 
 
 Round that love scene, though years have taken flight, 
 
 While cities rise our eyes stare 'neath palm trees 
 
 Amazed shine 'neath the stars of Southern Seas. 
 
 I see the silent forest track ; 'tis night, 
 
 The shadows round about us trembling creep, 
 
 The pale moon brightens o'er the dark-branched height, 
 As o'er the forest lanes night winds oft sweep, 
 
 In front they steal, before our watching sight, 
 Sad tiny shadows from the shores of sleep, 
 
 Our unborn children creeping — lover's sighs — 
 
 Across the moonlit track before our eyes !
 
 96 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Her spirit lives on in my loveliest dreams ; 
 
 She lies along this shoreline, somewhere, dead ; 
 We were, both boy and girl, then came the schemes 
 
 Of traders, and she fell — God bless her head. 
 Old Pombo led me by the forest streams, 
 
 By night we stood beside her moss-grey bed — 
 The earth I kissed, her dead lips sighed beneath, 
 Stirred moonlit flowers, where crept a wind's soft breath. 
 
 My senses knew the mystic land of dreams, 
 
 The dark-branched moonlit forest of the brain ! 
 
 Sighed noiselessly o'er singing stealing streams 
 
 Of God's strange music threading thro' the pain 
 
 Of far off lands, beneath forgotten gleams 
 
 Of other stars, heard in my head the strain 
 
 Of breakers beating 'gainst Eternity 
 
 In one swift magic flash of light in me ! 
 
 I heard sweet-spirit lips o'er memory sigh 
 
 And exiled music moan o'er hills of pain ; 
 
 Forgotten moonlit seas tossed 'neath a sky 
 
 Of brilliance' — God's creating starry Brain ! 
 
 I half remembered ere that flash did die, 
 Pale mortal faces — that I've met again ! 
 
 Dead sailors climbed aloft, glad, singing tunes 
 
 O'er seas of other worlds 'neath lovely moons ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 They're virtuous now — wild men by moonlit caves ; 
 
 The missionaries came, reformed the race, 
 For true it is that dead men by the waves 
 
 Of this fair Isle as ghosts crept by the grace 
 Of gospel into Hell ! — o'er paths man paves 
 
 With good intentions ! Gone the good old days, 
 Homesteads are graves, forgotten dead desires 
 Of long dead women's eyes by bright camp fires.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 97 
 
 Here on these Isles by night waves wildly beat, 
 Up dark shores singing, tossing in moonlight 
 
 Like regiments of dead men that charging meet 
 
 In vain — life's shores through some sad, deathless night ! 
 
 Despairing eyes, tribes of lost hunting feet, 
 A vanished race, oft in the forest height 
 
 Their unborn children call where moonlight lies 
 
 As tiny shadows wail for lover's eyes ! 
 
 I've seen warm South Sea starlight in dark eyes, 
 
 Dead moonshine of warm lovely nights ; the light 
 
 Of soft blue days or sea-rimmed tropic skies, 
 
 Green waving trees, I've heard the music bright 
 
 Of birds 'mong leaves, the tumbling fall and rise 
 Of sleepless waves, I've seen the silent flight 
 
 Of ages in eyes gleam ! like stars soft-stirred 
 
 In calm night waters by a wind's breath blurred. 
 
 I've heard old forest moans across the past, 
 
 Where thro' brownfooted men together crept — 
 
 Ere o'er the ocean's brink came up each mast — 
 Exploring ships — ere shirted white men leapt 
 
 Ashore with thirsty eyes ; — ere traders cast 
 
 Their wiles on isles, whereby night camp fires slept 
 
 'Neath forest trees original bright eyes 
 
 Wherein old gospels gleamed undimmed by lies ! 
 
 Ere sorrow darkened sheltered small hive huts ; 
 
 Wherein bush-mothers lived the first life made 
 By orange groves and ripening coco-nuts ; 
 
 With childish faith to eyeless idols prayed, 
 Ere from the far North-West, where crept the sluts 
 
 Of cities old, came white men well arrayed 
 In Virtue's robe, with pious eyes and knees 
 To raise up Hell's delight in these South Seas ! 
 
 G
 
 98 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Who'er you are, who reads my rhythmic air 
 
 Of life's stern strain, believe me 'tis no song 
 
 Of wild romance, sincere enough, I'll swear, 
 
 That thousands died, and all will die ere long, 
 
 Through Western virtue ! And I too declare 
 
 Light throws deep shadow o'er the world, flashed wrong 
 
 The Western creed in South Seas is that paint 
 
 That blushes — till the whore looks like a saint. 
 
 'Tis not for me to judge men's ways and stand, 
 
 Heaven knows, in after years 'gainst this palm tree, 
 
 Tug at my beard, condemn my native land. 
 
 But to ope books, with eyes astonished see 
 
 Hell's dubious virtue praised — ye gospel band ! 
 
 I'll swear your South Sea secret preaching spree 
 
 Rewarded was ; you know beneath the palms 
 
 The native girls danced singing in our arms ! 
 
 There was " Le Grande," the best one of you all, 
 Fine eyes he had, and though the king of liars, 
 
 In all our yarns, and smokes, I ne'er recall 
 
 One impulse that betrayed life's mean desires. 
 
 He caught the fever, died, went to the wall ; 
 
 I've searched your books, until my sad soul tires, 
 
 For word of him ! Yet, why begrudge you praise ? 
 
 We all enjoyed ourselves in those old days ! 
 
 Ah, years have flown, and from my heart the dream 
 Of warriors and fair women and sweet lore, 
 
 That boys drink from life's wild, romantic stream, 
 
 All swallowed by the dust, drought-stricken shore — 
 
 The " never never land," where flowers but gleam 
 Out of dust, gently buried, where no more 
 
 Eyes flash with light, as flowers grow overhead — 
 
 The only flowers we know — where men lie dead.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 99 
 
 Yet live ye warriors old, stare flinchless eyes ! 
 
 Your eager faces lift in pale dreamlight 
 Of unknown lands, whereon that hero dies — 
 
 With smiling lips — strikes one brave blow for right ! 
 Out of dim magic starlit-foams arise 
 
 Ye women beautiful, thro' passion's night ! 
 Bend o'er me with warm lovelit eyes, as soars 
 My soul o'er seas of undiscovered shores 
 
 Of wild romance ! as o'er the South Sea Bay 
 Dark waters brighten, and the lovely stars 
 
 All fade with stealing dawn, like faith away, 
 And out of village huts by coral-bars, 
 
 The South Sea children rush, eyes dark, some grey ! — 
 Half-castes of gospel-men and brave Jack Tars ! 
 
 The western creed expressed, plump tiny tracts 
 
 All romping on the slopes with white-splashed backs ! 
 
 While in far cities, men strive for life's good. 
 In their cathedrals vast, deceived some sit 
 And dream their windy-song is soothing food — 
 Babe-like suck Life's Old Dummy — void of wit, 
 Nor hear cries of the cities' solitude 
 At their own doors, pinched bellies — think of it — 
 The hungry urchins 'neath their wet grey skies — 
 God's tiny trembling-prayers with wistful eyes.
 
 ioo Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 AFTER MANY YEARS 
 
 (the son) 
 
 Oh, give me green hills and cottages, the mill-wheel 
 whirling round, 
 And the bright birds warbling soft on shower-wet trees 
 By the South Coast sunlit scented pines and the rumbling 
 breakers sound, 
 As the deep-sea ships creep home from distant seas, 
 Where I may dream my dreams of home by the wash of 
 the Channel waves. 
 When sunset floats with the Sabbath tolling bell, 
 Go over the hills to where they sleep in their long-neglected 
 graves, 
 And feel what a boy — grown old — now cannot tell. 
 Far from the sound of the stockwhip's ring and the lyre- 
 bird's sunset strain 
 As the tropic sun sinks down the world-wide sea, 
 That takes me round with its stealing light to my English 
 land again 
 As the bright Australian stars creep over me. 
 For my eyes are wet with tears for things I never can recall, 
 For the hopes set on my young life's strength of limb, 
 And the wild will ways of other days that made them — 
 after all — 
 Sit by their fire and dream with eyes aswim. 
 And so, I will steal back again to where the high cliffs 
 white 
 Are kissed by the English Channel singing waves. 
 I'll creep up the hills, then go to God — my soul to the 
 stars some night, 
 And lie asleep — where men have made their graves.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 101 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 I sailed away across the seas, 
 I heard the sails soft-singing, 
 And climbing sailors, to the breeze 
 The wild sea chanting — flinging. 
 I climbed aloft, gazed o'er the sea, 
 I saw the shore-lines rise 
 Where up, all ramping wild with glee, 
 Waves tossed before my eyes. 
 
 I travelled strange lands wild and wide, 
 
 I dived 'mong mirrored moons 
 
 In waters where the catamarans glide 
 
 By palms and reef lagoons, 
 
 I gazed in a dusky maiden's eyes 
 
 By a wild man's tiny tent, 
 
 Then packed my swag as the black crow flies, 
 
 To another land I went. 
 
 I lay all night on the homeless plain, 
 
 To the skies I prayed in bed 
 
 For life's wild Romance, but prayed in vain, 
 
 As the stars crept overhead. 
 
 But often in the lone bush-night 
 
 Bright eyes came, leaned o'er me, 
 
 Then glimmering in the pale moonlight, 
 
 Ran back into the sea.
 
 102 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 And in those waters o'er and o'er 
 I dived in vain, then cried 
 For misery on some lone shore 
 With no one by my side. 
 And so for years I wandered, friend, 
 Sought love and wealth alack ! 
 Roamed distant lands, and in the end 
 Brought this one sad song back.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 103 
 
 OUTWARD BOUND 
 
 I'm off! outbound o'er wide blue seas. Farewell, ye 
 
 unpaid bills ! 
 Great heaven, I've swallowed seas of stuff, ship-loads of 
 
 oil and pills ! 
 For mist and rain crept in my bones 'neath English skies, 
 
 but I 
 Wish you good luck, old country, and brave Englishmen, 
 
 good-bye ! 
 Farewell, old fenced-in woods, dead dreams, primroses, 
 
 and bluebells ; 
 Farewell, ye city alley-ways with your suspicious smells; 
 Farewell, old shivering Fleet Street moths, by London's 
 
 splendid bars ! 
 I'm bound for boundless plains lit by the everlasting 
 
 stars. 
 Respectability, farewell ! Oh, God be thanked, tweed 
 
 suits 
 Hide skeletons in top hats, starved, that shuffle round in 
 
 boots, 
 Ring out my soul one real wild cry to touch a nation's ears, 
 Sing me to wealth — my dear old rhymes awake a nation's 
 
 cheers ! 
 I would reflesh old skeletons, I'd stand them all upright, 
 Stick new eyes in, in rows they'd stand, God laughing at 
 
 the sight, 
 Would be my critic, and I'll swear review my songs — all 
 
 right.
 
 104 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Old Fleet Street relics, think of me when your sad eyes 
 
 you raise 
 As down you swallow beer and wail o'er those old better 
 
 days. 
 Maybe I too shall dream of you, and miss your tales of 
 
 woe; 
 Will find my golden age, as now, in dreams of long ago, 
 For while I rhyme these lines— who knows ? — some 
 
 rhymer o'er the seas 
 Looks Englandwards, is cursing scenes the same as I 
 
 curse these ! 
 A nation's curse, that built the world, my England's 
 
 noble pride, 
 Where'd be the brave old pioneers if home smells 
 
 satisfied ? 
 They've broken up the wooden ships and blazed them in 
 
 hearth fires 
 To warm the dreams of English boys who cherish sea 
 
 desires, 
 Ye figure-heads that roamed 'neath stars to-night a city 
 
 roars, 
 Where curled the singing waves to spray on undiscovered 
 
 shores. 
 And now your sad old faces stare, o'er streets where 
 
 traffic streams, 
 When by the Thames the same old moon pours down its 
 
 wistful beams, 
 I've watched your upraised hands pray on across the 
 
 moonlit ridge, 
 Voyaging seas in dreams across Westminster — by the 
 
 Bridge ! 
 Your sailor-men, who sang aloft they're dead, or may, 
 
 alas !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 105 
 
 Now old, be cursing on some tramp, all cleaning paint 
 
 and brass. 
 Brave Bill, the boatswain, bossed us all across the seven 
 
 seas wide, 
 He's selling matches, shivering, Heavens ! on kerbstones 
 
 near Cheapside. 
 Farewell, we've still the ships that roam, the decks 
 
 cleared clean for sea ; 
 A swarm of hands wave on the wharf, but not one hand 
 
 for me. 
 I'm bound away for southern seas, where the flying 
 
 clippers go, 
 To fight the breath of the ramping winds where the eastern 
 
 slashers blow, 
 Till the moonless summer nights stare down as the 
 
 lightning swells the skies, 
 As silently as love-light flashed from a woman's warm 
 
 dark eyes, 
 As I climb aloft o'er seas of dreams and clasp creation bright 
 In my arms and kiss the stars, my soul one with the 
 
 Infinite, 
 Oh, I'll see the Leeuwin light afar, in the lone dog-watch 
 
 I'll creep 
 Below to my bunk with praying lips, thank God as I fall 
 
 asleep. 
 I'll not care a d n for anything ! with a shirt wrapt 
 
 up my wealth ! 
 And photos of my few dead friends I'll steal ashore by 
 
 stealth 
 When I smell the scented sweet shore winds come 
 
 blowing out to me 
 As the big grey loafing tramp sea birds wheel round and 
 
 put to sea.
 
 106 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I'll creep up the slopes a happy man who has found life's 
 one true worth, 
 
 My best friend all the world, I will imparadise the earth. 
 
 I'll build a tiny wooden house, it must be 'neath some 
 trees, 
 
 Where I can watch the silvered waves of tumbling moon- 
 lit seas ! 
 
 And if ever I dream of cities far, and I cannot close my 
 eyes, 
 
 As out in the silent forest depth the wild dog, wailing, 
 cries, 
 
 Till the laughing voices of dead men sad haunt my sleep- 
 less brain, 
 
 With stern deliberation I will rise and heal my pain. 
 
 I'll lean o'er my bed and take strong pulls at the bottle 
 that there I'll keep, 
 
 And find the golden age again in draughts of vintage deep, 
 
 Oh, I know that only one wind blows the dead man's soul 
 to sea, 
 
 And wherever it blows, oh, what care I, since God's 
 hand fashioned me ? 
 
 On the last foothold that earth man gives, where the day 
 to night doth change, 
 
 As stars come creeping silently over the last dark range. 
 
 I'll stand on that last grand silent peak, brave, into the 
 sunset dive, 
 
 For I've loved God's gift of life as much as any man 
 alive !
 
 PART II
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 109 
 
 A PIONEER'S SONG 
 
 He was our glory, he was our pride of the fo'c'sle song's 
 
 wild spree ; 
 And where are the lands, the sea-port towns that he never 
 
 tramped with me? 
 Where are the stars that ne'er gazed down in our weary 
 
 watching eyes 
 As our ship burst thro' the skyline, sailed the seas of other 
 
 skies. 
 We've tramped with our swags o'er salt-bush plain, we've 
 
 camped on the South Seas side, 
 We've curled together in wind and rain as the camp-fire 
 
 blazed and died. 
 We've heard the wail of the dingo blown o'er Australian 
 
 steppes ; the howl 
 Of ghosts by moonlight climbing up gums — as we both sat 
 
 cheek by Jowl ! 
 Met the grey old swags-man tramping along, lonely out on 
 
 the track — 
 (As God, with His fireflies, fretting stars, buzzing behind 
 
 His back — ) 
 As he tramped along wiping his beard, mumbling alon 
 
 with his dreams ; 
 A swag on his back and a myriad flies round his head in 
 
 dancing streams ! 
 We've sung the songs of the olden days as we dreamed of 
 
 London Town ; 
 We've shared the rough, and the mighty spree when we 
 
 once had half-a-crown !
 
 iio Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Ah ! they were the days of dreams, my lads, when we 
 
 hadn't a cent in hand, 
 And we tramped two kings of the Overseas passing from 
 
 land to land ! 
 So, I can't get over the curse of things, for we liked the 
 
 world all right, 
 Were happy together wherever we went, and I'm lonely 
 
 enough to-night — 
 Eternity laughing out suns with glee — infinite waste in 
 
 space ; 
 Time writing these wrinkles, making the map of sorrow 
 
 over my face ! 
 Him — back in the dark, down under the sea lying alone 
 
 stone dead, 
 And a million million worlds to-night shining over his 
 
 head.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 1 1 1 
 
 THE BUSHMAN'S REVERIE 
 
 He will not come again, my chum, by night ; 
 
 Hark ! winds are flapping round my cabin door, 
 And waves are tossing up the white moonlight, 
 
 All toiling up the dark wild lonely shore. 
 There are bis boots, and on that peg his hat, 
 
 His fiddle on the wall, forever still ; 
 And on that stump, where yarning, once he sat, 
 
 The moss has grown : — out on a windy hill, 
 His swag beneath his head he silent lies, 
 Where o'er flowers blow as blue as were his eyes. 
 
 I've often seen him since he died, just there 
 
 On that dead stump whereon the fire-light falls ; 
 Dream eyes in shadow, with his crossed arms bare 
 
 Upon his breast, when in the hollow calls 
 The lonely dingo for a mate, I've heard 
 
 Him call my name by night, when all was still, 
 His voice die with the song of some sweet bird 
 
 Out in the hollow, o'er the swamp-oak hill. 
 
 The Bush flowers in the hollows are awake. 
 
 Stars flash across the windy silent skies ; 
 The waves like tumbling silver tossing break 
 
 Far out at sea ! fringed by the curved moonrise. 
 That dead gum rotting on the shore alive, 
 
 All night stands swarmed with coloured breathing 
 flowers, 
 But when I stand below at dawn I'll drive
 
 ii2 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The roosting parrots up — in fluttering showers ! 
 And so by night I dream ; at break of day 
 
 My thoughts from out my head all fly away. 
 
 Below the redwood heights by night we'd race, 
 Astride the saddle, tossing side by side, 
 
 Damp wattle scent-whiffs stealing o'er each face, 
 
 The stars in heaven our romping way would guide ; 
 
 As though Creation dreamed a world, moonrise 
 
 Would flower-like burst, night's wild dark mystery 
 
 And mountains' silvered peaks and palms arise — 
 
 From range to range, slow, grand and silently ! 
 
 The bush-bird in the scrub would wake and sing 
 
 As thumped the echoing hoofs the night along ; 
 The white moon o'erhead, touching everything ; 
 
 O'er velvet slopes we'd shout some wild sea-song — 
 The echoes o'er the plains would rise and fall 
 
 As though dead voices somehow had come back, 
 One for the other, o'er night-hills did call ! 
 
 As life, full-blooded, raced God's living track. 
 Ay, long ago, and now an old man's brain 
 
 Is dreaming by the moaning, unquiet sea; 
 Like old crows flapping thro' the mist and rain, 
 
 My thoughts are stealing pastward, far from me, 
 Round sunsets dead, in silence winging flit, 
 As on this stump ; the huddled past — I sit. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 There soundly sleeps my dog. He does not know 
 He will not always be there, by me curl'd, 
 
 Snug at my foot — while burns the camp-fire low. 
 I am a god to him in his dog world ; 
 
 I would not lay my foot upon his head,
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 113 
 
 And crush his feeble dream of life away ; 
 And my Great Master will not on me tread — 
 
 Crush out my life when I have had my day. 
 Come, shaggy friend — yes, gleam true, faithful eyes ; 
 
 The night is old, and I am old. Ah, me ! 
 Dawn soon will rise and sweep the starry skies, 
 
 And sunrise burn to-night's philosophy. 
 
 H
 
 114 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 COMRADES 
 
 (north Queensland) 
 
 The last lone ride I live it again, 
 Lost, alone on the drought-swept plain, 
 The grey-green gone from the scattered scrub ; 
 The frogs stink, dead in the dry creek mud ; 
 Away in the sky on southward flight, 
 Far specking the waste of blinding light, 
 The parrots are curling their glittering wings, 
 Soft-croaking their dismal mutterings ; 
 By the small hot sun in fleets they pass 
 Where the wide sky flames like molten glass, 
 On crawls the horse o'er the trackless track, 
 The rider scorched on its blistered back ! 
 A castaway on wide, waveless seas. 
 Miles, miles away rise gaunt gum trees, 
 Like derelicts old, with sailless mast, 
 Cast on the rocks by the drought's hot blast. 
 The sun dies down — on the dim skyline 
 Faint-twinkles once like a goblet of wine 
 Held over that dead world's hazy rim, 
 And the lost man's eyes far gaze aswim 
 As the tide of dark rolls over him ! 
 There's hope ! for a tiny cloud doth rise, 
 Toils slowly across the noiseless skies, 
 Creeps down to a speck on the other side, 
 To leave him alone on the desert wide ; 
 'Tis night — overhead the bright stars creep,
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 115 
 
 He lies with his one friend down to sleep : — 
 And the months and the years have since rolled by, 
 And the horse and the master still there lie ; 
 Where those sad eyes of hope peered thro' 
 The green shoot peeped — A Bush flower blew, 
 For we found them there, yes, side by side — 
 Two skeletons white — just as they died, 
 Our hearts were heavy as on we went, 
 For his thin bone arm was softly bent — 
 Curled round the neck of his big comrade, 
 There, telling us how two friends had laid — 
 Had died there under the drought-swept sky, 
 And still out there the white bones lie.
 
 I 1 6 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE DROUGHT 
 
 (AUSTRALIA) 
 
 I'll tell you a tale of the old days, out on the North West 
 
 Way; 
 A gallop of three wild hundred miles to the tree-frogs 
 
 roundelay ! 
 Under blue space, soft specked with birds, two men fast 
 
 rode along : 
 The great bush sang with a thousand throats her lovely 
 
 evensong. 
 Sunset soft fired the dark range pines, faint blazed with 
 
 gold, blue peaks, 
 Aod the marsh-frogs opened their overtures — sat leaves in 
 
 the swampy creeks, 
 As the hollow wilds of the great night-way, led by one 
 
 pale star — 
 Like mast-head light of beating barque, behind three bare 
 
 pines far, 
 Came flowing fast with their dusky waves over the Eastern 
 
 Bar. 
 Rollop-pe, rollop-pe, rop, rop, they thumped the silent 
 
 night, 
 Beating the mould and scented scrub out under the red- 
 wood height. 
 Giant ancient gums, memorials of brooding summers past, 
 Dim outlined in primeval gloom, with outspread aged arms 
 
 vast, 
 All solemnly stood, on each side ; oft God's lamps brightly 
 
 flashed
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 117 
 
 The thick branched roof — thro' chinks the stars ! as far 
 
 below they crashed. 
 Those wild battalions far behind, the camp fire blazed 
 
 and died. 
 Blue days, divided by the stars, crept o'er that bush world 
 
 wide, 
 Till o'er the silent wilds they rode, God's trackless no 
 
 man's land. 
 Like scattered scare-crow poles for miles dead stunted 
 
 palms did stand, 
 As toiled two shrunken steeds along slow-tossing, blinding 
 
 sand. 
 No castaways e'er rode such rafts, brave beating flesh and 
 
 blood, 
 Adrift on wild waste, waterless, death-stricken solitude. 
 Thin outstretched necks, big outlook-eyes, sand blown on 
 
 drought-swept plains; 
 With blistered hands, humanity rocked helpless at the reins. 
 Low in the hollows they staggered on, the blaze of the 
 
 high sun streamed 
 O'er glittering miles of leafless rock the frighten'd parrots 
 
 screamed, 
 Arose on travelling envied wings ! died specks in the blaze 
 
 away, 
 As the sweating, staggering steeds moved on 'neath the 
 
 stare of the dread skyway, 
 The demon of thirst fast gripp'd them, blown foam from 
 
 the wild steeds swept 
 Like mocking snow hot to each face, the soul of terror 
 
 crept 
 Into those big, wild flashing eyes, their nostrils quivered 
 
 and spread,
 
 1 1 8 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Telling, with awful silent voice, their riders' inward dread. 
 Like a tropic windless silent sea, Heaven's endlessness did 
 
 shine 
 A mighty trackless molten waste, till on the far skyline, 
 Like some lone lost sea-raft, a cloud, slow-crossed the 
 
 dread waste wide 
 Like white tossed hands last seen at sea, hope rose once> 
 
 sank and died, 
 As helpless by the desert swamp, thick spawned, hot 
 
 fevered, rank, 
 With lips to the blue mud, all quiet, knelt and drank, 
 
 drank, drank. 
 The very frogs stunk dead around, the hush'd hills seemed 
 
 ablaze ; 
 The sun crept out, a drop of blood, low in the westward 
 
 haze. 
 The tethered steeds moaned by all night, thro' one man's 
 
 fever'd sleep, 
 Blue English skies crept o'er that wild, lone Australian 
 
 steep. 
 The swallows in the valley flew across a phantom bay ; 
 Grey seagulls came on tireless wing, in silence swept away. 
 Like dying bells, dream floating, o'er dead sunset waves 
 
 of time, 
 Came mellow tones to slumbering ears —it was the bell- 
 bird's chime 
 O'er wind-cooled gullies drifting, the stars all home had 
 
 crept. 
 They gazed within each other's eyes — nor one word spoke, 
 
 but leapt 
 Astride the saddles, reared each horse, impatient of delay 
 With voice half human whinnied once to silence sped 
 
 away
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 119 
 
 Into the night — ay, long ago — they dropp'd where no birds 
 
 sing. 
 And o'er their bones the desert wind a shroud of dust doth 
 
 fling; 
 While in the hollow just below, stands, where warm, white 
 
 mists fall, 
 Where no one goes — a stump and on, his age and name — 
 
 that's all.
 
 120 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE DESERTED HUT 
 
 (QUEENSLAND) 
 
 Woe, woe, old mare, tread gently here, where once a camp- 
 fire blazed, 
 And some tired Bushman sat and dreamed alone, 
 These were his old ancestral halls, and time has nearly 
 
 razed 
 With rotting damp, his roof with flowers o'ergrown, 
 Whereon moonlight half-ghostly falls as I sit dreaming 
 
 here, 
 Astride the saddle gaze with living eyes, 
 Stare at this relic of the past, for in the hollow near, 
 The bush flowers only wake, o'er where he lies. 
 
 Hark, how the winds sad music make, where wave the 
 
 gums o'erhead. 
 And wattles stir, where swings his small hut door. 
 As like a ghost, a shadow-thing seems to and fro to tread, 
 Where flowers in moonlight shiver on his floor. 
 How dark and still the gullies sleep ; while miles across 
 
 the plains 
 Of this wild God-forsaken land, the trees 
 Like skeletons wave 'neath the stars, loosely I hold the 
 
 reins, 
 While heaven pours on us both — cool whiffs, the breeze. 
 
 'Twas hot, phew ! in the blinding sun ; brave horse you've 
 
 done your best 
 With those tired legs, toiled thro' this sweating day ;
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 121 
 
 And still, heaven knows we've miles to go, but in that shed 
 
 you'll rest ; 
 Mine host won't care at all — how long we stay. 
 He must have slept outside for years ! for all his fire stove 
 
 bars 
 Are covered thick with weeds, and his old chair — 
 Time's hand has plushed with velvet moss ; thro' roof 
 
 chinks, faintly stars, 
 Like flowers oft sparkle fields of Heaven-blown air. 
 
 Softly the moonlit marsh flowers stir, where slit-mouth'd 
 frogs oft poke 
 
 Their jewel-eyed heads, to clicker, clack — and sink. 
 
 While from the forests' silent depth, like phantom wood- 
 man's stroke, 
 
 Comes faint the night bird's cry ; I could half think 
 
 The old man's spirit toils away, as calls that hollow voice, 
 
 And yet I know dead men lie deep in sleep, 
 
 And that old cynic's real enough, that far faint-mocking 
 noise — 
 
 The laughing jackass, screaming on the steep. 
 
 Why do you whinny so, old friend ? What ghosts of long 
 
 ago 
 Are visible to instinct's wild-eyed stare ? 
 I feel somewhat the same myself, and more so since I 
 
 know, 
 Our welcome for a bed, is his grave there ! — 
 And that faint echo back to me, when all the hills replied 
 As in moonlight, we listening lonely stood 
 And heard, " Is any one at home ! " across the gullies 
 
 wide, 
 Re-echo— o'er the silent solitude. 

 
 122 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Whoe'er he was, on windy nights in that small bunk he 
 
 slept, 
 His blanket drawn tight round his living frame. 
 While in the hollow o'er his grave undug, the dingo crept 
 He dreamed — and so to-night I'll do the same, 
 Nor will he mind — for such is life, to ride up here tonight) 
 While outside in the cold, he slumbers on, 
 To camp awhile, to smoke and dream, then vanish with 
 
 the light — 
 For with sunrise, we, too, shall both be gone.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 123 
 
 BUSH LONELINESS 
 
 I am not what I was — the world so dark is. 
 Across my heart the cold rains fall, 
 The birds of life that sang are songless — 
 After all. 
 
 My camp fire in the bush is slowly dying, 
 The forest moan is all I hear ; 
 My dog, the only friend that loves me — 
 Is sitting near. 
 
 Like wild-fires where gum-trees are darkly waving, 
 Moonlight across the flats doth flare ; 
 At sea a mast-head light is tossing — 
 They've got her there. 
 
 I gazed upon her face like one in dreaming ; 
 Came no one from the Far Bush Town, 
 Until last night they slowly entered — 
 And nailed her down. 
 
 They came and fetched her from me in the darkness ; 
 The moon's red rim rose o'er the hill. 
 They passed like shadows ere I entered — 
 My hut so still. 
 
 The music of her voice for me is calling 
 Where winds the river to the sea, 
 Across the waste goes calling, calling — 
 Calling me.
 
 124 Busn Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Her dead lips hold my kiss where'er they take her ; 
 My life is in her soul, God knows, 
 And I — that he will not deny me 
 The way she goes. 
 
 Men crave the gift of life somewhere eternal ; 
 I only want some day to know 
 My loved one's eyes, to just remember — 
 The long ago. 
 
 And I have combed her hair, with passion kissed her, 
 With that deep love that women crave. 
 Heaven will remember this, when I — am 
 In the grave. 
 
 Though earth lies on her breast, she'll kiss me sleeping- 
 Till I awake. The morning light 
 Will emblem Faith — my sorrow searching 
 From night to night. 
 
 The grave is not a place for men to live in ; 
 Yet by her body sweet, I'll sleep ; 
 In dreams kiss eyelids closed — that all 
 My passions keep. 
 
 Faith gleamed in eyes of sweetly dreaming sunrise, 
 Their setting, was my last sunset ; 
 And if to-morrow means forgetting — 
 Let me forget.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 125 
 
 THE OLD SKIPPER 
 
 Old am I, and my day is dying, in every limb lies furl'd 
 The life, that loved to fight the seas, that thrash the whole 
 
 wide world, 
 As homeless as a batter'd hulk, that rolls the sky-rimmed 
 
 deep — 
 Here in my hut unsleeping, while the sea-winds shoreward 
 
 sweep, 
 Thro' lonely tracks of bending pines, are moaning on like 
 
 pain — 
 Life's music, exiled to the past, returneth home again. 
 
 I hear Time's dream-latch softly lift, and o'er the sleeping 
 
 lake — 
 Of all the years —comes sad the sound, deep moving waters 
 
 make. 
 In dream perspective far at sea the old wind-jammer flies, 
 And o'er my weary heart to-night — as soft as moonlight lies 
 The memory of days that are the saddest of all to-night — 
 They'll only come back again — I know — on the wings of a 
 
 dream's quiet flight. 
 
 I hear the wild night cry aloft, the passion note of seas ; 
 
 The middle-watch tramp overhead, and wild sung sea- 
 chanties. 
 
 Sails softly singing 'neath the stars are swaying fast along, 
 
 Like grey dead dreams blown out of the soul of the sea's 
 sad song 
 
 As a grey old skipper tramps the poop — swaying from left 
 to right
 
 126 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 On the phantom ship that rolls the deep of my dreaming 
 heart to-night. 
 
 And the whistling wild night winds blown on are slashing 
 the beating rain 
 
 Beating — beating memories old, tap, tap on the window- 
 pane. 
 
 I sometimes think I yet may sail, far-off space-anchor'd 
 seas — 
 
 Ay — 'neath strange moon jewelled skies explore those far- 
 world mysteries; 
 
 With wild song homeward bound rejoice ! gaze in old 
 friendly eyes, 
 
 And so thro' ages heavenward voyage to God across the 
 skies. 
 
 As swallows lost 'mong rigging blown, of ships far out at 
 sea, 
 
 My thoughts are clinging to the stars across Infinity. 
 
 So let the storms blow all away, and in the sea's dark bed 
 
 The off-watch sailors weary eyes, sleep on — they are not 
 dead. 
 
 I have believed when sunset lies, wet tremulous on the wave, 
 
 It sinks — to light dead sailors from the darkness of the grave 
 
 Aloft to God. And with such faith have watched my eyes 
 —that I 
 
 Have seen their shadows thro' the dusk steal up the sea- 
 line sky, 
 
 And with such faith to-night I wait, the time when I em- 
 bark — 
 
 On what great voyage — ? away to sea alone — dead, in the 
 dark.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 127 
 
 LIFE 
 
 Creation's mystic beam am I. 
 
 My home moves o'er the hills on feet, 
 
 While sacred in its small one room 
 
 My heart — its warm hearth fire, doth beat. 
 
 Two windows has this shaky hut, 
 
 Soft-lit, with special thinking light, 
 
 I often pull both blinds right down 
 
 And peer across the Infinite. 
 
 Beneath this scanty grey old thatch 
 Doth shine a mystic telescope, 
 And fixed behind in magic dusk, 
 The worried small bright eyes of hope. 
 Out to the last sun's dying beam 
 I speed thought's silent thinking fires, 
 Like falling star, in God's vast void 
 Pale intellect in dark expires. 
 
 Yet conscious universe am I, 
 Eternity shut in with sight ! 
 Since I do know I nothing am 
 To God's own strange unerring might. 
 Death from the woods will creep one day, 
 Relentless, deal one Fate-swung stroke, 
 Then puff, — my hearthfire will away 
 All vanish in a little smoke !
 
 128 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The swallows will come back again ; 
 
 My hut be dark, drawn down each blind, 
 
 And o'er its roof the wind and rain 
 
 Will beat, and I not there confined. 
 
 But, oh ! to rent that little house 
 
 Again, and at its windows sit 
 
 To watch birds wing where waves carouse 
 
 The sun, the moon o'er Heaven flit, 
 
 And o'er its threshold — Paradise 
 
 Step in — love's own sweet anxious eyes.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 129 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 A swallow from a distant land 
 
 Tired, fluttered thro' a mossy wood. 
 
 I saw a baby's small white hand, 
 
 Whereon — it just a moment stood. 
 
 I turned my eyes — the bird had flown ; 
 A tiny grave stood there alone. 
 
 The sleeping oaks o'er faintly swayed, 
 
 Bright stars flashed thro' their branches high ; 
 
 Like wild bird eyes on nest betrayed 
 By upblown leaves, when passes by 
 
 A little wind, swift came to me 
 One glimpse of far Eternity.
 
 130 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 GABRIEL 
 
 Do you remember, dear, where the calm night waters lay 
 
 At the still feet of the sleeping city dim ? 
 While anchor'd near the wild scrub slopes of silent Sydney 
 Bay, 
 
 We watched the moon heave up her swollen rim, 
 Like ghostly tunnel rise o'er the far dark hill, 
 
 As I kissed your lovely warm white throat, Gabriel ? 
 Do you remember, dear, how the canvas grey sails flopped 
 
 As the empty deck-chairs creaked in gloom around, 
 And the wandering sea-bird cried, o'er the moonlit waters 
 dropped 
 
 As my arms held tenderly my heaven found, 
 And the moon's white flame your dark eyes did reveal 
 
 As I kissed them wildly long ago, Gabriel. 
 
 The bush flowers in the hollows have oped their eyes and 
 died 
 
 For many years, and yet as yesterday, 
 I kiss the eyes of heaven, warm uplifted, at my side, 
 
 And hear across the midnight silent bay 
 The ferry's rolling wash, ebb, softly die — 
 
 Then silence in the bay — with you and I. 
 
 In dreams I watch the calm night of moonlit waters clear, 
 The mirrored rigging, with you by my side, 
 
 As o'er the bulwark's rail we both would bend and peer 
 And watch our shadows in pure water glide. 
 
 Which was the dream, the water dark and still, 
 Or you and I above ? Alas ! Gabriel.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 1 3 1 
 
 The winds awake and sleep dear, for years into the bay 
 
 The ships have brought bright laughter and fond eyes ; 
 
 Have spread aloft their grey wings and flown like birds 
 away, 
 To fade in dusk where sea-washed sunset dies. 
 
 My dreams dear, as the sunsets sink in night, 
 
 Are searching through the world with morning light. 
 
 The river in the wild hills still toils to meet the sea ; 
 
 And still the sea beats up the lone shore side, 
 And deep sea ships come down the great bay silently 
 
 To rest from flight o'er far world waters wide ; 
 But where are you ? I love you wildly still, 
 
 As when a boy — I love you, O Gabriel.
 
 132 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 ABSENT 
 
 (in exile) 
 
 The sea-bird to the sea and I — to you ! 
 
 My love ! my love, night's wings are spread 
 
 Broad in the western sky, and piercing thro' 
 
 The bronz-ed shade, a streak of red 
 
 Lies shadowed o'er the lone lake's silent bed. 
 
 My Beautiful ! love's pure reflected light 
 
 Soft-touches every sparkling flower to-night ; 
 
 Since every thing around on earth and sea 
 
 Is tempered with my dreams, my dreams of thee ! 
 
 Girl, can'st thou hear me ? Dear, 'tis I who calls 
 
 Across the sleeping world as breathe my lips 
 
 Into the silence. As the white mists fall 
 
 Out o'er the hollow wilds the starr'd night dips, 
 
 And up away ! a lone bird seaward goes, 
 
 Oh, were a message crumpled 'neath its wing 
 
 To tell the love, the wish my being knows, 
 
 That it might trembling to your sweet ears bring, 
 
 As pure as where the scented lily blows, 
 
 The song, the song my heart doth sing. 
 
 The rigging flies of some lone beating barque ; 
 
 Stars gleam o'er roaming waters far ; 
 
 Away I fade, a world of ocean dark 
 
 I wing with thought — am where you are ! 
 
 Bend your white throat, there — now I kiss 
 
 In dreams your lovely lips, and in your eyes 
 
 I see the heights, the peaks of earthly bliss
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 133 
 
 Where passion like an onward eagle flies 
 Above the dross, the dark of earthly things, 
 With sunset on its outstretched brightening wings ! 
 Good-night, Beloved, heaven above will keep 
 You safe, I know, while in the arms of sleep 
 I deeply dream of you with closed eyes, 
 And thro' the night your image folded lies 
 Framed sweetly as the sunset's glimmering hour 
 Within my dreaming heart — a spirit flower.
 
 134 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 PAT McPHIZZ 
 
 Billy Boyd was my chum on the Wallaby. 
 For hours we'd sit by the camp fire unsleeping 
 As up the gums, ghost-like, ran shadows creeping, 
 Climbed to tree-tops and vanished in the sky, 
 We'd nodding, watch the camp fires flickering die. 
 
 Before proceeding I must tell you we 
 Had both been robbed of all our hard-earned gold, 
 Our partner, Pat McPhizz, of crimes untold, 
 With all our fortune sloped, left Bill and me 
 To starve, but here's the sequel — wait and see ! 
 
 We'd had no luck, our boots were minus soles ; 
 We both looked awful scarecrows by daylight, 
 And like dilapidated ghosts when thro' the night, 
 We tramped moonlit forests our clothes full of holes ; 
 That thin, our legs looked like rags round bean poles. 
 
 We schemed o'er many things in our sad plight ; 
 
 Got tick at all the shanties by the track 
 
 At sunset stole away, upon our back 
 
 Our swag, weighted with conscience infinite — 
 
 A virtue of swag — men hid from daylight. 
 
 Well, one still night when all the woods were sleeping 
 We sat whispering, when something cried just by — 
 An old man stood there ! didn't we jump — my eye ! 
 To see moonlight right thro' his rib-bones creeping ; 
 And thro' his eye-brow sockets twin-stars peeping.
 
 Bush [Songs and Oversea Voices 135 
 
 We stood up astonished, our tongues went dry, 
 Both swayed with terror, were so overwrought 
 We leaned against each other for support, 
 The old ghost shook his beard, said, with a sigh, 
 " Follow me, there's gold where I unsleeping lie." 
 
 Thro' the moonlit forest with grey beard streaming 
 He ran, we followed on with wondering fear, 
 Then standing by a hole, he said, " 'Tis here." 
 There were our long lost nuggets glittering gleaming 
 As in moonlight we stood in hot sweat steaming ! 
 
 Obedient as two children on our knees, 
 
 We gathered up the gold, then in he lies 
 
 Flat on his back, says, " Now I'll close my eyes, 
 
 In my grave fall asleep, thank God for peace." 
 
 'Twas our lost partner, derned old Pat McPhizz ! 
 
 We both felt awfully sorry— till our fright ! 
 We saw his eyes by moonlight ope and wink ! 
 As, crumbling in his shroud, right up did shrink, 
 His form to dust, and from his grave, pure white, 
 A bird, his soul I'll swear, flew in the night. 
 
 It flutter'd 'neath the moon right overhead 
 
 Then on a bough, it sat and sweetly sang 
 
 And from that bough a lynching noose did hang ! 
 
 Doubtless, McPhizz had from that bough dropped dead, 
 
 And we near too, we ran that fast with dread.
 
 136 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 BUSH MEMORIES 
 
 (QUEENSLAND) 
 
 My hearts goes southward on the winds 
 
 Of thought — far seaward steals. 
 Out o'er remember'd sleeping years 
 
 The light of love reveals 
 In dream perspective silently, 
 
 Wild woods, swamps, slope and sea ; 
 And our old cabin on the hill, 
 
 Below the dead gum-tree. 
 
 O'er dark Pacific curling waves, 
 
 The snow-winged seagulls fly ; 
 Wild-blown white sails of long ago 
 
 Like flowers of sunset die. 
 With night dusk, stars creep overhead, 
 
 My old chum dreaming stands 
 By our small hut's sack-door, where gleams 
 
 The camp fire's dying brands. 
 
 Within our huddl'd bunks once more, 
 
 We go to dream and sleep ; 
 Our brave dog — bright eyes sentinel'd — 
 
 The all-night watch doth keep. 
 The bending gums are moaning where 
 
 Night-winds are singing high ; 
 Thro' chinks I watch the wet stars flash 
 
 Across the windy sky.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 137 
 
 Wild-thundering waves are beating 
 
 Down on the lonely beach ; 
 As when a boy, again I dream 
 
 Our hut they try to reach. 
 
 ****** 
 
 With wild vines, summer's brooding 
 
 Has closed our hut's small door ; 
 The stream that sang to thirsty lips, 
 
 Flows lonely to the shore : 
 Our old dog — deep in forest gloom 
 
 Where o'er the 'possums leap — 
 Brave sentinel of other days, 
 
 Has been for years asleep. 
 Where winter wild with windy voice 
 
 Roams starless forest night, 
 Doth search and shout in vain, to find 
 
 A camp-fire's long dead light, 
 Bush flowers have burst thro' dead fire ash, 
 
 Where burning logs once gleamed : 
 I could believe earth sorrows so 
 
 Where years ago boys dreamed. 
 
 Down in the wild wet dark he sleeps, 
 
 Below the deep Horn wave 
 Where o'er the moonlight rigging flies — 
 
 Brief flowers his storm-tossed grave ; 
 Right over-head the sailors singing 
 
 As flies the full-rigged barque, 
 Fast-thrashing o'er his shroud world wide — 
 
 A thousand fathoms dark : 
 The earnestness of one sad truth 
 
 Writ over him, so high, 
 The stars in sorrow stealing o'er 
 
 His monument — the sky.
 
 138 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 And now my very soul might prize 
 
 Such thoughts of slumber deep, 
 Like some tired child to close my eyes 
 
 And fold my hands asleep, 
 Just overhead the roaming herds ; 
 
 Till sunset fires the west, 
 My songs adrift with all the birds, 
 
 My heart 'neath flowers at rest.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 139 
 
 THE CABIN BOY 
 
 I loved the little cabin boy ; 
 
 We scrubbed the decks together ; 
 We watch'd the seas rise round the poop 
 
 Thro' all the wild night weather. 
 We climbed the rattlings, he and I, 
 
 Along the yards we crept ; 
 And there — homesick, seasick, and cold — 
 
 We both together wept ! 
 
 Loudly the canvas grey sails flopped, 
 
 And 'cross our snake-shaped wake 
 We wallowed round a knot a day, 
 
 Till, like a mighty lake, 
 Old ocean mirrored all the stars ! 
 
 While fo'c's'le song, sweet sound, 
 The silence broke, we whispered on, 
 
 That full-rigged ship outbound. 
 
 Wind-hush'd across the moaning swell 
 
 I watched him as he listened 
 Of wonder-lands away ahead, 
 
 Sweetly his blue eyes glistened 
 While, boyish way, his hand gripped mine, 
 
 Both firmly swore to stand 
 Together — when we cleared the ship 
 
 In far Australia land.
 
 140 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 We caught the trade winds far to South, 
 
 Like waves of ruby wine — 
 While passed the night-cry " All aloft ! " 
 
 Seas splashed the sunset line. 
 A white mist stole across the waves, 
 
 Doom, rumbled far, faint sounds, 
 As though death rode the wild sea-moors 
 
 With phantom-baying hounds. 
 Like muffled tones of destiny 
 
 Tolled out the eight-bell chime ; 
 The watch, the moonlit rigging high 
 
 All silently did climb. 
 
 Out in the wind-lashed gloom we watched 
 
 The mammoth seas arise 
 From sleep to shake their huddled backs, 
 
 Lift white heads to the skies ! 
 Wild, mighty monsters lashing mains, 
 
 By strength eternal hurl'd, 
 They rose on thundering, shrieking race 
 
 With winds across the world ! 
 A world of dark and wind — all save 
 
 The albatross behind — 
 Winged-loneliness — bright travelling eyes 
 
 Flitting the restless wind ! 
 
 Like some frail, frightened, hunted thing, 
 
 The old windjammer stopped ; 
 Climbed up the hollows, shivering, 
 
 Crouched, wailing, dipp'd and dropped, 
 Ten thousand jagged shining teeth, 
 
 Fate-like, snapp'd Heaven's soft track, 
 The sapphire lightning, wriggling split 
 
 Thro' night's roof, ebon-black.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 141 
 
 As though boom'd Fate's unchanging clock 
 
 As hush'd the night's wild cry, 
 The thunder broke, crashed overhead, 
 
 Died down the leeward sky. 
 Seas jump'd the poop, the jibboom dived, 
 
 We heard her shivering moan, 
 From far away, passed on the wind, 
 
 A tiny cry faint-blown. 
 
 As though a door in Heaven did ope 
 
 And shut — out o'er the wave 
 Moonrise revealed, touched silently 
 
 A hand tossed from a grave. 
 We hove her to, she rolled and reared, 
 
 And every man that night 
 Quiet held in fiinchless sailor-eyes 
 
 The soul of English might. 
 They manned the boat, but cruel the seas, 
 
 Wild rush'd the midnight main : 
 I never saw my little mate, 
 
 The Cabin Boy, again.
 
 142 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE OLD RUSTIC'S REQUEST 
 
 Give me your hand — turn my face to the west, 
 
 Don't grieve — there, I've had my day, 
 It's only an end to the fight — and rest 
 
 After the drama mortals play. 
 You'll lay me there — when I fall asleep — 
 
 Near where the river flows ? 
 Just cover me over — not too deep — 
 
 Down where the marsh flower blows ; 
 
 And I'll hear the wind and the wild bird sing 
 
 Low in the rustling wheat, 
 When swallows come back again in the spring, 
 
 And the young lambs play and bleat, 
 As I lay alone in my evening rest 
 
 Away from the din and strife, 
 Back again in the old earth's breast, 
 
 Far out of the night of life. 
 
 I may hear the high rooks calling 
 
 When tired they cease to roam, 
 Idly flapping across the sky 
 
 All slowly going home : 
 And the moan of the old firs bending 
 
 Wild on the windy hill, 
 While the robin is piping its lonely song 
 
 Where the winds are still.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 14 
 
 In the hollow by the river, 
 
 Up in the leafless tree — 
 When the last wild flowers are dying 
 
 As the grass grows over me. 
 So lay me there — when I fall asleep, 
 
 Near where the river flows ; 
 Just cover me over — not too deep — 
 
 Down where the marsh flower blows. 
 
 -1
 
 144 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 THE WILD COMPOSER 
 
 (long ago) 
 
 A lovely wild musician came 
 
 And by my window sang 
 
 A melody, and all his own, 
 
 Along warm June winds rang 
 
 Clear sparkling tones like heaven-touched bells 
 
 In some ethereal chime, 
 
 Glad-ringing in the sweet wild birth 
 
 Of one more day to Time ! 
 
 And while I listen'd —half asleep, 
 
 It seemed some Angel trills — 
 
 Small bugles blown — went echoing 
 
 O'er silent dream-wrapt hills. 
 
 And England with her wealth of song, 
 
 No music ever heard 
 
 More beautiful than those love-notes 
 
 From her own wild blackbird.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 145 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE STOKEHOLD 
 
 (the scapegrace homeward bound) 
 
 Pom-pe-te, pom-pe-te, pom, pom, 
 
 All thro' the burning night 
 Shovelling coal for the engine's heart 
 
 Down in the blinding light. 
 Working my passage, penniless, 
 
 Over the western main, 
 And I know they'll all be sorry 
 
 To see me home again. 
 
 Pom-pe-te, pom-pe-te, pom, pom, 
 Shiver and shake and bang ; 
 Thundering seas lifting us up, 
 
 Making the screw-shaft clang. 
 Unshaven faces thrust to the flame, 
 Washed by the furnace bright, 
 And England thousands of miles away 
 In the middle watch to-night. 
 
 Oh ! what would they say could they see me 
 
 Mask'd thick with oil and dirt, 
 Shovelling deep down under the sea ? 
 
 This sweater for a shirt, 
 With the funnels red flame blowing 
 
 Out in the windy sky, 
 And the family pride perspiring 
 
 To keep the steam-gauge high ! 
 
 K
 
 i. 4-6 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I can hear the wild green chargers 
 
 Pounding the boat's iron side — 
 Old Death, impatient, knocking away 
 
 All night to get inside ! 
 Where haggard men like shadows move, 
 
 Toil in the flame-lit gloom. 
 Oh, it's just the whole world over 
 
 Sailing the wave of doom ; 
 
 For the aristocrats are sleeping 
 
 Snug in their bunks, I know, 
 All on the upper deck, while we, 
 
 Are sweating away below, 
 Hard-feeding the white heat's fury, 
 
 Piling the wake with foam, 
 Unravelling all the knots that wind 
 
 The way that takes them home. 
 
 I've clung on an old wind-jammer, 
 
 I've done things — best untold : 
 Hump'd the swag on many a rush, 
 
 Found everything — but gold ! 
 But oh ! for the flashlight homeward ! 
 
 The anchor's running chain, 
 And the sight of their dear old faces — 
 
 To see me home again !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 147 
 
 SUNDOWNERS 
 
 Up on our fast brown mares we jump'd, our swags heaped 
 
 up behind, 
 And every man on " Dead crow claim " sent out along the 
 
 wind 
 Three ringing cheers, their big slouch'd hats wild waving 
 
 to and fro, 
 Cheer followed cheer, they were so pleased at last to see us 
 
 go! 
 The scent of the scrub came dreamy, the tree-frogs chanted 
 
 their song, 
 Chanting a tune to the flying hoofs thumping the slopes 
 
 along. 
 Away to the Southward racing, wild parrots rose from 
 
 trees, 
 Fading away in tiny fleets adrift o'er sunset seas, 
 Where the dark gums rose like huddled masts, as the 
 
 boiling hot sun sank, 
 And the white mists o'er the swamp-oaks crept from the 
 
 weedy marshes rank. 
 As we felt the fire of youth awake, and burst to wild 
 
 rollicking song 
 To the swish of the mains, the romping hoofs as we rode 
 
 the night along. 
 And the scent of the wattles blowing, in the gullies on each 
 
 side, 
 Came sweet on the breath of God's cool wine in whiffs 
 
 from the blue Heavens wide.
 
 148 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The old bush town, left miles behind, seemed some wild 
 
 dream afar, 
 Where fearless men told wondrous tales and drank beer at 
 
 the bar. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Walled up by all the skies we camped, the flame lit billy 
 
 sang 
 As joyous with the voice of youth the hills with echoes 
 
 rang. 
 Like spectral batter'd hulks, clouds crept across the starlit 
 
 sky, 
 Colliding one by one soft-smashed the moon's face 
 
 silently ! 
 Their shadows o'er the slopes soft dropped thro' ghostly 
 
 straggling light 
 Like silent phantoms fled o'er hills, then jump'd the forest 
 
 height ! 
 As in the dead swamp-oaks hard by, the night-bird did 
 
 express 
 Thro' sweet-souled tiny magic flute, its tuneful 
 
 consciousness. 
 
 Brushwood flung on the camp-fire blazed, crackled, and 
 
 fizzled and flared 
 Outside like giants the hills arose with monstrous grim 
 
 breasts bared 
 For the touch of the moon's white silent flame, while far in 
 
 the dark woods seemed 
 Spectral forms were stalking around where the wind-blown 
 
 shadows gleamed. 
 My chum's wild dancing scattered the leaves, as fast I 
 
 rattled a jig !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 149 
 
 And the jackass nearly burst its throat, as it laughed on its 
 
 skyward twig. 
 As the fiddle played in silence to a phantom of delight. 
 As his wild careering shadow jumped o'er the gullies in 
 
 moonlight. 
 
 The Jackass long has ceased to laugh 
 Those heaven-turned goggling eyes 
 Have perished to a pinch of dust. 
 Still deep the forest sighs 
 All thro' the mystic moonlit night. 
 The flowers that we saw blow 
 Along the wild hillside are dead 
 These many years ago. 
 
 Yet often in the night I hear, 
 
 Above the wind and rain, 
 
 My old chum singing in the hills 
 
 Our wild sea-songs again. 
 
 And when the silent city sleeps, 
 
 And climbs the winter moon, 
 
 I half asleep in bed can hear 
 
 A sad familiar tune 
 
 Drift o'er the dead years fitfully — 
 
 The waving lyric trees 
 
 Wild moaning o'er the monotone 
 
 Of moonlit angry seas. 
 
 While in the hollow of the hills, 
 Stands hushed our old log hut, 
 Wherein we huddled curled for sleep, 
 Its tiny door half shut.
 
 1 50 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 The whinnying wild horse cries along 
 
 The Inland Mountain range, 
 
 While from the forest-deep and still, 
 
 Comes oft, with dismal change 
 
 The Warrigal's wild wailing cry, 
 
 Then hush'd 'tis still as death, 
 
 All save, God's music beautiful 
 
 My sleeping comrade's breath. 
 
 Till I awake, cramp'd, ill and old, 
 
 Near withered up — all save 
 
 These memories, that are pale flowers 
 
 Upon life's living grave, 
 
 For am I not of all my wealth 
 
 Of youth to-night bereft, 
 
 Since on my wretched, worried head 
 
 Three friendly hairs are left ? 
 
 My bright-eyed children wondering, 
 
 Know not why in the fire 
 
 With vacant staring eyes I stare — 
 
 Their stern, respected sire. 
 
 Who for their sakes eternally, 
 
 Rides up to London Town, 
 
 Each morning pulled up in the train 
 
 And each night pulled back down.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 151 
 
 THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN 
 
 In Sydney Bay we stowed away, 
 
 Down in the hot stokehole. 
 They made us feed that fearful fiend, 
 
 The engine's glowing soul ! 
 The Southern stars astern did fade, 
 
 The thumping engines cried, 
 All through the toiling, sweating nights 
 
 Across the whole world wide. 
 
 Old Dover's white cliffs gray did loom, 
 
 In London Town we stood, 
 And found far deeper loneliness 
 
 Than wild bush solitude. 
 Down fog-bound, flame-lit streets we plunged, 
 
 Our sun-tanned faces cold. 
 Pale gutter-merchants sentineled 
 
 The world's dark, grim stronghold. 
 Our thoughts swept out across the world, 
 
 Like frightened birds did fly 
 Before those dreadful pistol-shots 
 
 The cold commercial eye ! 
 Our toiling feet the mud-miles splash'd, 
 
 The front door loud we knocked, 
 And there, with eager, awestruck eyes, 
 
 Our sisters round us flocked !
 
 152 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Back in our old ancestral halls — 
 
 Crash on the floor it laid 
 One faithful friend, my portmanteau — 
 
 Crammed up with bills unpaid ! 
 And by the hearth-fire warm, that night, 
 
 Their mouths did open wide, 
 We told such things, they were so proud, 
 
 We swelled ourselves with pride ! 
 
 We told them of big fortunes made, 
 
 And how we thought of them 
 Dressed up in silk and satins soft, 
 
 Lit up with flashing gem ! 
 And how the ship went down at sea 
 
 With all our wealth inside ! 
 Then round the hearth-fire beautiful, 
 
 They sighed — nor dreamed we lied. 
 
 We showed the stokehole shovel-corns 
 
 Upon our hands so sore ; 
 The windy chimney's hollow throat 
 
 Moaned with suspicious roar. 
 Aye, years ago, and when I hear 
 
 Brave deeds of travelling youth, 
 I listening blow my nose, for oh ! 
 
 Too well I know the truth !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 153 
 
 ON THE ROCKS! 
 
 (SYDNEY) 
 
 Out on the wide domain we slept, as independents do ! 
 
 Beneath a big-leafed tree, all in a row ! 
 Penniless seafaring men, the tigers in the Zoo 
 
 At midnight roared, oft woke the sleeping show. 
 We'd hear the ferry siren's hoot, out o'er the silent bay. 
 
 My pillow was an old cheese-cutter hat. 
 The baronets and M.B.A.'s in rags beside us lay, 
 
 With hungry, dreaming eyes in moonlight sat ! 
 
 On windy, starlit nights the waves curled round the rocky 
 shore, 
 Whiffs to our nostrils crept from Woolloomooloo ! 
 We saw the sailing-ships creep by — from our big bedroom 
 floor! 
 Glide by in moonlight with their home-bound crew 
 While Sydney slept. And on cold nights we'd sneak down 
 on the quay — 
 Curl round the big warm funnel of some tramp ! 
 We'd hear the friendly sailor's voice, when dawn crept in 
 from sea, 
 Breathe in our dreaming ears — " Now lads — decamp ! " 
 
 Once in a liner's stokehold deep, like mice we stole below. 
 
 I woke : there stood the second engineer ! 
 I saw him peep where three boys slept ! He crept off on 
 tip-toe. 
 
 A Scotchman never splits that way — no fear !
 
 154 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 Next morning with full steam she sailed, swung round upon 
 the tide, 
 We heard the passengers all say " Good-bye ! " 
 With wistful eyes we watched her go, slow, down the great 
 bay glide. 
 A thousand white hands waved, our hearts did sigh, 
 As underneath the tropic sun away my thoughts did roam 
 
 When round the point her stern passed out of sight, 
 I heard her thundering screw in dreams, I saw her rolling 
 home 
 At sea — and cried myself to sleep that night ! 
 
 Mail-day arrived, the one great day ! Up George Street 
 from the Quay, 
 We'd go to where the great Post Office stands, 
 And at a little hole enquire, " Please anything for me ? " 
 
 Great Scott ! a five pound note lay in my hands ! 
 Old sailors smacked me on the back ; o'erjoyed, I lost my 
 head; 
 They drank " deep seas," winked, as with pride I paid ! 
 That night my room whirled round and round, and fathoms 
 deep my bed 
 Sank thro' the floor as there I helpless laid. 
 From that time forth I went alone. Soft, on the window 
 pane 
 I'd tap, look round before I did inquire, 
 And those old sailor men, my friends, for months watched 
 on in vain. 
 One real great virtue is to be a liar ! 
 
 I emigrated to the Bush, God only knows where to ; 
 
 My shipmate humped the swag, oft cursed and swore ! 
 Right to the skyline gum trees rose, we camped, made our 
 tea-stew !
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 155 
 
 No sleep that night ! we fought, we heard them roar ! 
 As down the regiments wildly charged, beneath the stars 
 we'd see 
 The glittering spears that stabbed us 'tween the toes ; 
 Their bodies hung fat with our blood ; they danced, they 
 sang with glee, 
 Those d — d mosquitoes where the wattle blows. 
 
 Since Eve and Adam humped the swag, exiled from their 
 first home, 
 On God's own wilds ne'er was seen such a sight ; 
 For weeks knee deep in hot, soft sand, our staggering legs 
 did roam, 
 Near trouserless, blind-drunk with hot sunlight ; 
 The spinifex soft-stabbed our flesh, we still had on our 
 boots. 
 The station children stared when we appeared ; 
 Our bare legs shook ; thank heaven, our shirts hung far 
 below our suits ! 
 The stockman swore, fell of his horse that reared ! 
 
 They gave us food and rigged us out ; we learn't to ride 
 like hell ! 
 Went back to Sydney flush and found old friends 
 Down on the quay all in a row, they sat, did hearken 
 well 
 To all we said, and there my story ends. 
 And where are they? Some went to sea, some humped 
 the swag, some died ; 
 Dell went to 'Frisco ; John, the old sea cook, 
 Secured a berth, the ship went down, and he's still there 
 inside ; 
 The worst one shipped for home and wrote a book !
 
 1 56 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 I met the baronet one day ; I said, " Good God, it's you ! " 
 
 And smacked his back ; the eyeglass from his eye 
 Dropped as amazed, his eyebrows raised, he gasped " Can 
 this be true ? " 
 Turned white, then swayed his stick, and passed me by. 
 With hell behind my blazing eyes I hurried down the 
 Strand ; 
 Thought, "That's the cove that borrowed my old 
 shirt ! " 
 I yearned to meet him, as of old, in that far lone Bush- 
 land; 
 He'd gasp ! I'd sway the stick — that's one dead cert.
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 157 
 
 A BUSH DREAM 
 
 Down in my heart the bush flower blows, 
 The sea-bird cries as it comes and goes, 
 Flashing away on tireless wing, 
 O'er the moonlit dark waves glittering. 
 Fast o'er the sea the cool wind goes 
 To kiss the hills where the wattle blows. 
 Far from the heat of the old Bush Town 
 Stars are pouring God's own wine down, 
 The mallee-scrub on either side, 
 On the long night ride ! the long night ride ! 
 Our little hut crouched in the hills, 
 Safe from the wild shore's thunderous thrills- 
 God's everlasting thrilling chime, 
 Where waves forever crying climb — 
 In moonlight coil the wild lone shore, 
 Like children knock each dark cave door, 
 Toss their white arms, and wailing flee, 
 Like ghosts in shrouds away to sea !
 
 i 58 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 
 
 MODERN LONDON 
 
 Not in South seas or wild Australian Bush, 
 Or in dark clouds or where the bright stars soar, 
 But midst the throb of wheels, the mighty rush 
 Of City streets, the whistling shrieks, the roar 
 Of multitudes, brave, grand, incessant strife, 
 We'll find the real romance of splendid life, 
 And, still embodied, ancient love and lore ! 
 
 The unfledged soul of passion's fragile frame, 
 
 The bravest deeds of Heroes ages dead. 
 
 A girl's surrendered loveliness— the shame 
 
 Of all upon her tired, half- Angel Head ; 
 
 And gliding thro' the lamp-lit, dark-walled streets 
 
 Battalions of pale eyes, and muffled beats 
 
 Of hearts — that hold some secret fast with dread. 
 
 The whistling urchin dodging wheels fast running 
 By sparks caught from what thunders of far stars ! 
 The Universal light ! weaved by man's cunning, 
 Switched to the rushing stream of gliding cars. 
 Space — blind with moving worlds, while man, a clod, 
 A drama plays that murmurs out a God ! 
 A chord of grandeur in Time's myriad jars. 
 
 Diogenes lurks, jealous, by his Tub ! 
 Old cynics shuffle by with white-lipped sneer, 
 'Gainst Croesus with his millions oft I rub 
 My shabby sleeve. I sniff spiced, flowery beer
 
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices 159 
 
 'Neath past Egyptian skies — whiffs thro' moonlight 
 My nostrils bathe. Brave Cyrus, with delight ! 
 Fights half the world — a pen behind his ear ! 
 
 Old Babylon's, Assyria's dust, the clang, 
 The chants of Pagan Temples, noise of seas, 
 Past moons, the sandall'd maiden as she sprang 
 To arms — long dead — beneath fair cedar trees. 
 Grand glories hid, stuffed rows in Pyramids ! 
 Sweet-spiced old mummies and curved stiff eyelids, 
 Alive ! move down the Strand ! Cheapside ! Heaven 
 
 knows, 
 I've bargained and been done — by those Pharaohs ! 
 
 I've seen Ruth, waist-deep 'mid the corn — in dreams. 
 
 Her pale-faced sister bargain, soulless stand 
 
 'Neath bright street-lamps, by moving seas of schemes 
 
 Hid 'neath top hats, fast gliding down the Strand ! 
 
 I've heard dead-laughter — midst the crowd stood still 
 
 As Cleopatra passed ! as swept a thrill 
 
 Of Ages thro' my frame — she'd touched my hand ! 
 
 Arabian Nights, ten thousand magic lamps 
 Gleam o'er the unsung heroes of my day. 
 The deathless regiment ever onward tramps — 
 Old passions born of ages far away ! 
 From gloom to gloom, pale gliding eyes, we see 
 The past — the shadows of the future — We ! 
 Behind the drama of what coming play ? 
 
 John Long, Ltd., Publishers, London
 
 Spring, 1915 
 
 JOHN LONG'S 
 NEW BOOKS 
 
 All JOHN LONG'S Books are published in their 
 
 Colonial Library as nearly as possible simultaneously 
 
 with the English Editions 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS 
 
 Crown 8vo., Cloth Gilt. All in Three-Colour Wrappers 
 
 A SLACK WIRE 
 
 By Marion Hill, Author of " The Lure of Crooning 
 Water," " Sunrise Valley," etc. 
 
 "The Lure of Crooning Water," by Marion Hill, which ran into fourteen 
 editions in the six shilling form, was followed by " Sunrise Valley," a novel 
 which unquestionably established the author's claim to a place in the front rank 
 of the " novelists that count." In her latest novel Miss Marion Hill rises to a 
 height far above her previous successes. The delightfully restrained humour 
 and pathos of her great situations remind the reader of George Eliot. And 
 yet it is only a reminder : the very strength of Miss Marion Hill's work lies in 
 the occasional glimpses she gives of something more wonderful than George 
 Eliot ever achieved. 
 
 THREE PERSONS 
 
 By a Peer, Author of " The Hard Way," " The Oyster," 
 " The Decoy Duck," etc. 
 The novels of a Peer are consistent in their general characteristics. The 
 glamour of intellectual brilliance is united with a vivid and living humanity. 
 In many ways a Peer's latest story eclipses in interest its predecessors. A 
 passionate drama revolves round the figure of the man who dreamed of being 
 a soldier in the army, but who became a soldier in ordinary life — a life of duty 
 and self-sacrifice. It is a strong and impressive romance. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE SONG OF SURRENDER 
 
 By Henry Bruce, Author of "The Native Wife," "The 
 Eurasian," " The Residency," etc. 
 
 Like the author's previous novels, this is a story of life in India. It depicts 
 the Maratha Prince, lover of the beautiful white Eurasian, and recounts their 
 romantic attachment. The element of mystery is skilfully contrived. Whether 
 in its sensational or humorous parts the novel retains a distinct grip. 
 
 THE WIZARD OF THE TURF 
 
 By Nat Gould. (For Complete List of Nat Gould's Novels 
 see pages 12 and 13.) 
 
 This novel follows " A Fortune at Stake" and " A Gamble for Love," the 
 first two novels by Nat Gould to be issued at the outset at 6s. The innovation 
 was an immediate success. The new tale, " The Wizard of the Turf," should 
 undoubtedly win for itself many admirers. The hero and heroine have strong 
 dominating personalities, and the love interest is well sustained. The element 
 of sport of course prevails, and the book may fairly be said to be as thrilling as 
 any Mr. Nat Gould has written. 
 
 THE MORMON LION 
 
 By David Ford. 
 A story of true love and steadfast courage is never more charming than 
 when contrasted with tragedy. Such is this powerful novel of the days when 
 polygamy was rampant in Utah. In a vivid, lucid way the terrible events of 
 Mormon history of the fifties are woven into a plot, the interest of which 
 never flags. The heroine is the sweet and lovely daughter of one of the many 
 English families that were lured to the desert-girt land pointed to by Mormon 
 missionaries as an earthly paradise. 
 
 THE COURTS OF LOVE 
 
 By Farren Le Breton, Author of " Fruits of Pleasure." 
 
 A Russian prison, with all its grim horrors, closed round Mary Trefusis, a 
 lovely young English girl. Overwhelming circumstances forced her to accept 
 the protection of the prison governor, who soon passionately adored his beauti- 
 ful ward. The contrast between her stirring life in Russia and the peaceful 
 idyllic life she leads with her Guernsey friends is well presented. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE DREAM FRIEND 
 
 By V. Goldie, Author of "Nigel Thomson," " Marjorie 
 Stevens," etc. 
 
 A story that raises the question of how far it is permissible to take the 
 personal responsibility of dealing with one who is dangerous and burdensome 
 to society, but against whom the existing laws provide no remedy. In the 
 case of the moral degenerate, Donald Sturgess, husband of the Dream Friend, 
 for whom the narrator of the tale has a romantic, but not wholly disinterested, 
 friendship, an answer is found. But whether this answer, highly unusual in 
 itself, is the right one, is for readers to decide according to their own 
 standards. 
 
 THE DESPOT 
 
 By Ellen Ada Smith, Author of " The Price of Con- 
 quest," " The Busybody," etc. 
 
 This is the story of a man who is great in everything with the exception of 
 his unscrupulous methods of benefiting the race, present and future. An 
 implacable man, and very greatly daring where his philanthropy is concerned, 
 he sacrifices those round him ruthlessly to his most excellent purpose. The 
 woman who loves him and his friend alike are bound to his hard service. 
 Some qualified to judge call him one of the greatest of hypnotists. Be this as 
 it may, his wife loves him to the last, and the friend whom he has betrayed 
 into virtual slavery has loyal thoughts of him still. 
 
 HONOUR IN PAWN 
 
 By H. Maxwell, Author of " The Paramount Shop," 
 " The Beloved Premier," etc. 
 
 There are few themes in fiction that grip the interest of the reader so in- 
 evitably as that which deals with the sudden rise from obscurity and poverty 
 to influence and affluence. The motif of the story is a well-marked varia- 
 tion of this very human theme. The novel abounds in fine situations and well- 
 imagined incidents, and the dialogue is distinguished by that "crispness" 
 which we expect to find in Mr. Maxwell's work, and which the critics unite 
 in commending as a special characteristic of his literary style. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE DRIVING FORCE 
 
 By George Acorn, Author of " One of the Multitude." 
 
 A striking novel of power, pathos, and humour. The scenes are laid in 
 Devonshire and the East End of London — scenes the author knows intimately 
 and portrays with an authentic touch. The passing of Mrs. An^el and the 
 description of how Dick found Margaret at last are dramatic triumphs. This 
 is a book out of the ordinary, such as will make a strong appeal to discrimin- 
 ating readers. 
 
 CONFLICT AND CONQUEST 
 
 By Stewart Frankland. 
 
 " A novel of glorious naval adventure " is a fit description of this story. The 
 author combines knowledge and experience with imagination in a vivid and 
 convincing narrative, which should appeal strongly to all those who love a tale 
 of the sea. Some of the writer's " intelligent anticipations" seem already on 
 the way to realization. 
 
 THE DUAL IDENTITY 
 
 By C. Guise Mitford, Author of " Love in Lilac- Land," 
 " The Hidden Mask," etc. 
 
 The central figure in this story is a man sentenced to penal servitude for life 
 for a murder of which he is innocent. He finds the prisoner in the next cell 
 to his own is the person, alive and well, whom he is believed to have killed. 
 How and why the supposed victim had voluntarily got into the convict settle- 
 ment, the torture of which had driven men to suicide, and why he sought to 
 remain, is recounted with vigour and with truth, as also is the love story of 
 the girl who was a pearl above all price. 
 
 LORD QUARE'S VISITOR 
 
 By Florence Warden, Author of " Why She Left Him," 
 
 " The Matheson Money," etc. 
 
 In this, her latest novel, the author provides an agreeable entertainment, 
 the main items in which are much love and a little mystery, in which the 
 interest and the incident carry one swiftly along to a natural and proper con- 
 clusion. The tale is conceived in Florence Warden's best style. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Boohs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE NEW DAWN 
 
 By George Wouil, Author of " Paul Moorhouse," " Sow- 
 ing Clover," etc. 
 
 Mr. George Wouil well merits the approbation of Punch as "a most dis- 
 cerning author." Readers will find proof of this in his new story. It is a 
 novel of Scotland, through English eyes, depicting Londoners exiled in the 
 valley of the Clyde ; of glens and collieries and rolling mills ; of Sabbath 
 fervour and revival ; of gossiping tongues ; of an inventor's dreams ; and of 
 love, waking in the springtime. 
 
 URSULA'S MARRIAGE 
 
 By James Blyth, Author of " Rubina," " Amazement," 
 " Faith and Unfaith," etc. 
 
 A brilliant gallery of pen portraits of women swayed by the complex effects 
 of the master passion, stand to the credit of Mr. James Blyth. A woman in 
 love is the theme of his latest romance, and it affords him yet another oppor- 
 tunity of displaying his infinite variety. The course of true love does not run 
 smooth for Ursula, the devoced heroine, despite her riches, but her reward 
 comes when destiny pursues and inflicts justice upon the man who, in grasping 
 at the prize, overreaches himself. This author's novels never fail in popular 
 interest ; they have personal magnetism in them, and his new story attains the 
 level of his best previous efforts. 
 
 COMING OF AGE 
 
 By Richard Marsh, Author of " The Garden of Mystery," 
 etc. 
 
 It was an unkind fate which made Helen Arnold agree to marry Percy 
 Osborne. The opposing forces against the young girl were considerably 
 strengthened by the unscrupulous and evil machinations of Yarrow, who had 
 always been a malign influence in Helen's life. If it had not been for the 
 delightful American, Van Coster, and his sister, Yarrow might have succeeded 
 in ruining the girl's life. But destiny had better things in store, and the story 
 will show how the loyalty and love of Van Coster were rewarded at last. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarkel, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 MAIDS OF SALEM 
 
 By K. L. Montgomery, Author of " The Gate-Openers," 
 " The Cardinal's Pawn," etc. 
 
 The witch- persecution of New England, one of the most dramatic chapters 
 of American history, is the theme of K. L. Montgomery's new novel. The 
 scene is Salem, Massachusetts Bay. The story is one of tragedy and romance, 
 told in the inimitable way with which the author's admirers have been so 
 charmed by her previous books. 
 
 THE HEART OF JOANNA 
 
 By Robert A. Hamblin. 
 
 How a too narrow conception of duty may be productive of harm, rather 
 than of good, is shown in this realistic novel. The heroine stifles a noble 
 passion in the interests of her parents. In the end she is dramatically brought 
 to a sense of her larger responsibilities. The way this is achieved must be 
 gathered from the book itself, which, by its grim humour, its pathos, and its 
 fidelity to actual life, will appeal to all lovers of good fiction. 
 
 THE GREATNESS OF JOHN 
 
 By Florence Angelo. 
 
 This novel will have a double charm for the English reader. The scenes 
 transpire in India, and there are no politics or conspiracies or native 
 unrest. The author weaves a happily romantic web around the Anglo-Indian 
 persons of the story, and gives agreeable pictures of civil and military society. 
 It is a love story which will meet with general appreciation. 
 
 THE DICE OF LOVE 
 
 By Edmund Bosanquet, Author of " A Society Mother," 
 " Mary's Marriage," etc. 
 
 Since the days of " A Society Mother," Mr. Edmund Bosanquet has gone 
 far, and this, his latest romance, will more than satisfy the expectations of his 
 admirers. The characters are never insipid, and have the happy knack of 
 getting on the right side of the reader immediately. There is a sustained 
 brilliance about the book which augurs well for its success. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Lid., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE MAN WHO KNEW ALL 
 
 By Marie Connor Leighton, Author of "Convict 
 99," etc. 
 
 The story of a society beauty who finds herself obliged to accept the terms 
 of a freakish will, whereby she must marry before a given date. She chooses 
 a young hero who has saved many lives in a colliery accident, and is supposed 
 to be dying from his injuries. After the bedside marriage she goes back into 
 her own world, considering herself already as good as a widow. But there 
 comes a moment of horror a few months later, when, standing before the altar 
 of a fashionable London church with the new bridegroom of her heart's 
 choice, she sees among the congregation the man she had taken for husband 
 as he lay on the very brink of the grave. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF PRINCESS ARNULF 
 
 There is a subtle attraction about royalty which is irresistible. On the 
 Continent there are small reigning houses which form a link with the past. 
 Such a house as this is depicted in " The Romance of Princess Arnulf." The 
 picturesque side of royalty is shown in strong contrast to the intimate life in 
 the Castle with, as it were, the "lid off." With amazing candour the 
 Princess unveils the family history and discovers more than one skeleton in 
 the cupboard. But shining through these pages is the engaging personality of 
 the Princess. We follow her in her wanderings from capital to capital, in her 
 unexpected accession to great wealth, and finally in her extraordinary marriage 
 and divorce. Not for many years has a book of such unusual interest been 
 given to the reading public. 
 
 THE WOMAN RUTH 
 
 By Curtis Yorke, Author of " Irresponsible Kitty," 
 " Delphine," etc. 
 
 Readers of Curtis Yorke do not need to be commended to her latest novel. 
 The secret of her continued success is that she never gives us less than her 
 best. "The Woman Ruth" epitomizes the qualities of head and heart to 
 which she has accustomed us. An optimistic view of life — tenderness, 
 humour, human sympathy — these are the main weapons in this gifted author's 
 bright and shining armoury. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooRs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 BLESSINGTON'S FOLLY 
 
 By Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Author of " Love 
 on Smoky River," etc. 
 
 The qualities which made " Love on Smoky River" such an instantaneous 
 and unqualified success are again brought into play in the present novel. The 
 author unfolds his theme with skill and power, and fully maintains the reputa- 
 tion he has gained for telling a good story well. 
 
 AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 
 
 By Violet Tweedale, Author of "The House of the 
 Other World," etc. 
 
 This is a book of a very unusual type. It is a powerful novel dealing with 
 Satanism, an evil cult which is making great headway in Europe. The man 
 who forms the unholy alliance is Canon Gilchrist, who has been unfairly de- 
 prived of a peerage, and hopes to regain his position by the help of the Powers 
 of Darkness. There is a charming love element, and the story shows the 
 author at her best. 
 
 A MILLION FOR A SOUL 
 
 By Mrs. C. E. Phillimore, Author of " Two Women and 
 a Maharajah." 
 
 An Irish patriot bequeaths to his child, as her sole inheritance, his love for 
 drink. She marries in India, and through constant strain succumbs to the 
 degrading habit. Cast off by her husband, her lover seeks to regain her and 
 effect her regeneration. The story ends with this achieved, though the 
 manner of its accomplishment is by way of the unexpected. 
 
 THREE SUMMERS 
 
 By Victor L. Whitechurch, Author of " The Canon in 
 Residence," '•' Left in Charge," etc. 
 
 Here is a book that will appeal to all who love a good plot and plenty of 
 incident. It runs along fresh and sparkling and true to the end. The hero 
 and heroine are cleverly depicted in this charming romance, which teems with 
 lovable characters. It is a novel which enhances the reputation of this popular 
 author. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 8
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE SNAKE GARDEN 
 
 By Amy J. Baker, Author of " I Too Have Known," 
 "The Impenitent Prayer," etc. 
 
 As with her two previous successes, the scene is laid in South Africa. Miss 
 Baker writes with a realism that is the outcome of personal experience. 
 Theo, the heroine, is an unusual type of girl, and how she straightens out her 
 life is told with rare humour and psychological insight. The book is remark- 
 able for its clear-cut pictures of Colonial life. 
 
 THE BARBARIANS 
 
 By James Blyth, Author of " Rubina," "Amazement," 
 
 etc. 
 
 The marital relationship is the keynote of "The Barbarians." Original, 
 virile, human, bold and sympathetic, the novel, both in interest and craftsman- 
 ship, is a worthy successor of a sequence of brilliantly limned portraits of the 
 feminine character. It is the tale that matters, and as a story-teller Mr. 
 Blyth may well challenge comparison. 
 
 THE SECRET CALLING 
 
 By Olivia Ramsey, Author of " Callista in Revolt," etc. 
 
 This is a love story of unusual charm dealing with the fortunes of two girls. 
 An artist falls in love with one ; the other rejects the brilliant marriage 
 arranged for her by her worldly aunt. Each girl seeks safety in flight. How 
 both are finally won by the men who love them is convincingly described by 
 the author. In this book she again displays her acknowledged skill as a clever 
 novelist. 
 
 THE ENCHANTING DISTANCE 
 
 By Lilian Arnold, Author of " The Storm-Dog," " Also 
 
 Joan," etc. 
 
 This is a love story, in the development of which it becomes apparent that 
 
 things are seldom what they seem, and that the most passionate attachments 
 
 are rarely based on pure reason. The adventures of the heroine in search of a 
 
 life of her own in London are told with much humour. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS— continued 
 
 THE KEY OF THE WORLD 
 
 By Dorin Craig 
 
 This is a new and original novel by an untried writer in whom the pub- 
 lishers have great faith. It is one of those rare books which may be truly said 
 to appeal to fiction readers of all tastes. The author relates a story of intense 
 love interest, and makes the characters living personalities. There is the 
 right element of pathos, and, sparkling throughout, real humour of a type 
 that in itself imparts to the book the quality of special distinction. The story 
 has its setting partly among simple folk of the West country and partly in 
 London amid aristocratic circles. The author narrates how, by misrepresenta- 
 tion, the unwilling hero is prevailed on to assume the heirship to a title and 
 estate. It is only when the true successor is found that he feels himself free 
 to resume his former life, claiming the heroine who, from her love for him, 
 would not unite herself with him at his accession to name and wealth. Here 
 is a book quite out of the beaten track, and the publishers are fully convinced 
 it will make its mark. 
 
 THE BLOWS OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 By Beatrice Kelston, Author of " A Three-Cornered 
 Duel," " Seekers Every One." 
 
 The story of a woman gifted with strong personality and an unhappy tem- 
 perament which betrays her early in life into an ill-fated passion. Later, 
 attracted to the stage, she finds her emotional outlet in her art, and makes a 
 loveless marriage to escape unwelcome suitors. Thence her life moves on to 
 tragedy, culminating at the point where she finds herself in the dock, and at 
 the same moment face to face with the man who should have been her mate. 
 Their brief and tragic love-story brings an enthralling tale to a conclusion. 
 
 THEIR MONTH 
 
 By Nita Claremont. 
 
 This is a new novel by a new writer which depends upon the story, and is 
 not bolstered up by superfluous padding. The plot turns upon what was 
 perhaps an indiscretion committed by an impulsive woman, who acts rather 
 from want of thought than from want of heart. Readers who have a taste for 
 a love story with some fire in it will find themselves in this work liberally 
 rewarded. 
 
 NEW NOVEL 
 
 By Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Author of " Love 
 on Smoky River," " Blessington's Folly," etc. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 10
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 RECENT POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 SIX SHILLINGS EACH 
 
 SUNRISE VALLEY 
 
 THE GREATER LAW - 
 
 SYLVIA .... 
 
 DESMOND O'CONNOR 
 
 A GAMBLE FOR LOVE 
 
 THE BELOVED PREMIER 
 
 THE RESIDENCY 
 
 PAUL MOORHOUSE - 
 
 THE WIDOW OF GLOANE 
 
 UNDER COVER OF NIGHT 
 
 WHY SHE LEFT HIM 
 
 THE OYSTER 
 
 THE WHITE VAMPIRE - 
 
 LAW THE WRECKER 
 
 MARY'S MARRIAGE 
 
 A BESPOKEN BRIDE 
 
 CALLISTA IN REVOLT - 
 
 THE RANSOM FOR LONDON 
 
 THE PRICE OF CONQUEST 
 
 FAITH AND UNFAITH - 
 
 THE RED WEDDING 
 
 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 LOVE ON SMOKY RIVER 
 
 SOWING CLOVER 
 
 A FORTUNE AT STAKE - 
 
 THE EURASIAN 
 
 YOUNG EVE AND OLD ADAM 
 
 Marion Hill 
 Victoria Cross 
 Upton Sinclair 
 George H. Jessop 
 Nat Gould 
 H. Maxwell 
 Henry Bruce 
 George Wouil 
 
 D. H. Dennis 
 
 R. Murray Gilchrist 
 Florence Warden 
 By a Peer 
 A. M. Judd 
 Charles Igglesden 
 Edmund Bosanquet 
 Fred Whishaw 
 On via Ramsey 
 J. S. Fletcher 
 Ellen Ada Smith 
 James Blyth 
 
 E. Scott Gillies 
 Mrs. A. M. Floyer 
 Theodore G. Roberts 
 George Wouil 
 
 Nat Gould 
 Henry Bruce 
 Tom Gallon 
 D. H. Dennis 
 Marion Hill 
 By a Peer 
 
 CROSSROADS 
 
 THE LURE OF CROONING WATER 
 THE DECOY DUCK - 
 
 LEVITY HICKS Tom Gallon 
 
 OUR ALTY - M. E. Francis 
 
 QUEER LITTLE JANE .... Curtis Yorke 
 THE HOUSE OF THE OTHER WORLD Violet Tweedale 
 THE ONLY PRISON Ellen Ada Smith 
 
 UNQUENCHED FIRE 
 THE IMPENITENT PRAYER 
 THE VISION OF THE YEARS 
 SALAD DAYS - 
 
 Alice Gerstenberg 
 Amy J. Baker 
 Curtis Yorke 
 By the Author of 
 
 " Improper Prue" 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 II
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 The World's Favourite Author 
 
 ATHENAEUM, June 
 lGth, 1911. says:— 
 " All living writers 
 are headed by Mr. 
 Nat Gould, and of 
 the great of the past 
 Dumas only surpasses 
 his popularity." 
 
 TRUTH, Jan. 22nd, 
 1913, says :— " Who is 
 the most popular of 
 living novelists ? Mr. 
 Nat Gould easily and 
 indisputably takes the 
 first place." 
 
 The Novels of Nat Gould 
 
 Sales now exceed NINE MILLION Copies ! 
 
 NAT GOULD'S NEW 6/- NOVEL 
 
 THE WIZARD OF THE TURF 
 
 All Mr. Nat Gould's NEW Novels will now be issued at the outset at 6s., Crown 
 8vo., in handsome Cloth Gilt over 300 pages, with Wrapper in Three Colours. 
 They will also be issued simultaneously in John Long s Colonial Library at .■"•*»?•• 
 Cloth, with Special design, also Wrapper in Three Colours; and 2s. 6d. with btitr 
 Paper Cover, with Picture in Three Colours. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE 
 
 A FORTUNE AT STAKE, rww Edition. 
 
 A GAMBLE FOR LOVE. Fourth Edition. 
 
 N.B.— Messrs. JOHN LONG are the SOLE Publishers of all Mr. Nat 
 Gould's New Novels and control the output. To ensure a long run with the 
 Library and Colonial Editions they will not publish the Is. net Edition until 
 at least a year, and the 6d. edition until over two years, after the publication 
 of the more expensive editions. But in the meantime there will be the usual 
 periodical 6d. issues of Novels by Mr. Nat Gould that have already appeared 
 at 2s. and Is. Also NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL, which contains an 
 entirely new long story by Mr. Nat Gould. 
 
 See List facing 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 12
 
 John Long's New and Forthcomin- BooKs 
 
 THE NOVELS OF NAT GOULD— continued 
 NAT GOULD'S NOVELS at Is. and 2s. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Paper Cover, Three Colours, Is. net ; cloth gilt, 2s. 
 
 THE CHANCE OF A LIFE- 
 TIME 
 
 THE KING'S FAVOURITE 
 
 A CAST OFF 
 ♦THE PHANTOM HORSE 
 *LEFT IN THE LURCH 
 
 *THE BEST OF THE SEASON 
 GOOD AT THE GAME 
 A MEMBER OF TATT'S 
 THE TRAINER'S TREASURE 
 THE HEAD LAD 
 
 fA FORTUNE AT STAKE 
 
 March, 1915 
 
 Nat Gould's Annual, 1911, '12, '13 respectively. 
 
 t Paper only. 
 
 NAT GOULD'S NOVELS at 6d. 
 
 In large demy 8vo., thread sewn 
 *ONE OF A MOB 
 *THE SELLING PLATER 
 
 A BIT OF A ROGUE 
 *THE LADY TRAINER 
 *A STRAIGHT GOER 
 *A HUNDRED TO ONE 
 
 CHANCE 
 *A SPORTING SQUATTER 
 
 THE PET OF THE PUBLIC 
 *CHARGER AND CHASER 
 
 THE LOTTERY COLT 
 
 A STROKE OF LUCK 
 *THE TOP WEIGHT 
 *THE DAPPLE GREY 
 *WHIRLWIND'S YEAR 
 *THE LITTLE WONDER 
 
 * Also at 2.%. picture boards, and 2s 
 
 and Is. 
 
 Striking Cover in Three Colours 
 
 A BIRD IN HAND 
 *THE BUCKJUMPER 
 *THE JOCKEY'S REVENGE 
 
 THE PICK OF THE STABLE 
 tTHE STOLEN RACER 
 tA RECKLESS OWNER 
 tTHE ROARER 
 tTHE LUCKY SHOE 
 
 QUEEN OF THE TURF 
 I A GREAT COUP 
 tTHE KING'S FAVOURITE 
 1 A CAST OFF 
 
 THE CHANCE OF A LIFE 
 
 TIME February, 1915 
 
 GOOD AT THE GAME 
 
 April, 1915 
 
 6d. cloth gilt, 
 net paper. 
 
 t Also at 2s. cloth gilt, 
 
 NAT GOULD'S 
 ANNUAL, 1915 
 
 THE WHITE ARAB 
 
 (Thirteenth 
 Year; 
 
 Cleverly Illustrated. Cover in Three Colours. Paper, thread sewn, Is. Large demy &vo. 
 
 THE MAGIC OF SPORT 
 
 Being the LIFE STORY OF NAT GOULD, written by himself 
 
 With over 50 illustrations of Notable Sportsmen, Places and Horses and Photogravure 
 Portrait of the Author. Demy 8vo. 370 pages, handsomely bound, Gilt Top. Price 
 12s. 6d. net. [A few Copies only left 
 
 % * For further List of Nat Gould's Novels see page facing 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 13
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooKs 
 
 BOOKS OF THE MOMENT 
 
 BELGIUM : HER KINGS, KINGDOM, AND 
 PEOPLE 
 
 By John de Courcy MacDonnell. With 50 Illustrations, including 
 Photogravure Portrait of King Albert. Demy 8vo. , handsome binding. 
 15s. net. \ Fourth Edition. 
 
 The Standard. — " Published just previous to the war, this is one of the most important 
 books of the year, and the most complete yet concise work on Belgium available. Written 
 with understanding and sympathy, it will appeal to all who have the cause of lielgian liberty 
 at heart." 
 
 BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE COURT OF 
 
 VIENNA : 
 
 The Private Life of the Emperor of Austria. From Information by a 
 Distinguished Personage at Court. By Henri de Weindel and 
 Philip W. Sergeant. Wrapper in Colours. With Portrait of the 
 Emperor. Crown Svo. 2s. net. [Second Edition. 
 
 "More fascinating than any novel. These revelations, piquant and bizarre as some of 
 them are, will come as a surprise." — Vide Press. 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE'S HOUR OF DESTINY 
 
 By Colonel H. Frobenius. Preface by Sir Valentine Chirol. 
 Wrapper in Colours. Crown Svo. Cloth, 2s. net. [Twelfth Thousand. 
 
 Approved by the German Crown Prince as presenting the true expression of 
 the mind which has long prevailed in the Fatherland. 
 
 Manchester Guardian. — "Frobenius is tremendously confident and positive, and has 
 many interesting things to say. His book may be classed with Bernhardi's famous work." 
 
 THE TOCSIN 
 
 By Alice and Claude Askew, Authors of "The Shulamite," etc. 
 Fcap. Svo. Cloth, with attractive Wrapper in Three Colours, is. net. 
 
 This is an entirely new story, now for the first time published, by those 
 favourite authors, Alice and Claude Askew. It opens in England at the 
 beginning of the war, and contains very strong love interest and exciting 
 dramatic situations. The scene rapidly shifts to Belgium, and Mrs. Claude 
 Askew, owing to what she has recently seen with her own eyes at the Belgian 
 Field Hospital at Fumes, is able to give some most realistic and interesting 
 pictures from her own experience of Red Cross work. 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 14
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 BOOKS OF THE MOMENT 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 H.M. ALBERT 
 
 KING OF THE BELGIANS 
 
 Dedicated to Her Royal Highness Princess 
 Marie Jose of Belgium. Preface by Com- 
 mandant Maton, Military Attache to the 
 Belgian Legation, London. 
 
 By John de Courcy MacDonnell, Author 
 
 of "Belgium, Her Kings, Kingdom, and 
 
 People" (15s. net, Fourth Edition). 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. Illustrated. Cloth Gilt, Jacket 
 in Colours, is. net. 
 
 Written on popular lines in a chatty and 
 anecdotal style. The author, who has just 
 returned from Belgium, where he passed more 
 
 than once through the lines and was under fire, tells of what he has himself 
 
 seen and heard. 
 
 THE SECRET HISTORY OF 
 THE COURT OF BERLIN 
 
 From the Papers and Diaries of a Lady-in- Waiting to the German 
 Empress-Queen. By Henry W. Fisher. Striking Cover. Crown 
 8vo. is. net. {Eleventh Edition. 
 
 " A very inspiring exposure of German official life and of the personal idiosyncrasies of the 
 Kaiser." — Vide Press. 
 
 MARTIAL LAW WITHIN THE REALM OF 
 ENGLAND 
 
 By James M. Lowry, Barrister-at-Law. Fcap. 8vo. Paper, is. net. 
 
 \_Third Thousand. 
 
 This is not a law book, but a deeply interesting work on the subject of 
 martial law, written in popular vein. 
 Morning Post. — " The author gives us a very readable account of the subject." 
 
 THE ENEMY IN OUR MIDST 
 
 The Story of a German Invasion. By Walter Wood- Striking Cover 
 in Colours. Crown 8vo. is. net. [Third Edition. 
 
 Scotsman. — "A warning, tellingly sounded, as to the national danger." 
 
 JOHN LONG, Lid., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 IS
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming BooRs 
 
 JOHN LONG'S 7d. NET (CLOTH) NOVELS 
 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 44 
 45 
 46 
 
 47 
 
 A New Series of copyright Novels which, in more expensive form, have 
 achieved marked success. They are printed in clear type, newly set, on 
 good paper, tastefully bound in Red Cloth, full gilt back, with attractive 
 Pictorial Wrapper in Three Colours. Each volume has a Decorative Title- 
 page with Frontispiece, both on Art Paper, 
 
 New Volumes for 1915 
 OF A MAID 
 
 THE ROMANCE 
 
 HONOUR 
 THE INEVITABLE MARRIAGE 
 NURSE CHARLOTTE 
 LEFT IN THE LURCH 
 THE RANSOM FOR LONDON 
 A SEALED VERDICT 
 IN HIS GRIP 
 
 OF 
 
 Richard Marsh 
 Dorothea Gerard 
 L. T. Meade 
 Nat Gould 
 J. S. Fletcher 
 Lawrence L. Lynch 
 David C. Murray 
 
 Volumes already Published 
 
 1 FATHER ANTHONY 
 
 2 DELILAH OF THE SNOWS 
 
 3 ONLY BETTY ------- 
 
 4 THE GARDEN OF MYSTERY - 
 
 5 IN SPITE OF THE CZAR 
 
 6 THE VEILED MAN 
 
 7 THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH • 
 
 8 A BORDER SCOURGE 
 
 9 WAYWARD ANNE- - 
 
 10 THE GREATER POWER - 
 
 11 A CABINET SECRET 
 
 12 THE EYE OF ISTAR 
 
 13 A WOMAN PERFECTED - 
 
 14 HYPOCRITES AND SINNERS 
 
 15 THE SILENT HOUSE - - 
 
 16 BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE 
 
 17 THE OTHER SARA 
 
 18 LITTLE JOSEPHINE 
 
 19 A BRIDE FROM THE SEA - 
 
 20 THE MAGNETIC GIRL . 
 
 21 THE MATHESON MONEY - 
 
 22 CRIMSON LILIES 
 
 23 THE GRASS WIDOW - 
 
 24 THRICE ARMED ---.-. 
 2= THE GIRL IN GREY .... 
 
 26 THE LADY OF THE ISLAND • 
 
 27 THE WHITE HAND AND THE BLACK 
 23 THE STOLEN EMPEROR - 
 
 29 A MAN OF TO-DAY - 
 
 Robert Buchanan 
 Harold Bindloss 
 Curtis Yorke 
 Richard Marsh 
 Guy Boothby 
 William Le Queux 
 Rita 
 
 Bertram Mitford 
 Curtis Yorke 
 Harold Bindloss 
 Guy Boothby 
 William Le Queux 
 Richard Marsh 
 Violet Tweedale 
 Fergus Hume 
 Harold Bindloss 
 Curtis Yorke 
 L. T. Meade 
 Guy Boothby 
 Richard Marsh 
 Florence Warden 
 May Crommelin 
 Dorothea Gerard 
 Harold Bindloss 
 Curtis Yorke 
 Guy Boothby 
 Bertram Mitkord 
 Mrs. Hugh Fraser 
 Helen Mathers 
 
 JOHN LONG, Ltd., 12, 13, and 14, Norris St., Haymarket, London 
 
 16
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 JOHN LONG'S 7A NET (CLOTH) NOVELS— continued 
 
 30 THE PENNILESS MILLIONAIRE David C. Murray 
 
 31 LINKS IN THE CHAIN Headon Hill 
 
 32 AN INNOCENT IMPOSTER Maxwell Gray 
 
 33 THE GOLD TRAIL ... Harold Bindloss 
 
 34 MOLLIE DEVERILL - Curtis Yorke 
 
 35 A GLORIOUS LIE Dorothea Gerard 
 
 36 ALTON OF SOMASCO Harold Bindloss 
 
 37 IRRESPONSIBLE KITTY - Curtis Yorke 
 
 3S OUR ALTY - M. E. Francis 
 
 39 MEMORY CORNER Tom Gallon 
 
 40 THE BARTENSTEIN CASE .... - - J. S. Fletcher 
 
 JOHN LONG'S 1/- NET (CLOTH) NOVELS 
 
 The Authors in this Series have been specially selected. The volumes 
 are bound in Cloth, Gold backs, with artistic Wrappers in Three Colours. 
 Fcap. 8vo. 320 pages. 
 
 New Volumes for 1915 
 
 LOVE ON SMOKY RIVER - - - Theodore G. Roberts 
 
 RANCHER CARTARET - Harold Bindloss 
 
 OLIVE KINSELLA ... Curtis Yorke 
 
 A LEGACY OF THE GRANITE HILLS - Bertram Mitford 
 
 LEVITY HICKS Tom Gallon 
 
 THE CATTLE BARON'S DAUGHTER Harold Bindloss 
 
 SUNRISE VALLEY ----- Marion Hill 
 
 LEFT IN CHARGE - - Victor L. Whitechurch 
 
 Volumes already Published 
 
 THE LURE OF CROONING WATER .... Marion Hill 
 
 OFF THE MAIN ROAD Victor L. Whitechurch 
 
 THE STORM-DOG Lilian Arnold 
 
 THE REALIST E. Temple Thurston 
 
 THE GREAT GAY ROAD Tom Gallon 
 
 HIS MASTER PURPOSE Harold Bindloss 
 
 THE MASK William Le Queux 
 
 FOR FAITH AND NAVARRE May Wynne 
 
 KISSING CUP THE SECOND Campbell Rae-Brown 
 
 THE GREAT NEWMARKET MYSTERY - - Campbell Rae-Brown 
 
 A JILT'S JOURNAL Rita 
 
 ADA VERN HAM -ACTRESS Richard Marsh 
 
 SWEET " DOLL " OF HADDON HALL - J. E. Muddock 
 
 THE OLD ALLEGIANCE Hubert Wales 
 
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 17
 
 John Long's New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 JOHN LONG'S NEW 6d. (PAPER) NOVELS 
 
 The new, up-to-date Cover Designs by leading Artists, printed 
 in Three Colours on Art Paper, are the most effective that have 
 ever adorned a Sixpenny Series. This, combined with the 
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 3° 
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 ALIX OF THE GLEN 
 
 THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM 
 
 THE BOHEMIAN GIRLS 
 
 AN ILL WIND 
 
 THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH 
 
 WOMAN THE SPHINX 
 
 THE LOVELY MRS. PEMBERTON 
 
 CURIOS - 
 
 FAIR ROSALIND 
 
 A PASSING FANCY 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL REBEL 
 
 THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS 
 
 Curtis Yorke 
 Fergus Hume 
 Florence Warden 
 Mrs. Lovett Cameron 
 L. T. Meade 
 Fergus Hume 
 Florence Warden 
 Richard Marsh 
 J. E. Muddock 
 Mrs. Lovett Cameron 
 Ernest Glanville 
 Adeline Sergeant 
 
 Volumes already Published 
 
 1 SOMETHING IN THE CITY 
 
 2 THE TURNPIKE HOUSE 
 
 3 MIDSUMMER MADNESS 
 
 4 MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND 
 
 5 THE SIN OF HAGAR ■ 
 
 6 DELPHINE - .... 
 
 7 TRAITOR AND TRUE 
 
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 9 THE COUNTESS OF MOUNTENOY 
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 17 THE HARVEST OF LOVE 
 
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 Florence Warden 
 
 Fergus Hume 
 
 Mrs. Lovett Cameron 
 
 Richard Marsh 
 
 Helen Mathers 
 
 Curtis Yorke 
 
 John Bloundelle-Burton 
 
 Mrs. Campbell Praed 
 
 John Strange Winter 
 
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 George Griffith 
 
 Lucas Cleeve 
 
 Florence Warden 
 
 Richard Marsh 
 
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 Helen Mathers 
 
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 Mrs. Lovett Cameron 
 
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 David Christie Murrav 
 
 Mrs. Campbell Praed 
 
 Mary E. Mann 
 
 Rita 
 
 Dick Donovan 
 
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 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 LIVED THROUGH BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. By 
 
 Barbe Doukhovskoy {ne'e Princesse Galitzine). With Portraits. 
 Demy 8vo. Price 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 The author of this work is the daughter of the Russian Prince Galitzine and 
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 Nicholas II. It is a readable and fascinating book. 
 
 A YORKSHIREMAN ABROAD. By E. J Smith 
 With 28 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. 
 
 HOME EXERCISE AND HEALTH : Five Minutes' 
 
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 With 32 Illustrations and Chart of the Exercises. Crown 8vo. Price 
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 [Third and Revised Edition. 
 
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 PHEASANTS : IN COVERT AND AVIARY 
 
 By Frank Townend Barton, M.R.C.V.S. With 4 magnificent 
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 Shooting Times says : " May fairly become recognised as a STANDARD WORK." 
 
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 By Frank Townend Barton, M.R.C.V.S. With 46 Illustrations 
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 from Photographs. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. 
 
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