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 R
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THIS GREEN MORTALITY
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 
 
 BLUE DAYS AND GREY DAYS 
 A LOVER'S EPHEMERIS
 
 THIS GREEN 
 MO RTALIT Y 
 
 BY LOUIS LAVATER 
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 
 
 SYDNEY]. ENDACOTT MEL- 
 BOURNE P. O. BOX 655 :: 1 922
 
 THE GALLEON PRESS 
 
 18 Norris St Canterbury, Vic. 
 
 P. O. Box 655 Melbourne
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 Certain verses here collected first appeared 
 in "The Australasian," "Birth," "The Book- 
 lover," "The Bulletin," "The Triad." 
 
 To the Editors of these journals I desire to 
 make courteous acknowledgment. 
 Melbourne, 1922. L.L.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 DAY-DREAM 9 
 
 FROM A HILL-TOP 10 
 
 ASSAULT 11 
 
 THE RISING OF THE SAP 12 
 
 WATTLE-BLOOM 13 
 
 DISSONANCE 14 
 
 TIDES 15 
 
 IN THE GRASS 16 
 
 RAINBOW-SPIDERS 17 
 
 DEEPS 19 
 
 LOVE'S WARFARE 20 
 
 A LOST KINGDOM 21 
 
 SEPTEMBER 22 
 
 THE WIND IN THE OATFIELD 23 
 
 THE CALL 24 
 
 SUMMER 25 
 
 SCARLET-FLOWERING GUMS .. 26 
 
 THE GREEN SOUL 27 
 
 THE GREEN WORLD 28 
 
 SONGS A MAN SHALL SING 29 
 
 KOOMOORANG 30 
 
 AFTERMATH 32 
 
 MOPOKE 33 
 
 EVENING 34 
 
 THOUGHTS 35 
 
 THEATRE 36 
 
 THE WHITE GUM-TREE ' 37 
 
 MY SLIM GREEN LOVE 38 
 
 DIRGE FOR A DUMB COMRADE 39 
 
 PETER'S WIFE 40 
 
 THE BARRIER 45 
 
 THE BRANCHES 46 
 
 WINTER 47 
 
 THE STORM 49 
 
 SEA-DREAM 50 
 
 TOLL OF THE FOREST 61 
 
 HOME: THROUGH THE DARK 53 
 
 ALWAYS 64 
 
 MEMORIES . 55
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 DAY-DREAM 
 
 Always I see those hills, the lake, the little town 
 That dips one foot in, like an undecided swimmer 
 Stirring his mirrored counterpart to tremulous motion ; 
 Always the grassy path that wanders up and down, 
 Threading the forest, dimmer grown and dimmer, 
 Till blue beyond the ocean; 
 
 The blue, the ever-changing, nay, the changeless sea, 
 With the blue everlasting fields of heaven above. . . 
 And at my feet this green mortality 
 Of life and death and love!
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 FROM A HILL-TOP 
 
 No cloud in either heaven for there are two 
 The lake smiles upward with an equal blue; 
 And at its foot the little town is seen, 
 A swimmer's garment flung upon the green. 
 
 Those wind-blown petals drifting white and red 
 Are browsing cattle o'er the pasture spread 
 Pat, sleepy meadows, drunken with the spring 
 And noonday honey smeared on everything. 
 
 10
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 ASSAULT 
 
 I close my eyes in the velvet dark, 
 
 Waiting for sleep ; 
 
 But in the quiet of the night, 
 
 When the harsh noises of the Outer World 
 
 Are shut away, as by the closing of a padded door, 
 
 My heart awakes and listens. 
 
 And it hears 
 
 The soundless blowing of innumerable trumpets, 
 
 Marchings musterings 
 
 It is the army of the Spring gathering underground; 
 
 And when morning comes I see 
 
 The brown earth shivered through and through with 
 
 slender arrows, 
 Each one tipped with a tiny green bomb. 
 
 11
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE RISING OF THE SAP 
 
 While yet too soon eye-prisoning darkness falls, 
 
 And Winter trails his ragged overalls, 
 
 There wakes up in my spirit suddenly 
 
 An elfin something that says: "Come with me! " 
 
 Then leafy fingers flutter into mine, 
 And off we scamper, at a secret sign, 
 To pagan orgies in some woodland lair, 
 Stark joyous mad, with blossoms in our hair. 
 
 12
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 WATTLE-BLOOM 
 
 Ere yet harsh Winter, with his noisy tread, 
 Has blustered by, chasing the clouds above, 
 So soon the wattle shows its dainty head, 
 Brave little blossom as my own dear Love! 
 What of the years between us and the tomb? 
 Without a winter cometh never a year; 
 Nor any year without the golden bloom, 
 True to its promise as my dearest Dear! 
 On city lawns its fragrance may be found, 
 But in the bush's unprofaned retreat 
 It better loves to shed its sweets around, 
 Dear, gracious unthrift! Ah, my Love is sweet, 
 Sweet as the wattle-bloom! My Love is, too, 
 As dear and gracious, and as brave and true! 
 
 13
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 DISSONANCE 
 
 Again the flute-note of the Spring, again 
 The rapid brush that colors all things new, 
 Regilds the sun and stains the heavens blue! 
 Once more the breath that warms the winter rain 
 And joyous wakens every sleeping lane 
 To shy green tremors as the buds burst through 
 Ah, sweet persuasive Spring, can it be true 
 Thy vibrant call is ever heard in vain? 
 Hark, that persistent murmur? 'Tis the Sea, 
 Hoary in grief and heedless of the call, 
 Mumbling of wars that batter and destroy. .... 
 With many voices does it speak to me, 
 But not a silver throat among them all 
 To strike unfalteringly the note of joy! 
 
 14
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 TIDES 
 
 Distraught by care I wandered to the sea 
 
 In nobler strife to find heart-comforting: 
 
 Alas! far as the eye its net could fling 
 
 Lay bare a desolate monotony 
 
 Of slimed waste that held no joys for me, 
 
 No battle-swirl, no marshalled thundering: 
 
 But in the shallows some unsightly thing 
 
 Beat out its life in rhythmic agony. 
 
 I pressed from out my eyes the omen dread, 
 
 Lifting the wet sand to my fevered face, 
 
 Until, serene at last and comforted, 
 
 I turned again unto the self-same place 
 
 To see upon the smiling shore outspread 
 
 A fair green garment fringed with foamy lace. 
 
 15
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 IN THE GRASS 
 
 The Spring is come, and this old earth of ours 
 Is pink and white in patches, yellow, green 
 And red and regal purple, like the side 
 Of some gigantic dolphin plunging on 
 Across a boundless, blue, abysmal sea. 
 
 And here and there upon it may be found, 
 Sporadic or in clusters, ruthless Man, 
 Who scars it o'er with ugly red-raw wounds 
 And bores into its vitals ceaselessly 
 And cumbers it with wall and battlement. 
 
 Eons may pass ere Earth shall hear the call 
 Of new worlds waiting to be born, and seek 
 A mate among the planets; then, perhaps, 
 The fiery ardours of that dread embrace 
 Shall seal the doom of Man, her parasite. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Earth is fair, and Spring is come, 
 And wasteful blossoms spill their sweets about, 
 And birds and bees are choking with their songs, 
 And even in the grass a murmur swells 
 As jubilant as music of the spheres. 
 
 16
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 RAINBOW-SPIDERS 
 
 Before my eyes a wonder came to pass: 
 
 On a green mound, new-carpeted with grass, 
 
 Between me and the slant rays of the Sun 
 
 Uprose a tent of gleaming silver spun; 
 
 Well-seasoned stalks the sturdy uprights made, 
 
 On either side and to each other stayed 
 
 By ropes so silken fine one could not spy them 
 
 Save where the sun's rays touched in passing by them. 
 
 I lay upon the grass to peer within 
 
 Where a soft, greeny shine was filtered thin 
 
 Through dewdrop-lanterns hanging from above 
 
 The half-light that the Little People love. 
 
 Fairies? I caught my breath in very awe 
 
 As in the twilit glimmer there I saw 
 
 The strangest sight, perhaps, was ever seen 
 
 The Outer and the Inner Worlds between. 
 
 Of what their plan was I had scarce a notion, 
 But there were hundreds of them, all in motion ; 
 The quaintest creatures ! habited in hues 
 Like those against a cloudy sky one views 
 When wrangling elements have cursed and kissed, 
 And the Sun's hair is wet with weeping mist. 
 
 Some climbed the grassy blades, some from their rims 
 Floated away, flourishing their long limbs; 
 Others were creeping, sweeping, sliding, leaping 
 Regardless that a mortal eye was peeping: 
 But, crowning-feast or wee princess's bridal, 
 Whate'er it was no single soul was idle. 
 
 I studied them again for a full minute, 
 Convinced their business had a purpose in it: 
 Each, doubtless, was some sort of artisan, 
 And labored on a preconcerted plan, 
 But their material was so fine and slim, 
 And the dew-filtered underlight so dim, 
 
 17
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 That details everywhere escaped my vision 
 And so I could not come to a decision. 
 Meanwhile, an ill wind seemed to grow apace ; 
 Earth shrugged her shoulders in the Sun's red face, 
 And the frail tent, with all its shine and sheen, 
 Vanished away as it had never been. 
 
 18
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 DEEPS 
 
 As water from the skies 
 
 Its aspect takes, 
 
 So do thine eyes 
 
 Unboated, virgin lakes 
 
 From whose blue-dusky deeps 
 
 Thy spirit's troubles 
 
 With starry leaps 
 
 Uprise 
 
 To break like bubbles. 
 
 19
 
 This Green mortality 
 
 LOVE'S WARFARE 
 
 Patches of gold in the green near by, 
 Patches of white in a blue, blue sky 
 'Tis a fighting country below and above, 
 And, sweetheart, I am a soldier of Love! 
 
 I warn thee, beware of a fighting lover, 
 Skilled in advancing and taking cover; 
 Onward and forward with never a halt 
 Till the garrison yield to the last assault! 
 
 Dost fly the open, the woods to gain? 
 
 He'll ambush thee in a leafy lane: 
 
 'Gainst frontal attack hast made thee strong? 
 
 He'll drop from the clouds in a winged song, 
 
 Shedding sweet words that hold the senses 
 Till he dismantle thy heart's defences 
 Beware, I say, of a fighting lover, 
 Skilled in advancing and taking cover! 
 
 Ah! not for long may thy heart resist me, 
 Nor shall be peace till thou have kissed me 
 'Tis a fighting country below and above, 
 And I, sweetheart, am a soldier of Love' 
 
 20
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 A LOST KINGDOM 
 
 'Tis the strangest kingdom that I have seen, 
 With its hills and hollows of bright grass-green 
 At least, 'twas a kingdom ages ago ; 
 How many I know not, but this I know: 
 On yonder summit a crumbling stone, 
 Rusty and red, is the Hill-king's throne, 
 And those broad basins half-filled with water 
 Are beauty-baths of the Hill-king's daughter, 
 Once bubbling hot, though they're now so cold 
 Green-water, white-water, water-of-gold. 
 
 An inland kingdom, it yet can boast 
 A harbor or two in a rock-bound coast; 
 For a prisoned ocean runs north and south, 
 Bitter and salty and harsh to the mouth, 
 Where there sit on an island, breast by breast, 
 Fat, fluffy, grey chicks in the white gull's nest; 
 But the glistening waters hide never a weed 
 Among the shoals where a fish may feed, 
 And the slow waves murmur along the shore 
 Meaningless tags of forgotten lore. 
 
 Gone and forgotten, and his rock-throne rotten, 
 Yet the Earth every birth-time puts forth her green. 
 
 21
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 As in the marriage-month a bride 
 Sings as she clings to her husband's side, 
 Sweets on her lips, in her heart a tune, 
 A hymn of the Golden Marriage-Moon. 
 
 So in the World of Whispering Green 
 Sings the slim Wattle, September's queen, 
 Sings and rejoices the whole month long 
 With color and fragrance for speech and song. 
 
 O lovely Silent Sister! Be 
 Thy every blossom a fertile tree 
 When thou and I, having fallen sere, 
 May never again such music hear! 
 
 22
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE WIND IN THE OATFIELD 
 
 What is it that seems oftentimes to float 
 
 Above that green and silver when the wind 
 
 Ruffles it gently, as if loth to wound 
 
 Its delicate beauty with too rough a flight? 
 
 Look . . . was it not the passing of a fleet 
 
 Of shadowy boats on seas that massed and waned, 
 
 Obeying some unseen magician's wand, 
 
 To the soft clash of cymbals . . . and a flute? 
 
 Soon must the crop before the sickle fall, 
 
 The ripening ears be ravished of their grain; 
 
 Yet still my hope is, ere the vision fail 
 
 Or memory die with rapid weeds o'ergrown, 
 
 That I may know or, haply, I shall feel? 
 
 What floated there on seas of silver and green. 
 
 23
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE CALL 
 
 Come to me, come, nor seek to hide thy face 
 Beneath those shadowy tresses' vain eclipse ! 
 Thy breath is honey, and I burn to trace 
 Its madding course unto thy scarlet lips. 
 The year's ungirdled; 'tis for bees and flowers 
 Their golden time and shall it not be ours? 
 
 See how in Summer's arms the sweet Spring lies, 
 Her green hair twined about him, starred with blooms, 
 Her throat all murmurous with melodies, 
 And in her breath a flutter of perfumes ! 
 See, at this moment each is lost in each, 
 As waves are mingled on a quiet beach ! 
 
 Let not a whisper in thine ear dismay thee, 
 
 Nor in thy heart a tapping at the wall ! 
 
 Oh, put thy hand in Love's; let nought delay thee, 
 
 But run to meet me when thou hearest my call! 
 
 Come to me come with golden love at noon 
 
 Or silver kisses underneath the moon 
 
 Only come soon, sweetheart, come soon! 
 
 24
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 SUMMER 
 
 I am weary, 
 
 Weary of bracing myself against the sun's hot hand ; 
 
 I am weary, and I dream of cool places. . . . 
 
 I see a grassy couch 
 Under a canopy of leaves; 
 A reedy river murmurs by, 
 Crooning an old, old melody 
 Tuned to a long-forgotten scale, 
 Made when the world was young. 
 
 Rolled to the river's edge the hills lie fast asleep; 
 Pale stars slip o'er their ledge and sink into the deep: 
 Down in the deep they sink to slumbrous peace, 
 Down in the deep they drink the water of peace ; 
 In the quiet deep they quench their fires in sleep 
 And drown in a cool green dream. . . . 
 
 The sun insists his burning hand upon my head ; 
 I am weary, and I dream of cool places. 
 
 25
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 SCARLET-FLOWERING GUMS 
 
 Wantons are ye, to madden so the bees, 
 
 Drunk with your drifted sweetness through long hours 
 
 Of shimmering summergold. There are no flowers 
 
 Dapping the green of any sorts of trees 
 
 Can match your blaze of scarlet ecstasies 
 
 Wantons ye are, indeed, whom Nature dowers 
 
 With greater wealth than heaped Old Persia's bowers 
 
 Or ripened for remote Hesperides. 
 
 In time to come (they say) shall trees no more 
 
 Foam up in sudden beauty, nor the furze 
 
 Be all with flecks of yellow scattered o'er, 
 
 Nor bees nor moths be Cupid's messengers. 
 
 How in that day shall tender souls be hurled 
 
 Back to this era from a blossomless world! 
 
 26
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE GREEN SOUL 
 
 Moved by I know not what of spirit needs 
 I turned my prow among the Water-Reeds, 
 That strange republic of the lonely shoal, 
 Whose slender bodies harbor a green soul. 
 
 In stately courtesies they bent and swayed 
 
 To the long ripples my intrusion made, 
 
 And at the very heart of their demesne 
 
 A tremor rustled through the ranks of green; 
 
 Yet scarce my oars had ceased their muffled clack 
 
 Before I heard the quiet drifting back. 
 
 I sat and listened till the silence grew 
 
 When growth of root and shooting of the stem 
 
 Into a mood primeval natures knew, 
 
 Were the whole meaning of the world for them ; 
 
 And contemplation dribbled all away, 
 
 Lost in the stillness that around me lay. 
 
 It was not doze nor reverie we keep 
 
 A tally of the hours even in our sleep, 
 
 The clock of consciousness, with punctual chime, 
 
 Marking unheeded the slow lapse of time 
 
 But I had lost myself; nor did I know 
 
 Wide things or narrow, neither swift nor slow. 
 
 Maybe I stumbled, by obscure mishap, 
 Upon some mystery of leaf or sap ; 
 Upon some secret way or guarded door 
 Till now inviolate, but so no more. 
 
 Nothing I know, save . . . finding me disarmed, 
 
 Empty of guile and able to be harmed, 
 
 It ... Something . . . came, swirling upon the 
 
 boat 
 Like a green mist . . . and tightened round my 
 
 throat. 
 
 27
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE GREEN WORLD 
 
 Is it an enemy, this world that breeds 
 Tall trees and bushes and the lesser weeds? 
 Consider! They would live and thrive as we, 
 Unit and race, in close analogy; 
 
 Would live and love, and from the earth and air 
 The means of living gather and prepare ; 
 And store up, each according to its kind, 
 Sufficient for the young they leave behind. 
 
 Think of a red-souled world of robbers, then, 
 Of birds, beasts, fishes, beetles, worms and men, 
 Whose very sustenance whereby they grow 
 Is sack and plunder, and the Green World's woe. 
 
 Is if for nothing that the tall bamboo 
 Dons flinty armour? And those others, too, 
 Bear sword or spear or cunning poison-dart? 
 What is the purpose of this warlike art? 
 
 Could bushes hear, or if the grass had eyes, 
 Who could forecast our altered destinies? 
 If roots and branches were but hands and feet 
 Green World or Red World, which would rob to 
 
 eat? 
 
 Or should the forest become conscious, then 
 Which would be ultimate victors Trees or Men? 
 
 28
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 SONGS A MAN SHALL SING 
 
 What are the songs a man shall sing 
 
 To save his soul alive? 
 
 For the soul that is shrunken and parched with 
 
 pain 
 
 Thirsts for a song as a field for rain, 
 And he that is faint and ready to swoon 
 Leaps to the lilt of a marching tune. 
 Then what are the songs a man shall sing 
 To save his soul alive? 
 
 They are songs of daring on field or foam; 
 Songs of women and babes at home; 
 Songs of achievement, of things well done; 
 Songs of hearty, uproarious fun ; 
 Songs of birds and bees and flowers, 
 Of walking abroad in sunny hours ; 
 Songs that swell in the heart like seeds 
 To burgeon and blossom in kindly deeds. 
 
 They may be neither new nor strange 
 
 For simple folk are slow to change 
 
 But they must be true and they must be sweet 
 
 To warm the heart and to stir the feet; 
 
 And the songs that are sweet beyond all others 
 
 Shall draw men close as a band of brothers. 
 
 These are the songs a man shall sing. 
 
 To save his soul alive? 
 
 29
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 KOOMOORANG 
 
 Men go not to the hill-country, 
 Or if they go at all 
 'Tis only in white daylight 
 To hunt the warrigal. 
 
 If ever at all they go there 
 'Tis from sun-up to sun-down. 
 (They are afraid of the black night 
 Who only know the brown.) 
 
 For night spreads over the plain-country 
 Like a sea of soft brown waves; 
 But the black night of the hill-country 
 Brews in jinkarra-caves, 
 
 And fills the narrow gullies 
 
 To look like honest ground; 
 
 And men have been lost on Koomoorang- 
 
 Lost and never found. 
 
 So when they scour the hill-country 
 Where the wild horses roam, 
 Soon as the sun sags downward 
 They bring their quarry home ; 
 
 And the treacherous mountain-darkness- 
 The black, black dark distils 
 Where gather the wild horses 
 In hollows of the hills, 
 
 A stallion at the mob's head 
 With eyes of opal-fire, 
 The swift, free, unhandled 
 Son of a stolen sire 
 
 Of a royal Arab, stolen 
 
 In my grandfather's day, 
 
 When outlawed men in the mountain 
 
 Lived as birds of prey. 
 
 30
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 Like hawks that fly in the night-time, 
 They swooped down on the plains, 
 And to a foul eyrie 
 Carried off their gains; 
 
 Till wrath grew hot against them, 
 
 And they who preyed by night 
 
 Were driven from the nest where they would 
 
 rest 
 And harried in daylight, 
 
 And the sheer rock-walls of Koomoorang 
 Sharply answered back 
 The angry rattle of rifles 
 Instead of the stockwhip's crack. 
 
 Though the plainsmen mustered many 
 Against a desperate few, 
 A summer's day was scarce enough 
 For what they had to do ; 
 
 'Twas to make an end of it 
 Once, and once for all, 
 "Whether the damned hell-brood 
 "Would fight, fly, or crawl!" 
 
 There was a scatter of broodlings, 
 But the old hawk held his ground, 
 Till day was gone from Koomoorang 
 And black dark spread around, 
 
 Till the horror of the hill-night 
 Gathered at their back, 
 And not every horseman 
 Found the homeward track. 
 
 So if men go to the hill-country 
 To hunt the warrigal, 
 They go in the white daylight, 
 Or go not at all. 
 
 31
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 These dainties, nay, these miracles: 
 Earth's mantle of new green ; 
 Cool glint of river-water 
 Through netted boughs seen; 
 Shy woodblossoms drifting 
 A whole world sweet 
 It is our hearts defile them, 
 Not hands or feet. 
 
 The silver-coated company 
 Marching the midnight skies; 
 The tiny gleams scattered 
 Like star-dust in your eyes 
 The wonder of their shining 
 I nevermore may see, 
 For my own heart has shuttered 
 Their heaven from me. 
 
 Once evening was a silken tent 
 And morn a bath of blue ; 
 Each hour was a fresh marvel 
 That I spent with you: 
 But now the whispering dayfalls, 
 The noons of shouting gold, 
 I hear them through the silence, 
 A sweet tale told. 
 
 32
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 MOPOKE 
 
 Mopoke! . . . Mopoke! . 
 Mysterious bird, 
 What loneliness 
 In thy one word ! 
 
 Mopoke! . . . Mopoke! . 
 The vague profound 
 Of forest night 
 Is in the sound. 
 
 The shifting hollows 
 Are clogged with dark ; 
 My eyes can find 
 No standing mark, 
 Save in the distance 
 Oh ! so far 
 A hand of sky 
 Holds a sleepy star. 
 
 Night in the forest 
 Is solemn and strange, 
 And home is somewhere 
 Over the range. . . . 
 How far have I come? 
 How far must go? 
 Ere my window shines 
 Like a star below. 
 
 Mopoke! . . . Mopoke! . 
 'Tis nearer now ; 
 I strain my eyes 
 To an unseen bough 
 And . . . though I listen 
 Nothing is heard, 
 Rustle of leaf 
 Nor rustle of bird; 
 But a fleeting darkness 
 Near? ... or far? . . . 
 Blots for a moment 
 My sleepy star. 
 
 33
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 EVENING 
 
 The evening comes up silently 
 
 In a pale-blue kirtle drest, 
 
 With a grey cloud on her shoulder 
 
 And a white moon at her breast; 
 
 And it's O, my heart, beat loud and fast, 
 
 And joyous thoughts go free, 
 
 For in this happy hush-time 
 
 My darling waits for me. 
 
 Go go before me, thoughts of mine, 
 
 Nor wait for wordy gowns ; 
 
 My Love can speak that olden tongue 
 
 Which is forgot in towns. 
 
 Be quick, my thoughts, and when you find 
 
 My dear one in her nest, 
 
 Be softness on her shoulder 
 
 And passion at her breast. 
 
 Miles are many between us yet, 
 
 And many the hills and dales, 
 
 But they shall be as. a smooth sea, 
 
 And I a boat with sails ; 
 
 The forest trees may swing and sing 
 
 And curdle their green foam, 
 
 But a spread sail and a fair wind 
 
 And I shall soon be home. 
 
 34
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 When night would drown us in a gloomy pond 
 And stars, like silver lilies, float above, 
 My thoughts are shooting stems that seek beyond 
 Some sunny air of laughter and of love. 
 
 And when, bewildered by his burning blows, 
 We droop beneath the sun's fierce battery, 
 My thoughts are spreading leaves that interpose 
 A cool, green shield betwixt his might and me. 
 
 35
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THEATRE 
 
 By night a purple heaven spread 
 With silver spangles overhead ; 
 By day a scatter of pink stars seen 
 Upon a lower heaven of green: 
 'Twixt that and this, 'twixt near and far, 
 What stabbing hurts and blisses are ! 
 
 36
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE WHITE GUM-TREE 
 
 Through tossings of her green hair 
 The sunlight daps and dims 
 As the White Gum sweeps her mantle 
 From her shapely limbs; 
 
 And, with a sound of rustling 
 Mysteriously sweet, 
 Flings it upon the grass here 
 At my halted feet. 
 
 37
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 MY SLIM GREEN LOVE 
 
 In the thick, thick dark 
 Of the summer night 
 Hangs a shimmery garment 
 Of netted light, 
 
 Where my dear Love whispers 
 And trembles and weaves 
 A robe of starshine 
 About her leaves. 
 
 All day she flutters 
 
 Her kirtle green; 
 
 At night draws round her 
 
 This soft star-sheen; 
 
 And I would that the wisdom 
 
 Of earth could teach 
 
 What she whispers now 
 
 In her leafy speech ! 
 
 38
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 DIRGE FOR A DUMB COMRADE 
 
 Turn the sod gently, 
 
 And not so deep 
 
 But the sounds of the Bush 
 
 May soothe him 
 
 To sleep ! 
 
 If courage and a great love 
 Be virtues beyond all, 
 This body, once their garment, 
 Should have due burial. 
 
 Devoutly, then, lay him 
 
 Not ever-deep ; 
 
 That the scents of the Bush 
 
 May come to him 
 
 In sleep. 
 
 His last unspoken message 
 Lies wet upon my face; 
 The Grey Gum stoops to scatter 
 Leaves o'er his resting-place 
 
 So 
 
 Cover him softly, 
 
 And not too deep, 
 
 That my thoughts 
 
 May sometimes find him 
 
 Here 
 
 Asleep ! 
 
 39
 
 This Green Mortality 
 PETER'S WIFE 
 
 There are two spots, unlike, 
 Yet like in loneliness: 
 Where shadows hide in Slum-Land, 
 And where they haunt the Trees. 
 
 Lonely are city lanes, 
 
 Lonely for all the dim 
 
 And draggled wretches cast there 
 
 By the rough ocean, Life ; 
 
 And lonely forest-aisles 
 When dark comes creeping in 
 Under the tangled branches 
 Ere yet the day is dead. 
 
 Ah! hungry hearts grow sick, 
 And young hearts desperate, 
 'Mid ragged ghosts of Slum-Land 
 Or leafy ghosts of trees. 
 
 II. 
 
 When Peter came to town 
 
 To marry a young wife, 
 
 The women's tongues wagged shrewdly, 
 
 And old men shook their beards. 
 
 "Youth will be heard," they said, 
 "Calling to youth again ; 
 "And forest-ways are lonely. . . ." 
 So went the gossip round. 
 
 But Bessie laughed in scorn 
 At their grim presages; 
 For Peter was her own man, 
 And a maid's life is dull. 
 40
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 Blithely she went with him 
 To sing about his home, 
 All spring-time and all summer, 
 Until the winter came ; 
 
 Until the winter came, 
 And they sat in o' nights 
 They two, mute, by the fireside 
 In the bleak winter-time, 
 
 When dark comes early in 
 With regiments of rain, 
 To sit in horrid triumph 
 Upon the corpse of day; 
 
 When, bid in a pale lamp, 
 
 The spectre of daylight 
 
 Shakes with the creaking branches, 
 
 Leaps when a dead tree falls. 
 
 in. 
 
 'Twas in the pricking air 
 
 Of a late July morn, 
 
 At spring's first baby-whimper, 
 
 That Bessie sang again. 
 
 Shy buds were in the green, 
 And quavers in birds' throats 
 She could not choose but tremble 
 To loveliness and song. 
 
 But Peter . . . Peter had 
 No answer for the spring; 
 The frost of a hard winter 
 Was white upon his head. 
 
 41
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 IV. 
 
 When Alain came the spring 
 Was rampant, riotous 
 In sappy tree, in every 
 Young creature's beating blood. 
 
 In the green spring they met, 
 Alain and young Bessie; 
 Her face was like the pink heath 
 Alain's was like the white. 
 
 He could not speak, for words 
 That crowded to his throat; 
 Crushed her delicate fingers; 
 Then fled, brutal, abrupt. . . . 
 
 And her sweet voice took on 
 A new deliciousness, 
 Like the grey thrush's piping 
 At the pink of the morn. 
 
 V. 
 
 'Tis said unsailored ships, 
 Adrift in a wide sea, 
 Will draw closer and closer 
 Until they meet at last. 
 
 And these two met again 
 Late in the summer-time, 
 When the air was like honey, 
 Sweet as a marriage-kiss. 
 
 As Alain came to her 
 Dark-flushed 'twas she grew pah 
 At the first word he uttered 
 She fell into his arms, 
 
 Into his cruel arms; 
 Yielded her cheek, her lips, 
 Sobbing out "Peter! . . . Peter! 
 He loosed her; and was gone. 
 
 42
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 VI. 
 
 Alain and Peter went 
 Walking into the green, 
 Two in the green together . . . 
 But only one came back. 
 
 She met him at the gate : 
 "Where is he? Where? " she cried; 
 And Alain, "Peter? . . Peter 
 "Will not come home . . . to-night! " 
 
 Her wide eyes questioned his 
 Plainly as speech, "To-morrow? " 
 His answered, "Not to-morrow . . . 
 "Nor any morrow more! " 
 
 He would have gone to her, 
 But she lifted her hand 
 And held his eyes with her eyes; 
 Then, "Come to-night! " she said. 
 
 VII. 
 
 From far off Alain saw 
 
 Her window all ablaze 
 
 With many lights. He wondered . . 
 
 The blind was not drawn. Why? 
 
 Though there were none to mark, 
 
 He shunned the lighted way, 
 
 Till he came to the window, 
 
 And stood there long . . . long. . . . 
 
 In the full blaze he stood, 
 Purged of all thought but this: 
 "White as a cloud she lies there, 
 "White as a cloud . . . but still. . . 
 
 "No movement save the shadows 
 "The flickering candles make. . . ." 
 For at her head were candles, 
 And candles at her feet. 
 
 43
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lonely are forest nights 
 At the fall of the year, 
 When the first words of winter 
 Are heard among the boughs ; 
 
 Eerie the forest ways, 
 Filled with strange whisperings, 
 With goings and with comings 
 Of leafy ghosts of trees. . . . 
 
 And Alain's heart dropped dead 
 Fell like a rotten bough 
 As he stood waiting . . . waiting 
 For Those he knew would come. 
 
 44
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE BARRIER 
 
 I lay face-downward on the grass 
 Listening for the Earth's heart-beats; 
 And I heard 
 
 The broken echoes of my own 
 And, in my own, of all men's. 
 
 I came upon a water-pool 
 
 At the foot of a leaning gum-tree ; 
 
 The sky was in it, 
 
 And the motionless branches of the gum-tree. 
 
 With steadying hand upon the bole 
 
 I, too, leaned over; 
 
 And there in the still water I saw 
 
 The hates and loves of the unquiet souls 
 
 Of all men, 
 
 And the pool was become unrestful, 
 
 Though not a whiff of air had ruffled it. 
 
 I drew back shamefastly, 
 
 And, from a little distance, saw 
 
 The mother-quiet nestle down again. 
 
 For so it is always! 
 
 The consciousness of being 
 
 Is like a barrier round about us, 
 
 A barrier we may neither breach nor overpass. 
 
 45
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE BRANCHES 
 
 As I walked one day under the branches 
 
 I met an odd creature ; 
 
 Odd was his tattered coat, his speech, 
 
 Odd every feature: 
 
 And he had grown to be like the branches, 
 
 Crooked as they; 
 
 And the rags of him were mould-green, 
 
 And he was grey. 
 
 By day he wandered under the branches, 
 
 At night would lie, 
 
 Ever afraid of the clear spaces 
 
 Where heaven is high ; 
 
 For God, he told me, lives in the branches 
 
 Of the green trees, 
 
 And he had heard Him talking there 
 
 Like a loud breeze. 
 
 Poor soul ! For all his vagrancy 
 
 'Neath forest eaves, 
 
 For all his music was but rain 
 
 Pattering on leaves, 
 
 And his soul's garment like the rags 
 
 Itself wore, 
 
 I would walk with him under the branches 
 
 Once once more. 
 
 But I shall meet him under the branches 
 
 Never again: 
 
 He fell asleep in a bough's elbow 
 
 In a storm of rain, 
 
 Fell asleep with the great gum-trees 
 
 Weeping around him 
 
 He had been looking for God in the branches 
 
 And, so, found Him. 
 
 46
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 WINTER 
 
 When the last matron-month keeps to her bed, 
 
 Forborne with mothering, 
 
 And muffled days go tip-toe by, 
 
 Into the long hush where scarcely motion is 
 
 Nor any sound of breathing 
 
 Comes One, a rebel, blustrous, 
 
 Flinging wide his arms 
 
 And shouting with great violence: 
 
 Hear ye ! 
 
 I am Winter, the Male, the Invigorator, 
 
 Frost is my spur, 
 
 And the wind is the breath of my urging ; 
 
 I am Winter, the Rebel, the Male, 
 
 And I will renew the time 
 
 That is languid unto death! 
 
 Thus cometh Winter, the Male, the Rebel, 
 Dark of countenance and habited in clouds, 
 With a scourge of lightnings in his hand; 
 And happy is he the frosty spur has pricked, 
 Who has heard the voice of his urging; 
 For riches are dirt and fame is a shadow 
 And pleasure is the cunning bait of death, 
 But the joys of Winter are clean joys 
 Wherein is renewal of life. 
 
 Here are the joys of Winter 
 
 For timid ones, dwellers in houses 
 
 The crackling wood-fire, 
 
 Whence at every touch the sparks swarm out like bees ; 
 
 The warmth, the crowding to it, 
 
 The jesting and the ghostly tale; 
 
 And between whiles the delicious shudder 
 
 Of comfortable discomfort 
 
 When the wind cries in the chimney; 
 
 For lonely ones the comradeship of books, 
 
 The dreamland in the embers; 
 
 And, haply, for all at last 
 
 47
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 The woolly cuddle of blankets 
 These are the joys of winter 
 For timid souls, house-dwellers. 
 
 For those who wander abroad 
 
 Shall not be lacking gentle joys by day or night 
 
 To look upon the heath in bloom, 
 
 Acres of blushing ecstasy; 
 
 To catch the breeze-borne fragrance 
 
 Of early wattles; 
 
 To watch for heath-pink skies at nightfall, 
 
 Or, when the wind has blown them clear, 
 
 To see the star-wrack littering the blue 
 
 Like golden wattle-sprays. 
 
 But for the adventurous wilder joys 
 
 To burrow in the wind, grasping it by armfuls; 
 
 To hear the tall cliffs ring like anvils 
 
 When the sea smites them; 
 
 Or, tuning one's spirit to the sharp pitch of Winter, 
 
 To run, to leap 
 
 And to dance by rivers 
 
 To the reed-band's music. 
 
 Yet greatest of all these joys is his 
 
 Who has quickened him to the spur, 
 
 Who has leaped before the goad 
 
 Till the stinging sweat brake out upon him; 
 
 Who has taken the rain upon his face 
 
 And plunged him into icy waters 
 
 He shall be lean and clean and ready for the Spring. 
 
 48
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 THE STORM 
 
 No sign of life! Between us here on earth 
 And distant denizens of heaven above 
 There's not a feathered atom flecks the blue; 
 Yet every leaf on every tree is tense, 
 And waits and trembles like a listening ear. 
 
 The silence is unbroken; save alone 
 A rhythm more of feeling than of sound, 
 A rhythm like the beating of a heart 
 Where panting nature crouches to the earth 
 And hunches up her shoulders, sick with dread. 
 
 And now above the horizon's sagging edge 
 The sullen forehead of the Storm appears, 
 His flashing eyes and windy-swollen cheeks, 
 As, forcing through hot lips a sudden blast, 
 The torrent hisses smoking o'er the lake. 
 
 A misty terror veils his near approach, 
 And nature flinches when that awful voice 
 Shakes even the solid ground beneath her. Now 
 The storm is passing, and his ruthless feet 
 Trample the forest like a field of grass. 
 
 Yet ere he goes he flings upon the lake 
 
 A handful of sharp-rustling hail, and, lo! 
 
 A sudden crop of millions of white flowers, 
 
 Each one a tiny murmurous ecstasy 
 
 That springs and sings and blossoms and is gone. 
 
 Now fills the air a pungency more sweet 
 Than thyme or clove-carnation, and the soul 
 Swims on a surgent flood of melody. 
 So is it ever when the storm has passed 
 And fear, surmounted, swings to leaping joy. 
 
 49
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 SEA-DREAM 
 
 In waking dream I sank into the sea. 
 
 Green velvet waters stroked me as I slid 
 
 And bubbled by to make a shimmering lid 
 
 Above that shut the face of heaven from me. 
 
 Far down a measureless declivity, 
 
 As though the treacherous wastes of ocean hid 
 
 The slant side of a glassy pyramid, 
 
 I fell through deeps of dim translucency 
 
 Until the first impulse began to weaken 
 
 And the compressed waters to grow rank, 
 
 Wherein soft, slimy shapes, noisome and lank, 
 
 Swayed threateningly, as arms of the foul kraken 
 
 About the languid victim he hath taken. . . . 
 
 Vile weeds . . . beneath whose loathly glooms I sank 
 
 Down to a world, vaster than this we know, 
 
 Whose teeming millions have no other law 
 
 Than slay or be slain to glut the ravening maw 
 
 Of hunger; where sun's light may never go 
 
 And bulging, bladdery things flit to and fro 
 
 With haunted eyes agleam; where snapping jaw 
 
 Encounters tentacle, or claw meets claw, 
 
 And swiftling slides from greater strength but slow: 
 
 For in such viscid 1 element they dwell, 
 
 The fiercest seems deliberate when hurled 
 
 In silence on his prey. ... Oh ! can there be 
 
 Such nightmare-hive of horrors, even in Hell? 
 
 Or is it Hell itself, that underworld 
 
 Deep in the pulseless vitals of the Sea? 
 
 50
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 TOLL OF THE FOREST 
 
 Through leafy ways I wander questioning 
 
 Why in this loose, disordered world of men 
 
 Should prinked-out nothing strut and plume itself 
 
 In the mild air of our complacency, 
 
 Whilst manhood breaks unheeded every day? 
 
 For so it is now, at the veiling-time, 
 
 But shall be otherwise when dawn has drunk 
 
 Up darkness and his thirsty tongue licked off 
 
 All bubble-stars from the blue vault of heaven. 
 
 What, then, of him that's gone? 'Tis twenty years 
 Since he, a slender stripling, pitched his tent 
 Deep in the forest. Stout the tent-frame was, 
 And like a bell his broad axe rang all day, 
 Yet stouter was his heart; no buffeting 
 Could turn the keen edge of his courage, though 
 For twenty years he strove against such odds 
 As you nor I would care to face for one. 
 
 The ranges, like a greedy hand outspread, 
 Claimed all their fingers covered, and for long 
 He fought their miser's grip unaided; then 
 He took a wife to share his solitude. 
 Brave girl! for it was solitude indeed: 
 Her husband, steeped in silence to the bone, 
 Spake seldom, though he loved her near; and she 
 Out of the treasures of her woman's heart 
 Gave him rich comfort at all times, and bare 
 Him children five asking no other aid 
 Than his rough, clumsy tenderness could give. 
 
 Thus, without stint or check he drew upon 
 The sources of his strength, nor set aside 
 That leaven, that saving overplus, whereby 
 Man's forces are renewed. Youth squandered it, 
 And slinking age that battens on excess 
 Crept from his lair in life's dark undergrowth 
 To pilfer what remained. None marked the thief; 
 
 51
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 There was no empty hour, no chink of time, 
 'Twixt dulling toil and stark unconsciousness 
 Where retrospection might slip in. 
 
 And now 
 
 When twenty years or more had battered him 
 (Still to all outward seeming unsubdued), 
 Good fortune sought him out capriciously, 
 Playing the midwife to his scanty flock, 
 And filling the wheat's ear with sudden grain. 
 Men came to him proffering gold, and fought 
 Among themselves for what he had to sell; 
 Nay, would have taken more a hundredfold 
 Had he possessed it. 
 
 'Twas enough for him. 
 
 From store to store about the little town 
 
 He goes indifferently, as he believes 
 
 A man of substance should, scattering wide 
 
 Impossible orders, till behind his back 
 
 The doubtful traders tap their brows and smile 
 
 A wordless comment. So he swaggers on, 
 
 Unconscious that the purchases he makes 
 
 Are measured, not according to his purse, 
 
 But rather by his dreams of long ago, 
 
 Of all that he should win for her and for 
 
 Her children when they came. Forgotten dreams . 
 
 That night he raved. His wife, a stricken thing, 
 Humours him bravely, woos him to his bed; 
 But at the yielding-point he breaks away, 
 And she must coax again. The Waiting Hand 
 Is kind to him, burning up twenty years 
 Like gunpowder, as, with a lover's tongue 
 Renewing their first vows, he gathers her 
 Into his arms . . . nay, nay, his arms no more, 
 This hull, this cast-off, empty of life! Nor hers, 
 Poor shivering mortal, lip to lip with Death! 
 
 52
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 HOME: THROUGH THE DARK 
 
 A dusky ocean eddies through the streets; 
 
 Blurred and stained with it the houses melt away, 
 
 And the trees, 
 
 Even the very earth itself; 
 
 Nought remains 
 
 But this small island in the lonely dark 
 
 Whereon I stand. 
 
 I dare not move, 
 
 For fear my steps o'erpass its boundary ; 
 
 And when I stretch my senses out 
 
 Into the dark 
 
 They come back filled with darkness 
 
 Nothing more! 
 
 At last I venture forth a hesitating foot. 
 Something crunches beneath it, 
 And a sharp, familiar scent 
 Wraps me in a friendly embrace. 
 
 I draw it into my nostrils, 
 
 I draw it down into my heart; 
 
 For it has told me where 
 
 Within, at most, a long arm's-reach 
 
 Swings loose for me the little white gate 
 
 Under the pink and pale green 
 
 Of the pepper-tree. 
 
 53
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 ALWAYS 
 
 s 
 
 Thus in my dreams I see the lake, the little town, 
 
 The hills, the river winding to the sea, 
 
 From cloudy ramparts the slow forest marching down ; 
 
 Always the impenetrable blue above, 
 
 And at my feet this green mortality 
 
 Of life and death and love. 
 
 54
 
 This Green Mortality 
 
 MEMORIES 
 
 My memories a grave, sweet music make 
 
 As each one, stirring, bids the others wake; 
 
 Deep tones which, like a long-drawn pedal-note, 
 
 persist 
 Through all life's changing harmonies of shine and 
 
 mist. 
 
 55
 
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