G. STEVEN /// Poems. Poems BY ALEXANDER G. STEVEN. Author of " The Witchery of Earth.' ud "Wind on the Wold." A few of these Poems have previous! ff appeared in " The Auttral- asian," " The Low Hand" and " The Triad." I have to thank the editors for permission to reprint. ft To MRS. E. M. JAMES AND MRS. N. BAYLES. CONTENTS : TO BUILD SOME BEAUTY 9 OX THE COAST 10 THE POOL 11 IN THE HIGHLANDS 12 THE SEA 13 SPRING SONG 14 THE DANCER 15 AN AGED MAN 18 THE END 17 THE ADVENTURERS 18 AX ISLAND 19 FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 20 A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST 21 SPRING 22 THE NET 23 SONG 24 UNREST 25 THE CORNFIELD 28 THE HILLS 27 PURSUIT 28 THE VANGUARD 29 THE FALLEN SO THE RIVER 31 BENEATH THE BOUGHS 82 GALLIPOLI S3 SILENCE .. .34 To build some beauty that shall haunt men's hearts. When from this body of mine the spirit parts, Have I been covetous, to proffer up The vintage of my soul in a carven cup ; For these rich blossoms of the earth and sky Shall all men see, yet none perchance as I : Then would I gladly burden all my days, So might I fill them full with golden praise, Gather the rustling music of the leaves And the songs of summer into treasure sheaves, Autumn's rich harvest, all the spring's delight, Wild winter's travail and his eager might, The undersongs of water soft and low, Reed-rippling thro' clear shallows that I know, Songs of the magpie, nightingale and thrush, That spill sweet music in a sylvan hush Not only these, not only these, but all The beauty that has held my heart in thrall: Rich-gleaming hair and the fair-curving grace Of lissome bodies, many a lovely face, Eyes soft with pity and fair souls that gem Clear-shining, nature's queenly diadem; And colour, colour in earth and sky and sea : O ! all this exquisite world's wild witchery A thousand things, but T can not express The radiant forms that thickly on me press ; So I shall hoard them till my heart is fain To loosen their bonds and let them free asrain. ON THE COAST. Sunfire and wattle and the sound of the sea ; A pied lark piping from a slim gum tree ; The south wind's spring song; the drone o' the bee! A blue sky's brilliance where white clouds float ; The white sails curving of a jade-green boat; From the blue sea's bosom a grey gull's note ! Red-brown o' bracken and bronze-gold shoots ; Wild flowers springing o'er the gnarled gum roots ; O ! and softly from a she-oak a magpie flutes ! 10 THE POOL There lies afar a sheltered pool, Fringfcd with lilies tall and cool: Paven with lilies white and gold, It sleeps in silence silver-stoled. A vdllow droops its mirror'd hair To meet the unruffled water there. A blackbird or a thrush will stray And warble there in the cool of day, And golden-mailed amid the reeds A fish will idle as it feeds. The leafy shadows round the brink Chequer the hare that comes to drink; But never an alien foot intrudes Upon the haunt where beauty broods. IN THE HIGHLANDS. Highland and hollow lie swept with sun and shadow, Purple with the heather above the flashing burn : Mist wreathes the mountains; the lochs sleep beneath them ; Wild as their keening the winging plover turn. Lonely the lochs are, and lonely are the moorlands, But lonelier the shielings that gather in the glen : The loverless, the widowed are reaping now their harvest, Proud and broken-hearted Ah ! where are the men! THE SEA. Always the lilting of the sea's voices swings singing thro' my mind, Of the flung spray and the salt spaces and the rush- ing wind. My heart is haunted by the great beauty of the gx'ey plain at peace, When the dawn stirs in its gold glory and all sounds cease. O ! the wild cries of the sea-wanderers, of the white gulls and grey, Bring life to the roadwenders whose souls turn away To the old lure of the sea's beseeching, to the plunge of the foam, To the great spell of the salt places which freemen call home. SPRING SONG. The larks trill over The scented clover : The bees are gleaning there; The freshet's flowing, The cattle lowing, And golden-bright's the air. Down by the rushes Magpies and thrushes Vie in their minstrelsy; The west wind's breathing Thro' branches wreathing A leafy melody. O ! Joy, the rover, Is leaning over The young world waking here ! O ! Spring, the lover, With flowers strews over The scars of yesteryear. THE DANCER. *': ~. ; -."l '-'--" Lo ! I young-limbed, triumphant, radiantly Swung on the singing surge of ecstasy, The morning meshed beneath my glimmering feet, The passionate lips of exultation greet! O, all the myriad rhythms of the earth Were goading me until I gave them birth! A million Aprils slumbered in my veins, A million exaltations and their pains: I waken them; I loosen them; like showers That nourish young and sterile-hearted flowers, And fill with fragrance all the arid earth, And burden with beauty all that barren dearth, I pour them forth, I scatter them! their rain Obliterates the footprints of all pain. Life ! O Time ! O Joy ! in rhythmic praise 1 thread your intricate and subtle maze! O, all my limbs are loosened with delight! Mine is the maenad's frenzy ; mine the might Of Spring incarnate in the leaping sap, And mine the luxury of Summer's lap! The pagan earth is palpitant in my blood, Wild shining rivers, the moon-sceptred flood! O, I am drunken with the wine of life! Far, far upborne beyond your shrunken strife, I greet the infinite with unclouded eyes, Widening horizons and uncharted skies. Yea, all the past has blossomed into this That I dance on the pinnacle of bliss ! AN AGED MAN. His eyes are full of sleep, his heart of rest; His soul glides calmly to the quiet West. The lures of Earth no longer quicken and pierce His spirit that was so eager, wild and fierce: He sits beside the fire and dreams and blinks, While the radiant Then with the sombre Now he links ; Or else he idles by the loitering brook, Gazing upon the scene with steadfast look, Feeling a dim affinity with these Waters and ancient stones and quiet trees. 16 THE END. My time has come, I shall not see Another dawn flower red: Just let me rest here quietly; The blood beats in my head; II flows so quickly from this gash The steel struck like a lightning flash. And yet beyond this reeking plain Littered with agony, Where jostle the wounded and the slain, This hell's red revelry, I seem to walk the Cotswold Hills, And see the spring that England fills. I have no people living: none, Thank God! will mourn me there, Dreaming in misery of one Whose clouded eyes upstare Amid the carnage and the flowers, The shrapnel and the April showers. Good-bye, old friend! Good luck! God bless ! His voice failed, and his breath: On his drawn face crept quietness, The quietness of death. A lark shook forth its silver song. The rumbling cannon whirled along. THE ADVENTURERS. They have fared forth adventuring with hearts of gallant pride : They have fared forth adventuring ; they've ta'en the sea to bride, The fickle maid, the witch maid, or weal or woe betide. With silken pennons streaming back and proudly- curving sails They glide towards the tropic calms and wild mon- soonal gales, Into the burning sunset glow out from the Sea of Wales. A fire was eating at their hearts, a fire of fierce unresc : Twas the hearth-stone's and the roof-tree's hold against a syren quest, O ! their ship has cleared the seas of home towards the golden West! AN ISLAND. Laughter is here, and love, O ! and gold thro' glim- mering places, Windy brows and grefci boughs where rustling music's born, The murmur of the slow surf from sea-encireling spaces, A lark's song, a gull's cry, and blossom on the thorn ! FRANCIS LEDW1DGE. His rich " Songs of the Fields " I've lingered over, Those songs which carry one to where he's lain Among the yellow corn-sheaves and the clover, And where he's laboured at the harvest wain. Almost I hear his blackbirds in the hedges Fluting among the hawthorns in the cool Of afternoon, when shadows of the sedges ? Steal gently o'er the mirror of the pool. Life held to him no richly-brimming measure: His portion, sorrow, like an old refrain Haunted his singing|; love was his nor leisure, Kinsman of the high company of pain. Peace was he fain of, weary of his roaming, A haven yielding respite from his care, Peace near lake-waters, but he's found his homing Where shell-stript meadows the red harvest bear. A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST. The woodland's grace is in her form, Her lissome faring, And shyly-proud is her girlish, fair And radiant bearing. The magic of the starry dusk Is in her glances; Her truant hair, a cloud of brown, About her dances. Her presence is in sweet accord With wind and water : Their music murmurs in her voice, The forest's daughter. SPRING. The runes of wind and water, A lark's song in the blue, Yellow drifts o' the primrose In a silver sea of dew. O ! heart o' the world a-dancing, As Spring lilts over the hills In a green and golden kirtle : In her wild hair daffodils! 22 THE NET. Do you not feel it stretching tight, the net? With its strong strands how is your soul beset ! You who have craved life's colour and delight Ere years should bend your body, dim your sight; You who have felt the splendour at your heart, The breath of beauty as you stand apart, And feeling, known the perilous fair peaks Shining at sunrise that your spirit seeks, Your birthright, yea, your heart's inheritance But for the binding cords of circumstance: And then you ponder, silent in your pain, Some clue that shall unravel the close skein That winds about you, throttling you, and yet You cannot loose the bondage of the net. SONG. O ! I would rest On the earth's breast, Where the cool stream's flowing, Where the winds pass Thro' the long grass With a reedy murmur blowing. And O ! I would hark To the brown lark, That eremite of heaven, The dim mote Whose wild throat Throbs silvery till even. UNREST. There is a frenzy in my feet ; My breast is stirr'd with a wild heart-beat : I am drawn forth on the brown highway, Kin to the wind, the stars and the clay : I am drawn forth to the green grass plains, The high bine hills and the leaf-green lanes There is no rest but in unrest For us who follow the starry quest : Beauty that burns within our blood Has driven us forth by forest and flood To slake the thirst that she has made, Lest her high trust should be betrayed. THE CORNFIELD. I walked beside a field of bending corn Beautiful with alternate suns and rains, Shot thro' with scarlet poppies, edged with thorn Of blackberry along the winding lanes. The air was sweet with incense of the field; The bees droned on from flowering cup to cup, Rifling the golden treasure of their yield; Into the stainless blue the larks sprang up. Unshaken fell the shadows of the trees Upon that windless hour of afternoon ; The mounting larks outpoured their melodies, And blackbirds broke into a fluting tune. The quiet field I saw, yet did not see; The bees and birds I heard, yet did not hear; My eyes looked out on war's red agony, And groans of mangled men were in my ear. THE HILLS. The blue hills lie across the West : Sunlight is there and song, And skimming over flank and crest The purple shadows throng. There, sheltered in the shining leaves, Are hollows filled with peace, Where the harsh wind of rancour grieves No more, and sorrows cease. And silver water glides and sings In fronded aisles of green, Where stirs the noise of rustling wings Low woodland notes between. O far blue hills! your colour fills My soul with starry fire: Your brooding beauty haunts and stills The heart of wild desire. PURSUIT. O dancing- heart! O dreaming heart! O heart of fierce unrest ! Which joy shall fill and sorrow spill upon the immor- tal quest Of Beauty, Beauty radiant, elusive as the gleams Which vein the opal shallows of the dim green streams. When wilt thou cease from following the light upon the leaves, The changing shadows on the seas, the colours sun- set weaves? When wilt thou cease from following the blue hori- zon's rim? When joy is one with sorrow, and the sun grows dim. There is no rest from following the shadows on the seas. The purple of the evening hills, the glamour of the leas; For Beauty, Beauty radiant and wonderful and wild. Her spell once cast upon me, and I was beguiled. 28 THE VANGUARD. They are the reapers of derision, The heritors of scorn, Who scale the lonely peaks of vision, The vanguard of the morn. Xot theirs the meed which the sleek cherish, Their bay is twined with thorn Who pierce the murk, lest the hearts perish Of seekers vet unborn. 29 THE FALLEN. The winds upon their mountains They will not feel again ; They will not dream in silence, Nor hear the singing rain; And Spring will call, and Autumn fall, Ever for them in vain. Laughter is left behind them, And love, and gentleness, And hearts whose hopes lie withered Dumb in their wild distress, And what of those whom Fortune Was never fain to bless? Europe's red fields were fairer, Perchance, to some who fell, Than their dull despair and anguish Where solace did not dwell Surely a peace eternal Is theirs whose earth was hell ! THE RIVER. Like golden serpents on the rippling tide The mirrored lights resplendent writhe and glitU The silhouetted ships against the moon Sleep at their moorings to the river's rune, Cordage and tapering masts and slender spars Silent and interflecked with shivering stars. Night with her dusky broidery enwreathes All shapes with beauty and her glamour breathes Till ships and water, wharf and corded bale Lie interwoven in her magic pale, And hearts slip out upon the river's breast Toward the perilous luring of the West ; Hearts heavy with the canker of their woes Dance lightly to the dream of Beauty's rose, Filled with the glory of some high emprise Past the World's seeming and its sordid lies, Toss't with the tumult of their radiant quest Beyond the dreaming barriers of the West. BENEATH THE BOUGHS. Above me gum leaves intermesh Slim fingers in the silken sun; The coursing clouds are held in leash; Blue winding waters run From opal mountains wreathed in mist Across the greenly-springing plain, To where the sea's soft amethyst Embosoms them again. A gauzy dragonfly Hits past; A silvery fish leaps i' the stream; And there, above it, flashing fast, The kingfisher's jewelled gleam! The kookaburra's lazy laugh Derisive peals, and dies, and now A magpie quavers, lilting half In mockery from his bough. . * * At peace this world : my vision sweeps Wide dreaming miles where no men past Only the beauty the heart reaps In colour, song and grass. GALLIPOLI. Where the sullen ridges all are riven With shrapnel, shot and shell; In the hollows, on the hills where they have striven; Where they fell, They, the rampart, in the glory of their morning, Where East is one with West, Who laughing leapt at death and met it scorning, Lie at rest. SILENCE. My song is flown : An aching drouth Usurps my soul, My stricken mouth. My lips are dumb ; My heart in vain Yearns in silence And in pain. O queenly guest! Why art thou sped ? My life, my life Is withered. 34 Critiques. By the same Author: THE WITCHERY OF EAETH. (George Robertson & Co.) " The Australasian." " He will certainly be no negli- gible quantity in any review of Australian poetry. Some of his sonnets have a quiet beauty that is very promising, and there is more than one really arresting poem amongst the others." WIND ON THE WOLD. John Masefield. "I think you have a power of accurate and telling rhythm really remarkable in so young a man, and I shall watch your future with much interest and ex- pectation." "The Bookman" (London). ". . . he can sing both truly and sweetly, as in the dainty freshness of 'Elfin Music' and the more sober grace of 'The Dreamer,' 'The Secret Key,' and 'The Perfect Song,' each excellent of its kind." "The Scotsman." "The songs are sincere and charming in themselves, sober in tone and language, serious and ortho- dox in their craft of poetry. ' ' Mr. Archibald T. Strong in "The Herald." "Some of Mr. Steven's cadences are particularly happy ... he has every right to congratulate himself on having fulfilled the promise of his first venture, and produced a charming volume of verse. ' ' PRINTED BY MCKELLAR PRESS MALVERN VlCT. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 4939