— A Swwet Singer. — Australian poetry -nrill fc«l the loss of James Hebblethwaite. lie filled a place nil his own. The sacred Muse has not flourished ~"eat1y in these latitudes, but he sang undauntedly of higher things; yet i ot of them only. In his "New Poems" (Ed.Yard A. Vidler, Melbourne), he is Been constantly under the spell of ancient legend and modern domesticity. A more retrained Herrick, a less a^-rressively virile I haiies Kinsley, he made •'^e best of both •worlds. He knew "the troubled perfume of a languorous day." And, "Oh, tho^e old heroic days!" Ibe says elsewhere. "They e thecr being still beneath green boughs, in the infinitudes of noble eou'.s." It is really interesting to see this modern .pastor admit, "P wander in a sun of pagan scent," or bid the reader, "Come, ride into the purple past. Tbe years of old romance." Later in the volume, the religious note be- comes more insistent. The blank verse is good, and there ii an almost pabhetic analy- sis <>f the state of mind of Ariel, left alone "T-, on the island, and reduced to envying "the ■ L - LJ * now remorseful Caliban." The book fairly sustains, although it does not appreciably raise, the standard of the veteran poet now lost to us. Of the following extracts, the nrT_JT-I[ Tennysonian blank verse of the first is J- -*- *-*— spoken by Ariel, the second shows tihe po t OT>. in his more lyrical vein, and the last may ^ be taken as bis fitting epitaph: — Free! I may wander where the foliage roo's [ f^\ Brown solitude; or where the rivulet LW' Huns through the loag green oaken glide, and birds Flit on the sun-white stones, and melody .ill the 'hollow, and urton the arass Blue shadows quiver; or with mounting larka In ecstasy ping in the eye of heaven; Or watch the tide swill in Its narrow rift Of splintered rock; or view the tw ; Iis-ht woods, J,.-/ij.l with the rustle of the homing birds, Vpon the lonely hilh, while in the vales Tlie streams that In the all-pervading hum summer are unheard, «tow audi Beneath the stars— tout still the Joy is rot. So pure the dawn, so clear the dawn, I f"el my ?oul is made anew To sing upon the silent lawn And through the wood'9 far nesting blue; Kay. she would throat it with the 'ark. Iliffh soaring- in the flowering May i Above the dewy pasture spark, Calling along the meadow way. Vet I have sought pure Beauty all my days, That Something light, ethereal, (Jut blooinfl Beyond nil earthly loveliness, and lays ..I spell on troubled Man, and mighty doom.'. JAMES DALLY OLD AND RARE BOOKS Oatlands, Tasmania Telephone Oatlands 90 Jt Wlibft iv VE falters like a blushing child, And timidly with downcast eyes, And wonder at his bosom pain, ( )ffers his lips with sighs. Love is a dreamer of the Rose, Now waking from his dream to weep. Now hiding in a world of bliss Beyond the gates of sleep. Love is a mighty man of war, With lifted shield and thundering- voice, Who seizes with a reddened hand The maiden of his choice. Love is a mourner wounded sore, * Freely he pours his heart's last flood, And wears heneath the waning light The crimson of his hlood. 70 NIGHT PALE thronging ghosts of old With lingering look and weeping of farewell. Haunt Memory's dews, and softly steal apart To some forgotten fastness of the heart, Waiting for those, their sweetness to unfold, Born under Sorrow's spell. This is not dumb desire. Nor is it sorrow, but a longing vast, A sleepless yearning for a perished face, Regret unfathomed for her pure sweet grace, For perfect dreams enfolded in the past, Rising with night's spilt fire. The pageants of the moon Golden and red with autumn trouble me — I have a thought that once, O long ago ! Unpeered I held thy name in battle's flow ; And cries the rapture of that time with thee For meeting, soon, O soon! 71 TO LUCY I WANT you. Sweet, you, only you ! So swells my heart's great cry, For you do compass in yourself All that for which 1 sigh ; O martyrdom of love divine, For me there is no rest Where you are not, my Love, my Joy, My soul longs for your breast. Give me to-day for after-hours Of reverie and song, A heart of glory in the gloom When days are sad and long ; But, O my Love, give your sweet self My treasure aye to be, And there will be no day of gloom Throughout eternity. 72 WEDDED AERIES of lofty gums with rustling rinds And noble sweep these lovers overspread In a green halcyon wild whose gentle winds Sing a Placebo for the quiet dead ; But they ride on with hope no more to part, Hearing a song whose close leaves vacant heart. They lean together laughing yet again As with a snort their horses toss aside Parting love's kissing lips without sweet gain ; And then they come unto a valley wide And in an ooze of watchet air, see near The spray surroyal of the trembling deer. Ah, that rich vagamund whose sounding tomb Were this wild land, with loving soul to burn His body left, to store his ash with bloom, No nuts of crystal, in a humble urn . . . So with youth's care for gentle death they play Nor fear the shadows of that mortal day. And now with fire and horses tended he Lies by her own command in peace most fair, And smokes his calumet of joy while she Moves beautiful enshrined in the eve air, And in her heart there sings clear, delicate, The Song of Songs, for she is love's true mate. 73 WEDDED Now like a golden orb lost in the trees The Min declines to dusk, and ruby flame Burns on the stems; and with a whimper breeze l T p comes a spumy light that bas no name, And hunting echoes rise from the far bounds, Amaritude of exile in the sounds. Stand they in song like that which Eden sang, With the strange newness of their union dumb, its awe and mystery, each with a pang For the fleet maiden-moments that will come In all their passionate wonder nevermore; Then close they on themselves the forest dooi. 74 FRANKLIN SQUARE Of )NCE upon a time I stood, The Spring within me mounting, Transfigured in that radiance, The golden moments counting, When down the path came my dear wife, Her cheeks like bramble roses, Her clear blue eyes the sweetness held Where love for aye reposes. Spring's living light irrelevant Smiled on our happy meeting, Floating from the vague elmy green, Touching with dream our greeting ; And straight we went to Fairyland, All earthly cares forgetting, With sally as of fountain flood In the pale light upjetting. We went where death is never known, Where life is one sweet Maying, Where dreams come true in happy sheaves, And elfin flutes are playing ; And from that green and fragrant land We rapt for languid faring A gleam to lie upon our days When burdens we are bearing. 75 VIRGIL IN THE BUSH NOW comes the very sweetest of the night, The Poet's noon, and by the golden core Of my oak log I savour Time's soft flight. And steep my soul in fragrant Latin lore. I am for Virgil — lo, the College lawn By Thames his side, and the thick scented shade; There with the treasured volume and the dawn I roam the Trojan shore with a dear Maid. The wind fresh-blowing draws me to the deep, From home and pleasant thresholds far I go; And learn the long farewell of those who weep The casting of the ear L h, the pyre's last glow. For her the fragile hemlock pipe I play Wreathed with dark violets, or sing of streams And hallowed fountains, and the idle day That fades at length to stars and happy dreams. With tiny waving masks I hang the pine To Ceres great, where sweet the milky corn Swells on the greener stem ; and carve the vine On beechen cups and hyacinths forlorn. O grave and sweet, of antique grief the Mower, Those words of purest sorrow : tears are shed For sad misfortune; mortal woes have power To touch the heart ; give lilies for the dead. 76 VIRGIL IN THE BUSH Our Italy is still upon the rim Of all the world, though here a fuller gleam And interwoven azure faint and dim, And blushing rose, hint of Lavinian dream. Ah, Love, the melancholy waters lave The silent shore, but ere we stoop to drink Of that indifference we call Lethe's wave, Of Virgil's perfect line we'll smiling think. 77 A SABINE FARM H( >RACE, the flying years glide by And still we drain with thee Amphorae of old Massic wine Beneath the myrtle tree ; And by the source of sacred stream We hold pale Death in fee. With Chloe of the laughing lips And rustic Phydile. . . . Of late 1 kept a farm for love ( )f all thy tranquil days, -\ sunny corner of the earth Beyond my fondest praise ; 1 wreathed green myrtles round my brow And read thy ordered lines ( )n yellow leaves, as ivory pale, And drank thy classic wines. 1 lived untroubled by the thought ( )f night and parting love, Me neither Geryon's triple frame Nor Pelops' fate could move; And 1 remembered Plancus' year, The fire of love's sweet fool, And called for chaplets and pure nard By a brown woodland pool. 78 A SABINE FARM My she-goat loved the orchard leaves, And plucked, chained to my wrist, As underneath a violet sky I lay in a flower mist ; But then a Cretan came to me And talked of moth and pest, And scorned the moss upon my trees, Token of summer rest. The beauty of the briar-rose, The blackberry's pale flower, The thistle's royal purple hue, The gorse's golden hour, The crimson creeper in the grass. The rush's greening lane, Were naught — my orchard was not clean. We said farewell in pain. Horace, 1 may not keep a farm, Short is the span of life, And kings and husbandmen must go Where shadows hush the strife ; But though the Capitol is dust. Pontiff and Virgin sleep, Pure as a fountain in our hearts Thy songs well from the deep. 79 TO OUR SON OlIUGH, our son, our little son! We pray that God will keep Your ways, and when this life is done Give you 1 lis perfect sleep. O Child, we love you unto pain, We yearn to know your fate. We long to arm you with our gain, To bring you to the Gate. Be pure, dear lad, be kind and true ; Fear naught, though one your side ; Be swift to give each man his due — Let Jesus be your Guide. Guard every thought, guard every deed, These die not in the past, The evil thought, the act, will breed And mar your peace at last. Keep in your soul a sacred place. An altar of pure flame ; There seek, in Christ, the Father's face, Calling upon His Name. Remember, O remember, Hugh, When we are gone to earth, The love so beautiful and true That follow r s thee from birth. 80 WAR I HAVE no war-songs for these times. No sword-chant fierce and bright, I cannot pour my soul in rhymes That rise not to its height. But could I reach down words from heaven, And dig them from the pit of hell, And spoil them from the grave-rot's leaven Then I might sing it well. 81 AUSTRALIA THOSE famous isles that stem Atlantic waves ( >n Europe's western coast, now Britain hight, Have noble peoples, pacts of warrior-blood, Dreaming and passioned, stern and debonair; And these within the past, unknowing bounds, On ocean rode and made its hoarv wastes Mere highways for their valour, and its deeps A peaceful sepulchre. Their swarming broods Now thinly hive in this huge continent Australian ; and, not unlaurelled, hear Voices that mutter of sad coming woe When we shall be unfriended. Brother hearts, Not of vain glory do I sing, nor joy In lion ramp and streams of purple blood, War's dreadful rubric, but I love this land, My foster-mother, with a passioned love, And fain would sound a lofty trumpet-peal To rouse her people lapt in slothful ease To noble pain of preparation 'gainst The thunder-breath and break of foe more fell Than Scythian Tamburlane. A little while And then the waiting grave — how shall we sleep In shame or honour? O, we know at heart This remnant valiant dust lit by the Star Of Liberty will do forlorn high deeds, 82 AUSTRALIA Each man death's whirlpool in the trampling throng, And die untamed, unbound, with nostrils cut In haught defiance. But O take the time, And lift on eagle wing of fellowship Of proudest hopes and truth heroical, And love in act, nor let our heritage Lapse to a gulf unfounded. 83 THE DRUM THE Lord looked down from heaven upon the earth And saw red War in throes of evil hirth, Springing to burn and sully His fair world With sword imbrued and bloody flag unfurled ; And through the air there rolled His sudden drum, Heart-beats of men, sounding the high call — "Come." And Serbia replied : "Give me, though small, a place upon Thy side ; I cannot traitor be Unto the principle of liberty That Thou hast planted in the human breast ; And in Thy cause I will not spare my best: I hear the muttering of Thy dreadful drum. I come." And Russia answered with a myriad shout : "We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast called us out To fight upon Thy quarrel, for Thou art The guidance and the worship of our heart ; And we through Thee love with a humble mirth The dewy perfume of our holy earth, The rapture of blue distance and faint smoke, The joys and tears so poor of lowly folk — The Russias answer to Thy yearning drum, We come." 84 THE DRUM And France, so debonair and delicate, Heard in the echoing roll the call of fate, And pale and stern as sweet Antigone Left all her cherished labours to be free — Colour and graving tool, or pen, or plough ; Resolved no more to tyranny to bow ; And so she spake unto the urging drum, "I come." Awhile, and Belgium said : "Take Thou my heart, For Thou alone, O Lord, art now my part, My only portion : children, wife and home, Land, ancientry, bereft of all I roam ; I hear the whisper of Thy muted drum. I come." And Britain rose majestic from ber flood: "Much have I here to make life sweet and good, Orchard and meadow deep in sunshine gleam, Or dim with veiling blossom, faint with dream, A gracious past of pure immortal song, Glory and love my peaceful haunts among ; But not for these will I stand out of this, Or rather for these I will win great bliss And fame for high heroic duty done, Mine still when I have passed, to legend gone : So, Lord, in this fierce surge take me and mine, Isles, continents, dominions, all are Thine — We hear the thunder of Thy mighty drum, We come." 85 THE DRUM Italia, by all her sons adored. Caught up her shadowy helm, her Roman sword, And lifting- her great shield rushed on the foe, No longer brooding with Virgilian woe Upon the fates of men, but stern with high Resolve at Freedom's call to live or die In fate superb ! The Latin trumpets roll Imperial melancholy through her soul Steel-tempered, and like hurried bugles blown In some last soldier-agony, the moan And stir of her great thoughts echo the drum And from her flaming leaps the word : "I come." Japan, the golden light of other years Upon her Past heroical, the tears Of martyred Belgium saw streaming fall, And left the silent air. the springtime's call Of white and holy bloom, the sacred dream Of Fujisan, her delicate supreme Symbols of Art, and to the pulsing drum. Samurai all, cried in her song: "I come." America, beyond the western main With eagle-eyes watched Europe's battle plain And barriers of death. Erect she stood, Her garments deep with perfumes of the wood, The prairie and the mount ; and on her broke From 'neath a splendour of red rolling smoke, 86 THE DRUM The cries of freemen struggling for the right, Couching old chivalries ; and the murk night She cleft with her bright steel, hearing the drum And answering from great loyalties : "I come." And other peoples pregnant with the thought Of sacrifice for an Ideal, wrought Imperishably in the appealing cause Of anguished Peace and her benignant laws, Dreaming no beauty in the laurelled page, The drear defilings of the obscene rage Of trampling War, the odour of the breath Of dim corruption rising from the death Of the young men, the purple of their blood Spilt on the altar-ground, the silent flood Of tears impassioned, and the needlessness Of this hushed Calvary ; though fain to bless The fathomless devotion that can raise The human spirit over hell-born days Unto immortal heights — the Peoples heard Long thunderings, and by pure Freedom stirred, Enfranchized, cried unto the muffled drum : "O not for Glory but for Right we come !" 87 MISSING FAR in the green haunts of the past Of old the knights went faring, But your great memory shall outlast The fame of their fierce daring. As through the wasted land you trod You cheered the broken-hearted, The sufferer fallen on the sod, All who had loved and parted. Ah, when the sharp peace came were you Dreaming of your grey alley, Or of the trembling of the dew In some lone bushlancl valley? Only the winds mourned for your years In death so hot and hurried, Only the raindrops were the tears Upon your face unburied. As you have died to make men free Without a thought of glory, The touch of martyrdom shall be The seal of your high story. 88 RHEIMS THIS beauteous relic of an ancient world, This stately Rheims, this sacred house of God, That sang in accents of a nobler day The lofty dreams of master-spirits, now Is whelmed in fiery hail. No more the light Shall play upon its lavish bloom of stone With gift of wings unto its soaring, or On its great angels and the holy ones Met in a mystic measure ; ah, no more Shall a religious peace brood gently here In a sweet hush as of a festival Kept in a still and solemn ecstasy, The evocation of an exquisite, Remote, sad tenderness. O thus to burn This cradle of the memories of France — Quintessence of her past ; this pageantry Of sculptured stone and bronze and rainbow-hues, That set the crowning act of the sweet Maid ! St. Jeanne, St. Jeanne ! ah, when the mounting flames Began their cruel work, what visions rose Above thine agony? Domremy's vale And winding river with its gentle lapse So wondrous cool, the flowering days of spring, The dance and garlands round the Fairies' Tree, And that midsummer in the garden shade 89 RHEIMS When spake thy voices ; or the vision rare Of .Michael and the Virgins crowned and bright With heavenly glory ; or the gallant charge Beneath thy lilied banner, Orleans, Patay, and Troves, and the anointing day In this then-ancient Rheims of that ingrate And foul blood royal ? Banner, sword and cloak, And golden tabard shining like the sun, And glittering armour, and thy crowds of friends, Fell from thee doomed : only our Lord was there, His Name was on thy fevered lips, His Cross Before thy fainting eyes. Thou art with God ! Thou, if misfortune can find place in Heaven, Must weep the fallen in thy dreamed-of France, And love thy ancient foes. Our chivalry Fight now upon the faction of thy France As erst they fought in noblest fellowship With Harry on St. Crispin's sounding day ; And deep have dewed with blood the lilied land, Calling their sons and allies from the high Dominions, feudatories, and the isles, Rejoicing in a lofty surge to smite And burn to points of steel and thundering death. And we have given to thee a sister dear, Edith Cavell, who pale, with blinded eyes, But high in soul, in her Gethsemane Died by a murderer's hand — Edith and Jeanne ! The lily and the rose entwined for aye. 90 FORGOTTEN ? THE white sun-fire of morn divinely bright, The misty gold of noon in a deep glade, The beauty of the dew on the green blade Or in the cups of flowers, the dark blue night Lit by the crescent moon, thin, silvery, sweet, All these are ours while you are scattered far, Dead to the sun, the moon, the lighting star. And all the loveliness youth loves to greet. Unmourned and unlamented shall you lie, Forsaken in lone death, while we rejoice Forgetful of you — you who rose to die, A flame of valour, now one with the sod? If we forget, hear in your rest our voice. May we lie out, far from the grace of God ! 91 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS A BEAUTIFUL and tender note Sound for the souls who dying fought For Freedom's cause. O let it float In grave sweet chording ; Then rise in an impassioned surge Most terrible, a mighty dirge, Not without hope, the clarions urge, The drums and swording. We stand upon the threshold now, Immortal pinions fan the brow, New wonders wait upon the vow To die aspiring ; No languors, doubts, can forge the key Of Life but the soul's energy Opening upon eternity, The beacons firing. O God, let in a surging flood, A streaming of the holy blood That flowed so freely on the rood, And make us wholly Unquiet till we right the wrong, Scornful of faint and hopeless song, Nor dallying the shades among Of melancholy. 92 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS With golden juice of heavenly wine Drunk, we will do a deed divine, And uncreate the world by line Of inward dreaming ; And we will build anew with souls, By right, and not of pity's doles. Of beauty that eternal rolls From God's pure beaming. 93 WINGS OF DESIRE All, Icarus! Ah, hapless flying-man! Air-winnower of the van ! Thy father thought to breathe into the gold Of his Chalcidian gate The picture of thy fate, The eddying fall that ended thy brief span ; But at the piteous mould Twice his worn features paled, His faltering hands twice failed .... We, happier, can mount the air and soar, War-torments o'er : The thunder-clap, the blinding flash and roar, The stench and gore ; But not the sweet accord, But not the love we hoard — And in the placid sunshine find release, And a great peace. Rise we to cloud-mounts with a mighty sweep And view the Austral land, This grey-green band Of streaming wind-blown trees, This island-continent of harmonies Subtler than all imaginings and deep With shimmering gold — What joy untold 94 WINGS OF DESIRE To brood upon the visions of this land ! The drifting sheep, the camp-fire's dying' brand, The waving sea of wheat golden and tall, The little farms each in its forest-wall, The joys that pass beyond what memory sums Beneath the shadow of the mighty gums. And as we poise on wing Abysses sing Of infinite adventure — Sirius, Arcturus, call from the calm fields of space, And Uranus, To roam with keen hawk face The ancient silver seas, To roam the Pleiades. Ah, God ! to mount on some bright dawn and find, O joy incredible ! that old sun lane Where Enoch walked with Thee, Where on the fiery chariots of the wind Elijah smote athwart heaven's foamy sea, O bliss untold ! to find that road again, And borne up on strong pinions glimpse the walls Bastioned in glory, and the beauteous halls Where Jesus reigns, and leads by the calm stream His Saints, blood-won from earth's unquiet dream. 95 WINGS OF DESIRE My soul, the wings that stir thy purged realm With premonitions of infinity, With quintessential joy of poesy, With shuddering' thrills that whelm Thee, in a surging sea Of love imperishable, rush Of storming passion, throes imperial, Sharp-sweet, are an eternal care-less call To rise, an Icarus, in the great hush — One who shall never fall ! O Icarus, a line of Virgil keeps Thy memory green with those who climb the steeps Of heaven on upright wing ; And dreaming on thy prelude flight I sing, Dear Bird, of all the future infinite Amid air-solitude pure and sun-bright. We shall bring life from death, And with unconquerable breath Make of the wonder and the glorying light New Will unto the final raptured height. 96 MY SONG UNSUNG WITHOUT the pale of time and place I sang one night with raptured face Of things of beauty and of light Culled from the ages lost in night, Touched with a grace of delicate Pleading — so frail ! — against their fate To lie in waste ; and then my song Mourned for earth's pilgrims suffering wrong How one desired with urgent breath The child that brought upon her death — Poor struggler 'gainst the breast of Him, The awe-ful shade who makes more dim The veils of night ; and of the man In anguish for her narrow span Holding her close, printing a book Upon his heart with fixed look .... But here my song grew to a beat So piercing, melancholy sweet, That Time sat grieving at my psalms, His skull sunk in his bony palms, His scythe sparing a rose as red As ever bloomed for a bride's bed, Beyond her date ; and Death drew nigh, Lifting his funeral torch on high Above my scroll — O hidden face, Cowl-darkened ! O the marble grace Of those straight folds ! A morning beam, Grief unexpired, broke on my dream, And Death and Time rose to depart, To work their will upon man's heart. 97 IS LIFE WORTH WHILE? IT is worth while To have been a small child within the house, And to have known its beauty and its love, Its tranquil summer eves lit by one star, The winter-darkened streets and ruddy hearths, And all the passioned wonder. It is worth while To have been young, and to have walked the road In straight-limbed grace, and to have earned the cheer Marking some victory on the well-fought held ; And to have known the studious hum within High litten walls as closing-time drew near, And dreaming heard the teacher nobly fired Emblem the Latin spirit 'neath the spell Of the regretful sallowing of the light. It is worth while To roam romantic highways and behold The sun in his bright strength glorying along The forest roofs, turning their green to gold — Leaves multitudinous; savouring the air Yellow and full of light as some great wine ; Viewing the ships awash and swilled with floods, And the black jetty-posts with rippling gleam ; 98 IS LIFE WORTH WHILE? And, touched with April youth, to cry aloud : "O there is none — O, there is none but you !" Dreaming of kisses, joys unutterable, And days that are no more. It is worth while To read in books of human tenderness, Legends heroical, great memories, And to commune with the high hearts of men, Blood-royal of the race, to place the crown, The clear and laurel crown upon their heads In our lone attics, solemn and austere, In faltered worship. It is worth while To love man's spirit striving to express The faultless beauty of his dream in line Or happy colour ; or in the winged flights, The pleading minor and the trampling flow, Melodious thunder, of the circling spheres Singing within his breast. It is worth while To have in struggle felt a stream of power Rising from perfect images of rest, Of health and great achievement, clear and bright Within, and an indrawing of a strength Aidant, without, resulting in a life 99 IS LIFE WORTH WHILE? Of manly quiet and stern probity .And piety and truth ; and to have given Self in a perfect sacrifice to love, And to have made a way through this armed world For following wife and child. It is worth while To touch essential pain, enduring woe ; To hold the Psyche under rule ; to feel If more tears fell they would be tears of blood ; To enter in the lives of those around By sympathy, and bearing with them work For brotherhood — ay, it is worth the while Even to — fall, if nobly, beaten down, Sad but unconquered. It is worth while, The slanting sun-gold fading from the ferns, The amber, crimson leaves slow-circling down, Reft of their summer glory but endued With strange magnificence, and earth and sky Tenderly grey, to know a perfect hour Of ripened tranquil leisure, and of hints, Enchantments magical — ah, in those courts Of greening gloom to place the hurried soul Beyond all hurt, by contemplation deep In the pure sun of the Ideal's dream. 100 IS LIFE WORTH WHILE? It is worth while To live the beauty of old wistful things Renewing ancient hours : in the half-light To view those darkling forms vestured with Spring, Her immaturity, frail, exquisite ; Or worn and wasted as an ashen moon Faint with all longing in a foamy stream Of squandered high-embattled stars insnared ; Yea, in the cadence of our age's eve In pensive retrospect that swells the heart To bid farewell forever to the friends, (Spending the night in talk of friends long gone), The books, the happy places, of our day, The vanished and the vanishing . . O pain Solaced by that farewell ! It is worth while To wander in the bushland solitudes, And by the wood-fire watch the spiralling Of the blue smoke, and taste the very tang, While round the tender azure distances Merge in the thickening stems ; and there to pore Upon the secret of the Universe, Regarding the enclosing loveliness As something visible to tune the thoughts Invisible to that preluding peace Through which we climb the ladder mystical Unto the final union with God. 101 IS LIFE WORTH WHILE? It is worth while To look upon the face of brother Death With steadfast eyes, to make unflinching search In those dark hollows for the mystery That waits his gesture, and the still repose Of our eternal rest. 102 MANSOUL OSOUL of Man ! what coasts He in thy realm, Far, delicate, and as pure crystal clear — Remembrances of what thou holdest dear — Ethereal ! Though envious time doth whelm With all-consuming fear Thrones and their chroniclers, these bide in light Of faerie, born of the joy of youth, Whose evanescence stirs a tender ruth That keeps for us, untouched by sullen night, Their wonder and their truth. O Soul of Man ! thou hast a power divine To penetrate the mournful souls of things, Sad in their dumbness, and on thy swift wings, With swellings at the heart of golden wine From Heliconian springs, To place their beings in thy inner fold, Where by their beauty they enlarge thy life, And give thee freedom in the midst of strife, Way from the clamour and the mortal cold, And care keen as a knife. There spread the forest-roofs, the broad green glades, The murmuring waters circle islet-stones, Swaying the sedges with cool whispering tones, The moving mirrors of dew-laden blades And leaves and rough fir-cones ; 103 MANSOUL And there are amber noons and magic eves, And grassy moorlands quivering in the breeze, And crescent moons over warm homeland leas, And round the moon, the stars, thy spirit weaves A net with sighing case. There thy great portals ope in nameless hue Upon the ocean : there in glories white, And suns innumerable of golden light. Morn ever breaks through pure and thrilling blue- Yea, on a splendour bright That trembles into diamonds all the field Of nobly swelling billows to the far Recess of violet shadow, and the bar Of the horizon. Ah, the soul is healed Where such blown reaches are. Writhing, the seas run mountainous and strong, Caverned and tumbling in a thundering roll, Blood-red as with a light of burning coal, Giving their battle and their roaring song Unto the human soul ; And now the trumpetings of doom are stilled In the large peace of evening's yellow glow, As if no wind again could ever blow, And in that graver radiance, mystery-filled, We other Breathings know. . . 104 MANSOUL Thou hast an alchemy to image there All shapes of regal melancholy, sweet Old fablings of the verge that makes thee beat In perilous sympathy ; feignings that dare To a heroic heat ; And men and women set grim Death at naught Again upon thy stage, willing to die In joy ineffable, without a sigh For summer days, because young April brought Lips for a moment nigh. O love that brings new wonder to the world, That lights the ages with a starry gleam. The light of eyes long dead, still seen in dream, Stars that drew love though Death his banner furled And quenched his torch's beam ; How shall we sing of those whose awe-full power Can all illumine in a sun-like blaze, Lifting the soul on high in garnered days ; Or darken with a sigh the earth in flower, Withering the lover's bays ! And there are nights beside the winter fire. Ethereal dusk and glow, where thou, O Soul, Art satisfied as from the heavenly bowl, And canst through death see with a hushed desire The meditated goal ; 105 MANSOUL And wandering on we build of delicate Imaginations that are musical With joy of their creation, festival And love, or on the ghostly notes of fate Pause as they lingering fall. Ah, what a world lies in thy mystic ring ! Yea, fallen spirits through thy dungeon-light Grope in the dread decay, mourning the flight Of the white cloud, of the first gold of spring So sudden, pure and bright! And lifted lips of mortal cold chill thine In pale farewell, and on the distant verge Lovers with passioned arms and crying surge, Havened no more in beauty, wet with brine, Their claims to memory urge. Yea, soul of man ! vague shadows lurk and wait Within thy purlieus ; rare thy happy hours ; Cankered thy blossomings, thou hast no flowers Of perfect bloom : uncertain is thy fate ; The tempest ever lours ; And thou hast open wounds from old-time shames, Grievous and foul betrayals, very hells Of poignant memories, sweet friendships' knells, Follies and ignorances, haunting blames, For penitential cells. 106 MANSOUL And, Mansoul, thou art parched with a fierce drought For something that the world can never stream To satisfaction, some delight, some dream Upon the prison wall, beauty about, Beyond conception's beam : Yet hast thou high immortal joy and song, For thou canst love, thou hast a treasure-store Of dear remembrance for the silent shore, And Christ will purge thy sin, thy anguished wrong, And by His blood restore. Accept thy share of suffering, centre life, Drain its great flagon ; God's will be thy peace, From thy high post of trust seek no release, But bear thee bravely in the mortal strife — Thy faith and love increase ; And, darkened though thou be, flame on thy part And, though against the peerage of the foe, Lose not thy harmony for any blow, But fly and sing within thy glorious heart, And unimpeded flow. O, tremulous, close not thy guarded pale, But give to each forlorn a pure sweet birth And an environment that has no dearth Of goodness, truth and beauty . . if he fail With a celestial mirth 107 MANSOUL Ensphere him and inspire that he may go From failure to fresh life, for ever on, Having eternity when time is clone, So facing God and Nature he may know What goal to brood upon. Thou art a flame that goes beyond the stars Seeking a kindred fire, a burning soul Unmoved amid the immemorial roll And change of things; there, breaking all thy bars, Thou art rapt in the whole ; And from these white communions of pure bliss, Though shadows close again, thou hast a choir Of melodies from an eternal lyre ; And, reassured by Christ's redeeming kiss, Thou canst for aye aspire. Ah, God! the finite cannot comprehend The infinite, but this we know Thou art A person, for Thou speakest to the heart, Implying kindred, and to Thee we bend Praying Thee to impart Thy beauty to our souls ... O let us be Austere and solemn as a mountain-height Against an evening sky clear-washed with light Golden ! Father, thy children wait on Thee. 108 PASSING SACRED bell at eventide, Calling, calling, far and wide, Ah, so sweet and low ! Sweet and sad as autumn light, Low and sweet as closing night, . . . Pilgrim, let us go. Youth and beauty far away Lean together in the may, Shining head to head ; But for us the solemn peace, (Do not sigh) and great release Of the happy dead. Come, as children, steal to Him Who through all the ages dim Offers calm relief : Stricken heart, so fierce and wild, Come, as comes a little child, With thy wasting grief. Far above the creeds He stands With His pierced and pitying hands Stretched to thee and me ; He is Love's last tender bed, Bosom for the weary head To eternity. 109 SLEEP SLEEP comes at last, O hasten then, my Soul, And with thy songs of pure immortal birth Harmoniously build up a peak of joy For our bright tabernacles. Ah, but God Is sweet and merciful, for when the song Is finished and forgotten, and the brush Is laid aside, and when the pliant hands No more by grave and lovely sounds can move With tender evocations, there remains Deep sleep, the darkened earth's quiet repose. 110 THE SYMBOL THUS pass the glories of the world ! He lies beneath the pall's white folds His sword is sheathed, his pennon furled. Him silence holds. The pilgrim staff, the cockle-shell, The crown, the sceptre of his pride, The simple flower from forest dell, Heap at his side. And add thereto the wild-heart lute, The voice of love and twilight song; Those passioned strings though he is mute Remember long. And move not thence his evening book The sifted gains of calm and storm ; And bow before that dust-strewn nook And silent form. To-morrow hath no hope for him, No clasp of friend, no grip of foe : Remember, love, with eyes tear-dim, We too must go. ill PRISONERS OF HOPE I KNOW through my lament for Spirit dearth, Through weary thought by which my life grows dim For cruel warfare dark, unholy, grim, Transcendent God becomes within our earth ; And so I chant my hymn. Though quick the Universe we shall not see Perfection in becoming, but there goes The flow of God involved, uniting foes, Evolving, O beyond ! in wisdom free, To an immortal close. Rooted in plasmic foam and primal mire, We are His children, eager for the Light, For the response, the God divine in sight, And lifting by His power we still aspire, Lit from His altar bright. Aged yet fresh as April is the trust, The soma's guest, the germ of latencies Of beauty, love and joy ; and we the keys Hold for our sinking or our spring from dust — O guard those delices ! Transmute the essence into varied life, Act for the whole ; and as a little Child Offer thy will upon His Altar mild, And thou shalt find thy will purged from all strife Is God's will undefiled. 112 SY MBOLS INADEQUATE WITH soaring wings the Soul of Poesy Urges her flight above the nighted earth And the dim-shadowing clouds unto the stars With surge illimited ; and in her course She summons towers of conflagrations vast, Advancing there her potent but to find No vesture for the throes magnifical That shake her in the presence of the power, The victories amplitudinous of God. With golden puissance and whelming might She rushes on the heart born to receive, Engulphing it in glory, turmoil, storm, And kindling it to sing eternal themes In noble roomage, but again she lacks The signs pontifical. Thus Poesy Yearns to express her amaranthine songs, But in her symbols purged though they be She can but handle cerements that pale And dull her shining, and make dumb her voice, And hence her martyrdom. But could she mint A language equal to the melody That thrills her spirit, that could form and clothe The pity for the sorrow of the grave, The joy and anguish of the lover, then The unhoped dreams, the halcyon harbingers, The strangeness and the wonder of her lips, Fragrance incapturable, Paradise, Would be our heritage. H 113 LIGHT L[( II IT, < ) I cherish : light of common day ; And those elusive gleams that shyly play With sweet remembrance, such as dewy wet With azure lit the breathing violet Of Perdita ; the placid yellow beam Gilding the Narrow Glen of the sad stream ; The jaded gold that haunts each quiet wynd Of old deserted cities dim, resigned ; The long slant of the quivering moted ray ; The autumn calm that broods upon decay; The strange light on the ceil that tells of snow; The chilly evening's hearth of rich red glow That drives the shadows up the dusky wall ; The fanlight's tracery on the gloomy hall ; The lanthorn's moving spots athwart the pane; The rising moon flooding the watery plain. . . All these are premonitions faint or lost. Of the awaiting heavenly Pentecost. 114 MY SILENT KINGDOM SURELY before the gleaming of the Dove Eternal fell upon the elder place Of floods, beyond our fleeting time and space My kingdom is ; and there in silent love I walk with quiet face. There nothing loud may enter, and the lands Are hushed beneath a grave and mellow light, And winds blow soft, forgetful of their might, Voiceful of rest ; and calm the hourly sands Lapse from the leisured height. Faint, wistful, few, the offerings there have braved The chancings of the heart ; there leaves unfold By bronze and marble haughty, pure and cold, With perfect words of human wisdom graved In melancholy gold. 115 ANCIENT WISDOM OFT have I sat within the quiet shrine Of those old masters of autumnal calm, To win the very spirit of their psalm Of triumph, and to reign with them divine, Crowned with undying palm. Nobly they speak : if thou wouldst be at rest And bathe in stillness, losing life's sick fear, Uneager, wise, thy soul a golden sphere, Have no opinion, let thy well-loved best Depart without a tear. For recollection, life with being fill ; And like the ripened olive let thy deeds Fall in a sunlit leisure for man's needs ; And move in silence by a perfect will ; And seek immortal meeds. 116 THE OLD MEN'S SONG WE will renew our youth, no more forlorn, And sing the blood-song of the starry spring, The vaporous golden-white of early morn, The breathing bud, the light and soaring wing, Forgetting all the heart-break and the quest, The numbered hours so few, And the last vanquishing and quiet rest Beneath the solemn yew. Not unto us return inviolate The springtime miracle of hawthorn bloom, The thrill at some divine and passioned fate Growing with mystic meaning in Time's womb ; But the long leisures of our vernal dreams Are dimmed, yet riched with tears, Quintessence of old tenderness that streams From the far poignant years. Not unto us to feel again the sweep As of a falcon o'er the mountain -crest, The hopes uncalculated, terror deep Of lonely hours, the fearless love confest, The perfume as of some ethereal May, The laughter delicate, Delicious, and the golden-ended day That came, O late, so late ! 117 THE OLD MEN'S SONG As lovers gaze who know they part for aye, Looking across a bridgeless gulf at eyes That light the world, yearning for love's sweet play, So with deep thirst unquenchable and sighs We long for vanished faces, other lands, Lamenting our year's fall, Yet trusting that a touch of gentle hands Will lead us through Death's hall. O here upon life's lonely twilight verge We lie, so old, with eyes fulfilled of dream, Nor can we turn our song into a dirge, For in the soul there shines a golden beam ; And love is stronger than the yawning grave, O vehement and strong! And from the wrecks of living we can save Courage and hope for song. 118 DELIVERANCE AMONG the mighty eucalypts he stood Fraught with the beauty of the solemn bush — The glades of sunny green fading to blue, The age-worn boles and roofs of drooping leaves, The winds deep with wet fragrance of the dew From hollow places, and the threading streams Among the grasses and the pebbled earth — Loitering in ripened leisure. To the east The ocean trembled with innumerable gleams, And emulous the barges' full-spread sails Whitened the dreaming foam. The mountain loomed Down in the west, blown with a fume of smoke Of ancient forests. Slenderly a song, O frail and lonely! of the rain-bird's pipe Sighed through the crystal silence, loosening A very legion of light-winged desires And murmurings within his bosom's realm ; And all this flourish of bewildering bloom He peopled with old valour and disdain, Troubling, unsullied, unreturning fames, And legends leafing into laurel green And fabled beauty — he with a slain pang Of surging love kissed on the scarlet mouth The rose of all the world, of his true world, The lips of his beloved. Idling he lodged Insnared, enchained, until the sundering night Cooled the red smoulder to an ashen fleece Above a fiery ember . . . O then came 119 DELIVERANCE Unto the dreamer cital of old woes And forlorn burdens ; and he strove with pain To cleave the filmy veils that ever grow Before the Real. Yea, he yearned to see Himself in all sincerity : his pride And thraldom to outworn beliefs whose bands, Swathing his unexpanded soul, were deep Empurpled with his agony, for they Transmuted — so it seemed — were one With his soul's essence. (Ah, there is a door. Into the realms below the conscious mind Where floods the universal : could we pass Its portal we could gather all again The power and calm of nature, and could go Into the heart of God. Jesus, our Lord. By virtue of His ambassage divine Moved freely in that region.) A rough crest Brought him again within the sunset's breath And golden splendour, and he cried, ensphered In glory Time could not imbrown : "Forgive, O God, my maimed and faltering soul ! Destroy My kingdomed folly ; give an angelage Before the end, of open-eyed belief And strong denials, guarded, unenslaved, Star-crowned." And thus he stood imploring God For sight, delaying not the thunder-stroke, The trumpet-tongue, so that the soul might gain Deliverance and expansion to her norm. 120 MEDITATION 1. O MELANCHOLY tender human heart, Grieving for battles lost, taking the part Of ancient hopes forlorn — see how they go, Earth's multitudes, some creeping on with woe, Some riding helmed with flash and flame of grace, Some dewed with Unction of the Holy Place, And yet all bending to a wormy bound, A little hole within the dusty ground. 2. O still look out ! May not that candour be The opening of a door upon the sea That floods in golden waves before the light Of the great Adoration on the height ; Those flakes so softly beating gloom forlorn, Prints of His feet Who left Gethsemane For a triumphal morn ? 3. That Eastern hill was dark and sad below, And dark above, but with a little glow Over the rooting of the bitter tree Where bowed a mourning group on bended knee, While through the veiling gloom gold helmets dim Marked where the Legions of the Cherubim In wondering sorrow gazed — that little Light Is now a dawn invading earth's long night With purity unorbed. 121 MEDITATION 4. O light and sweetness of the Easter morn ! The Cup of Blessing and the Bread new-born ; The song, the victor-song, chanted above The darkness of the grave ! The moist earth's love Lives yearningly in her green buds and flowers, Scenting the grass, the waters, and the bowers, And to our dream, the vaulted azure sky, And the soul's highway to the bliss on high. My vineyard and my grapes are honey-sweet, And He, my Lord, with peaceful, beauteous feet Walks round my tower and vat and quaffs a cup, Recalling that glad time when Me went up To send the Paraclete. 122 NO OTHER WAY WHEN breaking buds were cups of light And breathed their perfumes in sweet airs, And crystal-clear the murmuring fall Whispered the heart to leave its cares, Then fine-spun gold was all my thought ; Of you I dreamed unto the verge Of tears, and child-earth songs I heard, And far was an autumnal dirge. The soft and silent shadows slept Upon the mountains, and the sea Was blue as sapphire fabulous. And through me swept eternity, While from an open pane in heaven Pure glories slanted on my earth, Soft as the sheen of a rich cope, And filled with orient light at birth. From some hid furnace of God's love Raptured assumptions rose and fell ; Ennobled pallors of grave peace In plenitude composed my cell ; And so with forlay of the Spring, Insurgent flights of lyric cry, And regnant heart I took my staff, No vading mortal colour nigh. 123 NO OTHER WAY Ah, but at evening in the doubtful light 1 came upon a river dark as night Filling the valley with a murmuring flow Neglectful, and I knew my way must go Through that un fathomed flood whose only gleam Crested the rolling waves with a pale beam, And in my heart there swelled a mortal pain Half given to sorrow, half to sweetest rain Of farewell tears. . . Then 1 remembered me Of a fair promise of felicity Whispered of old by my companion dear, Jesus, my way-friend, and I put off fear And waded in the shallows of the brim And ashen grew my life but, through the dim Dark vapours, over lowlands waste and chill, There loomed in shining on a vernal hill A City of Delight, new, fresh, unworn ; And so I deeper went, sustained, up-borne By my Redeemer. 124 EARTH AND THE SOUL The Earth speaks: EARTH of my earth, child of my ample breast, Being in whom my life burns to a flame, Sum of my glory, leave, ah, leave me not : See, I have pleasures for thy dreaming on, O not-ignoble realms! Magic of air and dewy solitudes, River and ocean wave, And earthly love so passionate and strong, My ancient voice heard in green loneliness Whispering old legends of my primal times, Touching the spirit to adventures high — And soft, unmemoried sleep in my dear arms. The answering Soul: Mother, I love thee so, — Ah, leaves and perfumes of the forest-ways, Ah, love profound and passionate and sweet, Ah, melancholy infinite, beyond Imagination ! but from the abyss, From the eternal silence, comes a call And I must go, Unmindful of farewells, Lone as the moon upon her pilgrimage Unto a visioned goal, Until I reach the uplands calm of God. 125 ON THE HILL-TOP M( HJNTING the hill I felt my burden go, My burden of dim sorrow and vague fear, With the ascension, and a joyful peace Reigned in my bosom as the glorious vale I viewed unhindered. Blue the Channel lay, The outlines of its winding shores and isles Most delicate and clear; and its great flow Seemed calling to the opening majesty Of some high Capital. The farther hills Faintly empurpled rose in tender folds, Touching the white-plumed clouds. Turning I saw Beyond the Neck, the ocean's shimmering plane Aidant of mystic longing. At my feet The eucalypts sprang from a darkened mist, Slashed on their roots with sunbeams, while above The boles were half in glow and half in shade ; And the hushed air that brimmed the valley deep Was yellow with a fume of golden light Autumnal sweet and placid, reconciled. 126 CREDO FAR in the past, the dread abysmal past, After the cooling of the pits of fire, The molten chasms and whirlpools of blown swale, Pregnant became the earth with Life, the gift Proceeding from some Power beyond her bound Yet immanent in her and in her guest. Piercing concurring elements this pledge, Moulding the gnarly matter, organized A million evolutions, leaguering With thrusting courage and intelligence Until from the amoeba, pilgrim Man Stood on the earth, care-wounded but still glad. O measureless the march from opening Life Up to the beauty of an Imogen, The grandeur of a Lear, the mind sublime Of island Prospero ! Came Man by chance, Or accident, or by directed growth ? O measureless the folly that believes He rose to his estate by accident Or wayward chance, or that Almighty God Created in us thirst and hunger sore For immortality but to deceive — A sorry jesting! Look upon the stars And keep still silence. Growth, creative growth, Directed by the Giver of all Life — His self-expression — is the quested Word Explaining Man : he is the son of God. 127 CREDO And richly doth the Father give to him Innumerable joys : the vernal shower, The fresh-blown rose, the sun-clad leafy hill, Autumnal melancholy — Ah, but all Are summed in love, imparadised in love; And uttering His Name, that potent Word Deep with all worship, holy and divine, We half-awakened know a trust profound, A re-assuring for our brooding on, And feel Him as a unity of love And truth and beauty, — seen in Jesus Christ — Immortal values. And in the high Christ We drink the chalice of the Life He brings In pure abundance, suffering a change Unto eternal values, hence we share His glorious nature and infinity- — O raptured thought ! But if we are at peace, In sweet felicity, if we regard Death as a door into a larger Life Unending, then most passionate must be Our lives with consolation for the world. Wholly set up and printed in Australia by G. Hassell & Son. 104 Currie Street. Adelaide UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles I his book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 4939 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 376 508 8