Part 2 (1/2)
A sweeter fragrance never came Across the Fields of Yore!
And when I said--”we here would dwell,”-- A low voice on the silence fell-- ”Ah! if you loved the roses well, You loved Aileen the more.”
”Ay, that I did, and now would turn, And fall and wors.h.i.+p her!
But Oh, you dwell so far--so high!
One cannot reach, though he may try, The Morning land, and Jasper sky-- The balmy hills of Myrrh.
”Why vex me with delicious hints Of fairest face, and rarest blooms; You Spirit of a darling Dream Which links itself with every theme And thought of mine by surf or stream, In glens--or caverned glooms?”
She said, ”thy wishes led me down, From amaranthine bowers: And since my face was haunting thee With roses (dear which used to be), They all have hither followed me, The scents and shapes of flowers.”
”Then stay, mine own evangel, stay!
Or, going, take me too; But let me sojourn by your side, If here we dwell or there abide, It matters not!” I madly cried-- ”I only care for you.”
Oh, glittering Form that would not stay!-- Oh, sudden, sighing breeze!
A fainting rainbow dropped below Far gleaming peaks and walls of snow And there, a weary way, I go, Towards the Sunrise seas.
Kooroora
The gums in the gully stand gloomy and stark, A torrent beneath them is leaping, And the wind goes about like a ghost in the dark Where a chief of Wahibbi lies sleeping!
He dreams of a battle--of foes of the past, But he hears not the whooping abroad on the blast, Nor the fall of the feet that are travelling fast.
Oh, why dost thou slumber, Kooroora?
They come o'er the hills in their terrible ire, And speed by the woodlands and water; They look down the hills at the flickering fire, All eager and thirsty for slaughter.
Lo! the stormy moon glares like a torch from the vale, And a voice in the belah grows wild in its wail, As the cries of the Wanneroos swell with the gale-- Oh! rouse thee and meet them, Kooroora!
He starts from his sleep and he clutches his spear, And the echoes roll backward in wonder, For a shouting strikes into the hollow woods near, Like the sound of a gathering thunder.
He clambers the ridge, with his face to the light, The foes of Wahibbi come full in his sight-- The waters of Mooki will redden to-night.
Go! and glory awaits thee, Kooroora!
Lo! yeelamans splinter and boomerangs clash, And a spear through the darkness is driven-- It whizzes along like a wandering flash From the heart of a hurricane riven.
They turn to the mountains, that gloomy-browed band; The rain droppeth down with a moan to the land, And the face of a chieftain lies buried in sand-- Oh, the light that was quenched with Kooroora!
To-morrow the Wanneroo dogs will rejoice, And feast in this desolate valley; But where are his brothers--the friends of his choice, And why art thou absent, Ewalli?
Now silence draws back to the forest again, And the wind, like a wayfarer, sleeps on the plain, But the cheeks of a warrior bleach in the rain.
Oh! where are thy mourners, Kooroora?
Fainting by the Way
Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away, Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay; Lurid wastelands, pent in silence, thick with hot and thirsty sighs, Where the scanty thorn-leaves twinkle with their haggard, hopeless eyes; Furnaced wastelands, hunched with hillocks, like to stony billows rolled, Where the naked flats lie swirling, like a sea of darkened gold; Burning wastelands, glancing upward with a weird and vacant stare, Where the languid heavens quiver o'er red depths of stirless air!
”Oh, my brother, I am weary of this wildering waste of sand; In the noontide we can never travel to the promised land!
Lo! the desert broadens round us, glaring wildly in my face, With long leagues of sunflame on it,--oh! the barren, barren place!
See, behind us gleams a green plot, shall we thither turn and rest Till a cold wind flutters over, till the day is down the west?
I would follow, but I cannot! Brother, let me here remain, For the heart is dead within me, and I may not rise again.”