Part 19 (1/2)

Softer than seasons of sleep: Dearer than life at its best!

Give her a ballad to keep, Wove of the pa.s.sionate West: Give it and say of the hours-- ”Haunted and hallowed of thee, Flower-like woman of flowers, What shall the end of them be?”

You that have loved her so much, Loved her asleep and awake, Trembled because of her touch, What have you said for her sake?

Far in the falls of the day, Down in the meadows of myrrh, What has she left you to say Filled with the beauty of her?

Take her the best of your thoughts, Let them be gentle and grave, Say, ”I have come to thy courts, Maiden, with all that I have.”

So she may turn with her sweet Face to your love and to you, Learning the way to repeat Words that are brighter than dew.

Charles Harpur

Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams, And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping, Are swift with wind, and white with gleams, And hoa.r.s.e with sounds of storms unsleeping.

Fit grave it is for one whose song Was tuned by tones he caught from torrents, And filled with mountain breaths, and strong, Wild notes of falling forest currents.

So let him sleep, the rugged hymns And broken lights of woods above him!

And let me sing how sorrow dims The eyes of those that used to love him.

As April in the wilted wold Turns faded eyes on splendours waning, What time the latter leaves are old, And ruin strikes the strays remaining;

So we that knew this singer dead, Whose hands attuned the harp Australian, May set the face and bow the head, And mourn his fate and fortunes alien.

The burden of a perished faith Went sighing through his speech of sweetness, With human hints of time and death, And subtle notes of incompleteness.

But when the fiery power of youth Had pa.s.sed away and left him nameless, Serene as light, and strong as truth, He lived his life, untired and tameless.

And, far and free, this man of men, With wintry hair and wasted feature, Had fellows.h.i.+p with gorge and glen, And learned the loves and runes of Nature.

Strange words of wind, and rhymes of rain, And whispers from the inland fountains Are mingled, in his various strain, With leafy breaths of piny mountains.

But as the undercurrents sigh Beneath the surface of a river, The music of humanity Dwells in his forest-psalms for ever.

No soul was he to sit on heights And live with rocks apart and scornful: Delights of men were his delights, And common troubles made him mournful.

The flying forms of unknown powers With lofty wonder caught and filled him; But there were days of gracious hours When sights and sounds familiar thrilled him.

The pathos worn by wayside things, The pa.s.sion found in simple faces, Struck deeper than the life of springs Or strength of storms and sea-swept places.

But now he sleeps, the tired bard, The deepest sleep; and, lo! I proffer These tender leaves of my regard, With hands that falter as they offer.

Coogee

Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee, Coogee in the distance white, With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light; Haunt of gledes, and restless plovers of the melancholy wail Ever lending deeper pathos to the melancholy gale.

There, my brothers, down the fissures, chasms deep and wan and wild, Grows the sea-bloom, one that blushes like a shrinking, fair, blind child; And amongst the oozing forelands many a glad, green rock-vine runs, Getting ease on earthy ledges, sheltered from December suns.

Often, when a gusty morning, rising cold and grey and strange, Lifts its face from watery s.p.a.ces, vistas full with cloudy change, Bearing up a gloomy burden which anon begins to wane, Fading in the sudden shadow of a dark, determined rain, Do I seek an eastern window, so to watch the breakers beat Round the steadfast crags of Coogee, dim with drifts of driving sleet: Hearing hollow mournful noises sweeping down a solemn sh.o.r.e, While the grim sea-caves are tideless, and the storm strives at their core.

Often when the floating vapours fill the silent autumn leas, Dreaming mem'ries fall like moonlight over silver sleeping seas.