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.
Page: 11
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
gatheringthunder.
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?
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Now silence draws back to the forest again,
And the wind, like a wayfarer, sleeps on the plain,
But the cheeks of a
warriorbleach 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 t
hither 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.''
``Wherefore stay to talk of fainting? - rouse thee for
awhile, my friend;
Evening hurries on our footsteps, and this journey soon will end.
Wherefore stay to talk of fainting, when the sun, with sinking fire,
Smites the blocks of broken
thunder, blackening yonder craggy spire?
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Even now the
far-offlandscape broods and fills with coming change,
And a withered moon grows brighter bending o'er that shadowed range;
At the feet of
grassy summits sleeps a water calm and clear -
There is surely rest beyond it! Comrade,
wherefore tarry here?
``Yet a little longer struggle; we have walked a wilder plain,
And have met more troubles, trust me, than we e'er shall meet again!
Can you think of all the dangers you and I are living through
With a soul so weak and
fearful, with the doubts I never knew?
Dost thou not remember that the thorns are clustered with the rose,
And that every Zin-like border may a pleasant land enclose?
Oh, across these
sultry deserts many a
fruitful scene we'll find,
And the blooms we gather shall be worth the wounds they leave behind!''
``Ah, my brother, it is useless! See, o'erburdened with their load,
All the friends who went before us fall or
falter by the road!
We have come a weary distance, seeking what we may not get,
And I think we are but children, chasing
rainbows through the wet.
Tell me not of vernal valleys! Is it well to hold a reed
Out for drowning men to
clutch at in the moments of their need?
Go thy journey on without me; it is better I should stay,
Since my life is like an evening, fading, swooning fast away!
``Where are all the springs you talked of? Have I not with pleading mouth
Looked to Heaven through a silence stifled in the
crimson drouth?
Have I not, with lips unsated, watched to see the fountains burst,
Where I searched the rocks for cisterns? And they only mocked my thirst!
Oh, I dreamt of countries
fertile, bright with lakes and flashing rills
Leaping from their shady caverns,
streaming round a thousand hills!
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Leave me, brother, all is fruitless,
barren, measureless, and dry,
And my God will never help me though I pray, and faint, and die!''
``Up! I tell thee this is idle! Oh, thou man of little faith!
Doubting on the verge of Aidenn, turning now to covet death!
By the
fervent hopes within me, by the strength which nerves my soul,
By the heart that yearns to help thee, we shall live and reach the goal!
Rise and lean thy weight upon me. Life is fair, and God is just,
And He yet will show us fountains, if we only look and trust!
Oh, I know it, and He leads us to the glens of
stream and shade,
Where the low, sweet waters
gurgle round the banks which cannot fade!''
Thus he spake, my friend and brother! and he took me by the hand,
And I think we walked the desert till the night was on the land;
Then we came to
flowery hollows, where we heard a
far-offstreamSinging in the moony
twilight, like the rivers of my dream.
And the balmy winds came tripping
softly through the pleasant trees,
And I thought they bore a murmur like a voice from
sleeping seas.
So we travelled, so we reached it, and I never more will part
With the peace, as calm as
sunset, folded round my weary heart.
SONG OF THE CATTLE HUNTERS
WHILE the morning light beams on the fern-matted
streams,
And the water-pools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry -
Down the ridges and gullies we go!
And the cattle we hunt - they are racing in front,
With a roar like the
thunder of waves,
As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
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Like a
wintry shore that the waters ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For
swiftly we gain where the herds on the plain,
Like a
tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain-tops grey,
Where the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
FOOTFALLS
THE embers were blinking and clinking away,
The
casement half open was thrown;
There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,
And I sat on the
threshold alone!
And said to the river which flowed by my door
With its beautiful face to the hill,
``I have waited and waited, all wearied and sore,
But my love is a
wanderer still!''
And said to the wind, as it paused in its flight
To look through the shivering pane,
``There are memories moaning and
homeless to-night
That can never be
tranquil again!''
And said to the woods, as their burdens were borne
With a
flutter and sigh to the eaves,
``They are wrinkled and wasted, and
tattered and torn,
And we too have our withering leaves.''
Did I hear a low echo of footfalls about,
Whilst watching those forest trees stark?
Or was it a dream that I
hurried without
To
clutch at and
grapple the dark?
In the shadow I stood for a moment and spake -
``Bright thing that was loved in the past,
Oh! am I asleep - or
abroad and awake?
And are you so near me at last?
Page: 16
``Oh, roamer from lands where the vanished years go,
Oh, waif from those mystical zones,
Come here where I long for you, broken and low,
On the mosses and
watery stones!
``Come out of your silence and tell me if Life
Is so fair in that world as they say;
Was it worth all this yearning, and
weeping, and strife
When you left it behind you to-day?
``Will it end all this watching, and doubting, and dread?
Do these sorrows die out with our breath?
Will they pass from our souls like a nightmare,'' I said,
``While we glide through the mazes of Death?
``Come out of that darkness and teach me the lore
You have
learned since I looked on your face;
By the summers that blossomed and faded of yore -
By the lights which have fled to that place!
``You answer me not when I know that you could -
When I know that you could and you should;
Though the storms be
abroad on the wave;
Though the rain droppeth down with a wail to the wood,
And my heart is as cold as your grave!''
GOD HELP OUR MEN AT SEA
The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,
The black clouds follow fast,
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,
And the ships go heaving past, past, past -
The ships go heaving past!