Songs From The Mountains
by Henry Kendall
CONTENTS
PAGE
DEDICATION-TO A MOUNTAIN
...
3
MARY RIVERS
...
8
KINGSBOROUGH
...
13
BEYOND KERGUELEN
...
20
BLACK LIZZIE
...
25
HY-BRASIL
...
33
JIM THE SPLITTER
...
38
MOONI
...
44
PYTHEAS
...
51
BILL THE BULLOCK DRIVER
...
58
COORANBEAN
...
64
WHEN UNDERNEATH THE BROWN DEAD GRASS
...
70
THE VOICE IN THE WILD OAK
...
73
BILLY VICKERS
...
80
PERSIA
...
87
LILITH
...
92
BOB
...
96
PETER THE PICCANINNY
...
104
NARRARA CREEK
...
111
IN MEMORY OF JOHN FAIRFAX
...
117
ARALUEN
...
122
THE SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION
...
127
CHRISTMAS CREEK
...
145
ORARA
...
153
THE CURSE OF MOTHER FLOOD
...
158
ON A SPANISH CATHEDRAL
...
164
ROVER
...
173
THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION
...
183
BY THE CLIFFS OF THE SEA
...
189
GALATEA
...
195
BLACK KATE
...
200
A HYDE PARK LARRIKIN
...
205
NAMES UPON A STONE
...
213
LEICHHARDT
...
218
AFTER MANY YEARS
...
225
Page: 1
SONGS FROM THE MOUNTAINS
Page: 3
DEDICATION
TO A MOUNTAIN
TO thee, O father of the
stately peaks,
Above me in the loftier light - to thee,
Imperial brother of those awful hills
Whose feet are set in splendid
spheres of flame,
Whose heads are where the gods are, and whose sides
Of strength are belted round with all the zones
Of all the world, I
dedicate these songs.
And if, within the
compass of this book,
There lives and glows one verse in which there beats
The pulse of wind and
torrent - if one line
Is here that like a
running water sounds,
Page: 4
And seems an echo from the lands of leaf,
Be sure that line is thine. Here, in this home,
Away from men and books and all the schools,
I take thee for my Teacher. In thy voice
Of deathless
majesty, I, kneeling, hear
God's grand
authentic Gospel! Year by year,
The great
sublime cantata of thy storm
Strikes through my spirit - fills it with a life
Of
startling beauty! Thou my Bible art,
With holy leaves of rock, and flower, and tree,
And moss, and shining runnel. From each page
That helps to make thy awful
volume, I
Have
learned a noble lesson. In the psalm
Of thy grave winds, and in the liturgy
Of singing waters, lo! my soul has heard
The higher
worship; and from thee, indeed,
The broad foundations of a finer hope
Were gathered in; and thou hast lifted up
The blind
horizon for a larger faith!
Moreover, walking in exalted woods
Page: 5
Of naked glory, in the green and gold
Of forest
sunshine, I have paused like one
With all the life transfigured; and a flood
Of light ineffable has made me feel
As felt the grand old prophets caught away
By flames of
inspiration; but the words
Sufficient for the story of my Dream
Are far too splendid for poor human lips.
But thou, to whom I turn with reverent eyes -
O
stately Father, whose
majestic face
Shines far above the zone of wind and cloud,
Where high
dominion of the morning is -
Thou hast the Song complete of which my songs
Are pallid adumbrations! Certain sounds
Of strong
authentic sorrow in this book
May have the sob of
uplandtorrents - these,
And only these, may touch the great World's heart;
For, lo! they are the issues of that grief
Which makes a man more human, and his life
More like that frank, exalted life of thine.
Page: 6
But in these pages there are other tones
In which thy large, superior voice is not -
Through which no beauty that resembles thine
Has ever shone. These are the broken words
Of blind occasions, when the World has come
Between me and my Dream. No song is here
Of
mightycompass; for my singing robes
I've worn in
stolen moments. All my days
Have been the days of a
laborious life,
And ever on my struggling soul has burned
The
fierce heat of this
hurriedsphere. But thou,
To whose fair
majesty I
dedicateMy book of rhymes - thou hast the perfect rest
Which makes the heaven of the highest gods!
To thee the noises of this
violent time
Are far, faint whispers; and, from age to age,
Within the world and yet apart from it,
Thou standest! Round thy
lordly capes the sea
Rolls on with a
superb indifference
For ever; in thy deep, green,
gracious glens
Page: 7
The silver fountains sing for ever. Far
Above dim ghosts of waters in the caves,
The royal robe of morning on thy head
Abides for ever. Evermore the wind
Is thy
augustcompanion; and thy peers
Are cloud, and
thunder, and the face
sublimeOf blue mid-heaven! On thy awful brow
Is Deity; and in that voice of thine
There is the great
imperial utterance
Of God for ever; and thy feet are set
Where
evermore, through all the days and years,
There rolls the grand hymn of the deathless wave.