章节正文
WHERE the strength of dry thunder splits hill-rocks asunder,
And the shouts of the desert-wind break,
By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,
Lo, the cattle track twists like a snake!
Like a sea of dead embers, burnt white by Decembers,
A plain to the left of it lies;
And six fleeting horses dash down the creek courses
With the terror of thirst in their eyes.
The false strength of fever, that deadlydeceiver,
Gives foot to each famishing beast;
And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten,
The mirage gleams out in the east.
Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and ridden
In a stream where the cattle track dips;
And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces,
And the drouth is a fire on their lips.
Page: 40
It is far to the Station, and gaunt Desolation
Is a spectre that glooms in the way;
Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is,
And as flame are the feet of the day.
The wastes are like metal that forges unsettle
When the heat of the furnace is white;
And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth,
Is unknown to the wild Desert Night.
A cry of distress there! a horseman the less there!
The mock-waters shine like a moon!
It is ``Speed, and speed faster from this hole of disaster!
``And hurrah for yon God-sent lagoon!''
Doth a devil deceive them? Ah, now let us leave them -
We are burdened in life with the sad;
Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble,
And the gladdest is never too glad.
From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile,
To a sweet river shadowed with reeds
Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly,
The hoof-rutted cattle-track leads.
Page: 41
There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light;
There fiery things falter and fall;
And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now,
And the wings of a peace over all.
Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy cover
Away by the snow-smitten Pole!
The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth;
And what is the end of the whole?
Some men are successful after seasons distressful
[Now, masters, the drift of my tale]
But the brink of salvation is a lair of damnation
For others who struggle, yet fail.
Page: 42
TO DAMASCUS
WHERE the sinister sun of the Syrians beat
On the brittle, bright stubble,
And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat,
Came Saul with a fire in the soles of his feet,
And a forehead of trouble.
And terrified faces to left and to right,
Before and behind him,
Fled away with the speed of a maddening fright
To the cloughs of the bat and the chasms of night,
Each hoping the zealot would fail in his flight
To find him and bind him.
Page: 43
For, behold you! the strong man of Tarsus came down
With breathings of slaughter,
From the priests of the city, the chiefs of the town
(The lords with the sword, and the sires with the gown),
To harry the Christians, and trample, and drown,
And waste them like water.
He was ever a fighter, this son of the Jews -
A fighter in earnest;
And the Lord took delight in the strength of his thews,
For He knew he was one of the few He could choose
To fight out His battles and carry His news
Of a marvellous Truth through the dark and the dews,
And the desert-lands furnaced!
He knew he was one of the few He could take
For His mission supernal,
Whose feet would not falter, whose limbs would not ache,
Through the waterless lands of the thorn and the snake,
And the ways of the wild - bearing up for the sake
Of a Beauty eternal.
Page: 44
And therefore the road to Damascus was burned
With a swift, sudden brightness;
While Saul, with his face in the bitter dust, learned
Of the sin which he did ere he tumbled, and turned
Aghast at God's whiteness!
Of the sin which he did ere he covered his head
From the strange revelation.
But, thereafter, you know of the life that he led;
How he preached to the peoples, and suffered, and sped
With the wonderful words which his Master had said,
From nation to nation.
Now would we be like him, who suffer and see,
If the Chooser should choose us!
For I tell you, brave brothers, whoever you be,
It is right, till all learn to look further, and see,
That our Master should use us!
It is right, till all learn to discover and class,
That our Master should task us:
For now we may judge of the Truth through a glass;
And the road over which they must evermore pass,
Who would think for the many, and fight for the mass,
Is the road to Damascus.
Page: 45
BELL BIRDS
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling;
It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges
Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges.
Through brakes of the cedar and sycamore bowers
Struggles the light that is love to the flowers.
And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.
The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time!
They sing in September their songs of the May-time;
When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle,
They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;
Page: 46
When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together,
They start up like fairies that follow fair weather;
And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden
Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.
October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,
Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;
Loiters, knee-deep, in the grasses, to listen,
Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten:
Then is the time when the water-moons splendid
Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended
Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning
Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the Morning.
Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers
Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.
When fiery December sets foot in the forest,
And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,
Pent in the ridges for ever and ever
The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,
With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrents
Are toned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.
Page: 47
Often I sit, looking back to a childhood,
Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,
Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion,
Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of Passion;-
Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters
Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest-rafters;
So I might keep in the city and alleys
The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys,
Charming to slumber the pain of my losses
With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.
Page: 48
A DEATH IN THE BUSH
THE hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs
That wore the marks of many rains, and showed
Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.
Moreover, round the bases of the bark
Were left the tracks of flying forest-fires,
As you may see them on the lower bole
Of every elder of the native woods.
For, ere the early settlers came and stocked
These wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grew
So that they took the passing pilgrim in,
And whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.
And therefore, through the fiercer summer months,
While all the swamps were rotten - while the flats
Were baked and broken; when the clayey rifts
Page: 49
Yawned wide, half-choked with drifted herbage past,
Spontaneous flames would burst from thence, and race
Across the prairies all day long.
At night
The winds were up, and then, with four-fold speed,
A harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fire
Would roar along the bottoms, in the wake
Of fainting flocks of parrots, wallaroos,
And 'wildered wild things, scattering right and left,
For safety vague, throughout the general gloom.
Anon the nearer hillside-growing trees
Would take the surges; thus from bough to bough
Was borne the flamingterror! Bole and spire,
Rank after rank, now pillared, ringed, and rolled
In blinding blaze, stood out against the dead,
Down-smothered dark, for fifty leagues away.
For fifty leagues! and when the winds were strong
For fifty more! But in the olden time
These fires were counted as the harbingers
Of life-essential storms; since out of smoke
And heat there came across the midnight ways
Abundant comfort, with upgathered clouds,
And runnels babbling of a plenteous fall.
Page: 50
So comes the Southern gale at evenfall
(The swift ``brick-fielder'' of the local folk)
About the streets of Sydney, when the dust
Lies burnt on glaring windows, and the men
Look forth from doors of drouth, and drink the change
With thirsty haste and that most thankful cry
Of, ``Here it is - the cool, bright, blessed rain!''
The hut, I say, was built of bark and slabs,
And the shouts of the desert-wind break,
By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,
Lo, the cattle track twists like a snake!
Like a sea of dead embers, burnt white by Decembers,
A plain to the left of it lies;
And six fleeting horses dash down the creek courses
With the terror of thirst in their eyes.
The false strength of fever, that deadlydeceiver,
Gives foot to each famishing beast;
And over lands rotten, by rain-winds forgotten,
The mirage gleams out in the east.
Ah! the waters are hidden from riders and ridden
In a stream where the cattle track dips;
And Death on their faces is scoring fierce traces,
And the drouth is a fire on their lips.
Page: 40
It is far to the Station, and gaunt Desolation
Is a spectre that glooms in the way;
Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is,
And as flame are the feet of the day.
The wastes are like metal that forges unsettle
When the heat of the furnace is white;
And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth,
Is unknown to the wild Desert Night.
A cry of distress there! a horseman the less there!
The mock-waters shine like a moon!
It is ``Speed, and speed faster from this hole of disaster!
``And hurrah for yon God-sent lagoon!''
Doth a devil deceive them? Ah, now let us leave them -
We are burdened in life with the sad;
Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble,
And the gladdest is never too glad.
From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile,
To a sweet river shadowed with reeds
Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly,
The hoof-rutted cattle-track leads.
Page: 41
There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light;
There fiery things falter and fall;
And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now,
And the wings of a peace over all.
Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy cover
Away by the snow-smitten Pole!
The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth;
And what is the end of the whole?
Some men are successful after seasons distressful
[Now, masters, the drift of my tale]
But the brink of salvation is a lair of damnation
For others who struggle, yet fail.
Page: 42
TO DAMASCUS
WHERE the sinister sun of the Syrians beat
On the brittle, bright stubble,
And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat,
Came Saul with a fire in the soles of his feet,
And a forehead of trouble.
And terrified faces to left and to right,
Before and behind him,
Fled away with the speed of a maddening fright
To the cloughs of the bat and the chasms of night,
Each hoping the zealot would fail in his flight
To find him and bind him.
Page: 43
For, behold you! the strong man of Tarsus came down
With breathings of slaughter,
From the priests of the city, the chiefs of the town
(The lords with the sword, and the sires with the gown),
To harry the Christians, and trample, and drown,
And waste them like water.
He was ever a fighter, this son of the Jews -
A fighter in earnest;
And the Lord took delight in the strength of his thews,
For He knew he was one of the few He could choose
To fight out His battles and carry His news
Of a marvellous Truth through the dark and the dews,
And the desert-lands furnaced!
He knew he was one of the few He could take
For His mission supernal,
Whose feet would not falter, whose limbs would not ache,
Through the waterless lands of the thorn and the snake,
And the ways of the wild - bearing up for the sake
Of a Beauty eternal.
Page: 44
And therefore the road to Damascus was burned
With a swift, sudden brightness;
While Saul, with his face in the bitter dust, learned
Of the sin which he did ere he tumbled, and turned
Aghast at God's whiteness!
Of the sin which he did ere he covered his head
From the strange revelation.
But, thereafter, you know of the life that he led;
How he preached to the peoples, and suffered, and sped
With the wonderful words which his Master had said,
From nation to nation.
Now would we be like him, who suffer and see,
If the Chooser should choose us!
For I tell you, brave brothers, whoever you be,
It is right, till all learn to look further, and see,
That our Master should use us!
It is right, till all learn to discover and class,
That our Master should task us:
For now we may judge of the Truth through a glass;
And the road over which they must evermore pass,
Who would think for the many, and fight for the mass,
Is the road to Damascus.
Page: 45
BELL BIRDS
By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling;
It lives in the mountain where moss and the sedges
Touch with their beauty the banks and the ledges.
Through brakes of the cedar and sycamore bowers
Struggles the light that is love to the flowers.
And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bell-birds are running and ringing.
The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of day-time!
They sing in September their songs of the May-time;
When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle,
They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle;
Page: 46
When rain and the sunbeams shine mingled together,
They start up like fairies that follow fair weather;
And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden
Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden.
October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,
Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;
Loiters, knee-deep, in the grasses, to listen,
Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten:
Then is the time when the water-moons splendid
Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended
Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning
Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the Morning.
Welcome as waters unkissed by the summers
Are the voices of bell-birds to thirsty far-comers.
When fiery December sets foot in the forest,
And the need of the wayfarer presses the sorest,
Pent in the ridges for ever and ever
The bell-birds direct him to spring and to river,
With ring and with ripple, like runnels whose torrents
Are toned by the pebbles and leaves in the currents.
Page: 47
Often I sit, looking back to a childhood,
Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,
Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion,
Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of Passion;-
Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters
Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest-rafters;
So I might keep in the city and alleys
The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys,
Charming to slumber the pain of my losses
With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.
Page: 48
A DEATH IN THE BUSH
THE hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs
That wore the marks of many rains, and showed
Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.
Moreover, round the bases of the bark
Were left the tracks of flying forest-fires,
As you may see them on the lower bole
Of every elder of the native woods.
For, ere the early settlers came and stocked
These wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grew
So that they took the passing pilgrim in,
And whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.
And therefore, through the fiercer summer months,
While all the swamps were rotten - while the flats
Were baked and broken; when the clayey rifts
Page: 49
Yawned wide, half-choked with drifted herbage past,
Spontaneous flames would burst from thence, and race
Across the prairies all day long.
At night
The winds were up, and then, with four-fold speed,
A harsh gigantic growth of smoke and fire
Would roar along the bottoms, in the wake
Of fainting flocks of parrots, wallaroos,
And 'wildered wild things, scattering right and left,
For safety vague, throughout the general gloom.
Anon the nearer hillside-growing trees
Would take the surges; thus from bough to bough
Was borne the flamingterror! Bole and spire,
Rank after rank, now pillared, ringed, and rolled
In blinding blaze, stood out against the dead,
Down-smothered dark, for fifty leagues away.
For fifty leagues! and when the winds were strong
For fifty more! But in the olden time
These fires were counted as the harbingers
Of life-essential storms; since out of smoke
And heat there came across the midnight ways
Abundant comfort, with upgathered clouds,
And runnels babbling of a plenteous fall.
Page: 50
So comes the Southern gale at evenfall
(The swift ``brick-fielder'' of the local folk)
About the streets of Sydney, when the dust
Lies burnt on glaring windows, and the men
Look forth from doors of drouth, and drink the change
With thirsty haste and that most thankful cry
Of, ``Here it is - the cool, bright, blessed rain!''
The hut, I say, was built of bark and slabs,
- thunder [´θʌndə]
n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词) - terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- furnace [´fə:nis] n.熔炉；火炉 (初中英语单词)
- breeze [bri:z] n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词)
- distress [di´stres] n.痛苦 vt.使苦恼 (初中英语单词)
- deceive [di´si:v] vt.欺骗，欺诈 (初中英语单词)
- portion [´pɔ:ʃən] n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词)
- lightly [´laitli] ad.轻微地，稍微 (初中英语单词)
- moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- mission [´miʃən] n.代表团；使馆vt.派遣 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- slumber [´slʌmbə] v.&n.睡眠；沉睡状态 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- thence [ðens] ad.从那里；因此 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- rotten [´rɔtn] a.腐烂的；腐朽的 (高中英语单词)
- horseman [´hɔ:smən] n.骑手，马术师 (高中英语单词)
- hurrah [hu´rɑ:] int.好哇!万岁! (高中英语单词)
- falter [´fɔ:ltə] vi.蹒跚；犹豫；疲软 (高中英语单词)
- salvation [sæl´veiʃən] n.救助；拯救 (高中英语单词)
- trample [´træmpəl] v.&n.践踏；蹂躏；踩坏 (高中英语单词)
- fighter [´faitə] n.战士；战斗机 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- thereafter [ðeə´rɑ:ftə] adv.此后，其后 (高中英语单词)
- whoever [hu:´evə] pron.任何人，无论谁 (高中英语单词)
- straightway [´streitwei] ad.立刻 (高中英语单词)
- ripple [´ripəl] n.涟漪 v.(使)起涟漪 (高中英语单词)
- sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
- wherein [weər´in] ad.那里面 (高中英语单词)
- pilgrim [´pilgrim] n.旅行者；香客 (高中英语单词)
- gigantic [dʒai´gæntik] a.巨大的 (高中英语单词)
- thankful [´θæŋkfəl] a.感激的；欣慰的 (高中英语单词)
- sinister [´sinistə] a.阴险的；不吉的 (英语四级单词)
- evermore [,evə´mɔ:] ad.永远，始终 (英语四级单词)
- flaming [´fleimiŋ] a.熊熊燃烧的；热情的 (英语四级单词)
- blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
- fleeting [´fli:tiŋ] a.飞逝的，疾驰的 (英语六级单词)
- coolness [´ku:lnis] n.凉，凉爽；冷静 (英语六级单词)
- sycamore [´sikəmɔ:] n.美国梧桐；枫树 (英语六级单词)
- ringed [riŋd] a.带环的；戴戒指的 (英语六级单词)
- sydney [´sidni] n.悉尼 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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