After four years of this blog, reprinting a different poem each day, I've decided to bring it to a close. It's been fun but it's time to move onto something else.
Not sure what just yet.
I dreamed beside the smouldering fire.
I said, "Oh, thoughts, go far
And bring me back the loveliest,
The dearest things there are!"
And then straightway, wide-winging out,
My thoughts were little bees
That nestled joyfully within
The blown anemones.
Within those silken cups they curled,
Then swift -- they'd hardly gone --
They brought me back sheer loveliness
To lay my sleep upon!
First published in The Australian Woman's Mirror, 31 December 1929
Her hands were slim as lilies white,
And in her eyes an emerald light
Continually burned still fire.
Her fingers moved along a lyre,
As delicate as lilac leaves.
She was the soul that in me grieves
The woman I shall one day be,
Love-lorn beside a phantom sea.
O unborn woman, writing here
The lines you'll read in a new year,
Look up, remember me again,
And all my pity, all my pain,
My loves, my hopes, my woman-tears,
That shall pursue you down the years.
First published in The Australasian, 30 December 1922
A wind well-laden with scent and heat
Drifts through the saplings' ragged crests
And leans on the lovely curving breasts
Of the cool green wheat.
The curtseying harvest, hated in light,
Ripples and runs from the air's embrace.
Over their waves the white clouds chase
Grey shade out of sight.
Yellow weed-bloom where the headland narrows,
Daggered thistles in purple pride;
Cockatoos feeding, watchful-eyed,
Snow-flaked along the furrows.
Darting parakeets down the track
Hurl like a handful of jewels tossed
Into the blue and therein lost,
No one to fling them back.
All the Wimmera is under cover
Heaven and the harvest, verge to verge,
Joined by the heat-wave's silver surge
Just where the blue bends over.
The world that the harvest grain is clothing
Seems to descend and disappear
In a scintillation of aching air
Over the edge of nothing.
And the rolling wheat and the world appear
To turn so softly through time and space
The air of It passing upon my face
Scarcely ruffles my hair.
First published in The Bulletin, 29 December 1948
A little back from the street it stands,
With trim parterres and shutters green,
And tall sunflowers in a row;
Such is the setting, prim, serene,
To the life he hated so!
The doors are closed, the house is still;
With a peace that tells not of shame,
The silence of deeds well done;
The brass plate with the dead man's name
Still winks in the morning sun.
Who would dream those walls hold grief untold,
And a horror of bated breath!
Secure in snug suburban pride,
No outward hint of a shameful death
Marks the house of the suicide.
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 28 December 1904
Whene'er I think of you, my fighting son,
You draw quite near to me.
You speak, you move, as you have always done,
Though my quick memory.
You are myself -- bone of my bones; all me.
Sometimes I seem to leap
Red o'er your parapets of misery,
While you lie here asleep.
I have known pain and patience both for you.
Rough torments I have slain --
Moulded you, manned you, made you bold and true,
Yielded you heart and brain.
You were my babe, my all, my lighting son,
Taking full life from me.
Still, still you draw it, and our two lives run
In perfect unity.
I fight with you. I charge the hot, dark hill.
I meet your pangs, your woes.
And I shall hold you, strong of heart and will,
Till our full triumph flows.
If you fall, I must fall - but not to death.
Oh, to eternity
You still are mine beyond the sobbing breath
The last pain draws from me.
First published in The Bulletin, 27 December 1917
Green parrots, with orange beaks
In a tree of orange and green,
And under the tree the gleaming grass,
Where waves of light on the shadow pass,
And a lily sways between.
Green parrots climbing in blossomy boughs,
With a cheery call and a friendly wing,
A flash of blue and a splash of rose,
And the sound of myriad bees that flows
Through the monotone of spring.
Pale on the sky the harebell hills
And the city, blue and blurred,
A quivering hedge where the wind has been
On a garden's green, the feathery green
Of a honey-seeding bird.
How many miles did you trail your fancy?
(Orange beak in an orange cup)
With a flirt of tail and the sudden fling
Of the blue and rose of the under-wing
As you drink the summer up.
What distant hollow with faint stars lit
In pearly greyness of dawning dew
Saw your waking glances farewell the night,
Knew the driving dart of your early flight
As to scented stores you flew?
I am glad, at least, that you chose this tree,
That the gold-stained blossoms that front the East
Were filled by the gods with mead for you,
That the path of the sky was bright and blue,
And my garden spread the feast!
First published in The Sydney Mail, 26 December 1928
Beside the heap of smouldering fire
The poor old woman sits --
Old Madeleine with high-veined hands
And hardly any wits.
Her skirt drags down a rusty-green,
Her boots are torn and spread,
But over her thin shoulder-blades
There hangs a coat of red.
A coat that takes the light and flings
It back derisively --
A mocking note that challenges
Old age and penury!
And color-blind no longer I
See poor old Madeleine,
I only vision splendid things,
Old passions that have been!
Old pumps and gallantries of youth
Go by; her voice is drowned
In laughter like a waterfall,
In bursts of marching sound!
Gay ribbons wave from crowded walls,
Tap-tap go dancing shoon;
A stooping, long-faced fiddler plays
Beneath a harvest moon.
So gay the coat of Madeleine
Around her shoulders flung,
I know that, though her eyes are old,
Her heart is young, so young!
First published in The Bulletin, 25 December 1929
Here are no merry bells achime,
No midnight carols heard;
Only the windmill's clanking rhyme,
The slow creek's whispered word;
The cricket songs of summer time,
The calling of a bird.
Yet one may think on Bethlehem,
Nor deem it very far,
Where little fields the farmstead hem
And flocks all drowsy are;
Where in the green west like a gem
Hangs one grave, lovely star.
The sleeping range and valley wear
So soft an air and mild,
Somewhere up in the sky I heal
A black swan's bugle wild.
And, past the lighted window square,
The laughter of a child.
And Love comes in that little gate
And all his gifts receive,
Where heavenly peace and quiet wait
Day's burden to relieve --
We need no bells to celebrate
Our own sweet Christmas Eve.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 December 1938
(On hearing the news of the capture of the Emden.)
O! Sydney, I must tell you how glad I am to-day!
Send a message to your villas stretching out to Watson's Bay,
And your South Head and your North Head and the jewels of your spray.
I can almost hear the cheering, and my heart is full of song,
For the wind has brought me whispers as it sweeps the paean along,
And it beats the heart to laughter as a swift stroke on a gong.
Yes, there must be flags in Sydney, waving like a bunch of flowers,
When the southerly is carrying off the heat of earlier hours,
When the drought of noon is broken by a silver rush of showers.
All the World was waiting for you, O! you cruiser, staunch and grey,
Barely two years old, you beauty, an as fresh as child at play;
With the gallant ensigns streaming and a spirit brave as they.
Just two knots (top speed) the swifter! and the Emden for a catch!
The ship that blocked the trade doors till your touch was on the latch;
By the corralled Cocos Islands, there the German met his match.
O, my dear, dear Sydney's namesake! I could should and dance and sing,
For the dining brought a message on a happy, hurtling, wing,
And I heard the cry of "Sydney!" rising high o'er everything.
First published in The Sydney Mail, 23 December 1914
Somebody died in our house last night
While the little moon looked through the curtains white.
Somebody died that I loved so well
I am almost too frightened and sad to tell.
I dug the grave in the yard myself,
With the spade that I keep on the nursery shelf.
Nobody knew I was out of bed,
So they don't even guess that there's someone dead.
Only my toys and my dollies know,
For they hear me sob in the darkness so;
"No more to-morrows with six-times-three,
Now it's seven-times-one that is here with me."
First published in The Bulletin, 22 December 1921
I stand beside her grave; the sod is brown,
Long hours of sunshine o'er the mound must pass,
And winds must blow and gentle rains come down,
Ere Nature spreads her woven mat of grass
Above the rest that she has found at last;
Above the spot where toil cannot encroach,
Where busy Care is crushed and overpast,
Where clutching shapes of Greed dare not approach.
I do not grieve as one who mourning stands;
I do not bow the head or bend the knee;
I see in fancy those poor work-worn hands,
I think how very tired she used to be!
I think of weary feet that onward pres't,
The look of anxious care she always wore;
I know how good to her is this long rest,
And pray that it is sleep for evermore!
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 21 December 1904
Perhaps I have been selfish as is sin.
A thief of beauty, I have stolen flower
And fragrance, fruit, and colour hour by hour,
And in my greedy heart close locked it in,
Perhaps when many duties called in voices thin
I turned aside to dream in some rich bower
Of Poesy I made from stars that shower
Their mysteries where images begin.
I know all this; and see against my name
The many marks tumultuously crowd.
For these in bitter pangs doubtless I'll pay.
But when the reckoning is done, and shame
Lies in her own poor home-spun little shroud,
Say that I gave a child one happy day.
First published in The Australasian, 20 December 1924
A Queensland girl-- not a beauty;
But, oh! the dear, deep eyes of her!
A man might forget his duty,
Find his brain in a hopeless whirr,
Where Love and Hate and Longing whirl,
All because of that Queensland girl!
For she had a way of looking at you,
With her eyes as brown as a grass-tree's spears,
Till your soul fell shuddering thro' and thro',
So near to laughter; so close to tears!
'Twas as though she took your heart in her hand,
And turned and looked at it, pressed it close,
And left you a god with a world's command,
Or helpless, rudderless, all morose!
She wanted the dingo's skin for her room
As a tawny mat for her trim arched feet;
So I followed him through the green scrub gloom,
And I lost him northward with hack dead beat.
But I hurried back to the river gate,
And I caught and saddled the outlaw brown,
And by storm-red dawning and star-shine late,
With a sure white anger I tracked him down!
So I carried the pelt to her at last,
Sweet, tanned, and soft for her rosy feet,
And the one swift, flickering smile she cast
Chained me to her chariot wheels complete!
She wanted a cluster of water-buds,
Blooms that rise on the grey "Dead Man's" lagoon;
Just a few were left since the Autumn floods,
And I rode to pluck them one afternoon.
A treacherous place with a weed-pack old,
Weed that twists and twines round the swimmer's limbs
Till it grips him close in each slimy fold,
And bad luck to the man who weakly swims!
With a hearing chest I had dragged them up,
Slippery snake-stalk and dripping flower,
Of pale fragile petal and golden cup,
That would wilt and die in one sun-warm hour.
But I splashed by swamp and by crackling reed
From the spot where the nesting black duck wake,
And the brown's side showed how good horses bleed
For a foolish whim and a woman's sake.
But the lingering touch from her sun-kissed hand--
Oh! men who have loved, can you understand?
Had she sighed at night for the first wan star
That high in the gallery of planets woke,
I vow I had climbed to my neck's risk, far
On the bending boughs of the silky oak--
I had stretched my fingers, all desperate,
I had strained my arms o'er Death's very brink,
Tho' the blue star, hanging by Heaven's gate,
Would ever as distant and bluely blink--
Had she asked me to fetch a northern pearl,
Where the coral reef thro' the surf strikes down,
I had spurned the waves for that Queensland girl
To the myriad crab-walks winding brown --
Where the black shark cuts thro 'the amber gleam
Of the emerald-hued, sun-filtered sea,
And the mermaids rock in a long day dream
With their flax hair falling from brow to knee.
I had dared it all for the promised bliss
Of her soul and her body's white for mine,
For the jewel rare of her slow, fond kiss,
And the wife-caress and the arms that twine.
But she loved me not, and at last I knew,
And I vowed myself for the barren West,
With love that writhed and a grief that grew,
And the hate of rivals within my breast.
There were other suitors who came to woo,
Fine and honest men for a woman's mate
Oh! you who have loved will have mem'ry, too,
Of the way that a jealous man can hate!
For she had a way of looking at them,
With eyes as brown as the grass-tree spears;
With deep-down the glint of a hidden gem,
That would never melt into gentle tears,
For the laughter came like a shaft of sun,
And stayed in her eyes like a wreath of stars
When the sunset pales and the sky grows dun
Out above the line of the black belars.
And they told me that one had wealth for her,
A treasure of jewels and tracts of land;
But she still would smile and a space demur
Ere she gave forever that slim brown hand.
But the end was sure; he was tall and straight;
Blue-eyed as a sapphire Queensland sky;
Just the man for a slight, dark woman's mate,
And no rough bush-wooer, tongue-tied as I!
So I went at dusk to her window ledge
And I laid my gift on her window-sill
Of a fern frond pulled by the river's edge,
And some heart-sweet hoya from up the hill.
Then I turned away where the white gate swings,
And the quivering gum trees arch and sigh,
And I heard the brush of a night hawk's wings
That swooped and struck as it hastened by.
"It is done," I said. "'Tis my one good-bye,
And at dawn I ride to the sun-parched West."
Then I heard a sound like a plover's cry,
And it seemed that leaf fell on my breast.
Not a leaf-- a hand! Does my brain still swirl!
It was Death -- but she -- she has made it life,
For my arms were holding my Queensland girl,
"My Queen, my maiden, my love, my wife!"
For she has a way of looking at you,
With her eyes as brown as the grass-tree spears,
Till your sour falls shuddering thro' and thro',
Half in rippling, laughter and half in tears.
And she took my heart in her tender hand,
And she read it truly, and held it near,
Till I was a god with a world's command,
Till I was the King whom the Queen found dear!
A Queensland girl-- not a beauty;
But, oh! the dear deep eyes of her!
A man who forgets his duty,
Find his brain in a hopeless whirr,
Where Love and Hate and Madness whirl,
All because of that Queensland girl!
First published in The Sunday Times, 19 December 1909
High noon flooded the mountain-side
In summery silence deep.
All on a sudden the valley sighed,
And the wind awoke from sleep.
All on a sudden the wind awoke
Whispering far and near.
Tree-top with rustling tree-top spoke,
And the saplings leaned to hear.
It broke the spirals of blue wood-smoke,
The scents of the Bush unbound,
Till all the world was a leafy cloak
Of murmur and light and sound.
Then, letting the sun-drenched fragrance fall
To earth like a drift of rain,
Tired at the mountain's misty wall
It sank into sleep again.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 1937
As I went up by Oliver's Hill,
The sea lay under me, blue and still,
With the curving sand and the tea-tree laid
In a marbled pattern of light and shade.
As I went up by Oliver's Hill,
I whistled a tune that was blithe and shrill;
No happier thing, there moved than I
Under the matchless morning sky!
As I looked out from Oliver's Hill
Over the sea world, blue and still,
I saw a ship with a wisp of grey
Moving out on the far-away.
As I came down from Oliver's Hill
My heart lay grieving, cold and still!
How to stay while that ship rode free,
To breast the tides of some unknown sea!
First published in The Australasian, 17 December 1927
We, the haters of war,
Its folly and its waste;
Cry to the builders of ships,
Cry to the makers of guns:
Haste!
Lest the words, "It is ours!"
Be but an empty boast --
Empty the sunlit miles,
Empty the dreaming coast.
If you would keep your land,
Pinewood, and gum and palm,
We, the haters of war,
Cry to the nation, "Arm!"
Let our air fleets gather and wing
High in the dazzling blue;
Defence, for the homes we love,
The creeds that our fathers knew
Lest over the peaceful seas,
Over the coralled coast,
Threaten the alien hordes,
Threatens the robber host!
Tall are our city towers,
Pride to our hearts they give:
Ours is the right to own,
Ours be the right to live!
We, the haters of war!
Its horror, its bitter waste,
Cry to the builders of ships,
Cry to the makers of guns:
"Haste!"
First published in The Courier-Mail, 16 December 1933
