Once more this Autumn-earth is ripe,
Parturient of another type.
While with the Past old nations merge
His foot is on the Future's verge;
They watch him, as they huddle pent,
Striding a spacious continent,
Above the level deserts marge
Looming in his aloofness large.
No flower with fragile sweetness graced --
A lank weed wrestling with the waste.
Pallid of face and gaunt of limb,
The sweetness withered out of him.
Sombre, indomitable, wan,
The juices dried, the glad youth gone.
A little weary from his birth;
His laugh the spectre of a mirth.
Bitter beneath a bitter sky,
To Nature he has no reply.
Wanton, perhaps, and cruel. Yes,
Is not his sun more merciless?
Joy his such niggard dole to give,
He laughs, a child, glad just to live.
So drab and neutral in his day
He gleans a splendour in the grey.
And from his life's monotony
He lifts a subtle melody.
When earth so poor a banquet makes
His pleasures at a gulp he takes.
The feast is his to the last crumb;
Drink while he can, the drought will come.
His heart a sudden tropic flower,
He loves and loathes within an hour.
Yet you who by the pools abide,
Judge not the man who swerves aside.
He sees beyond your hazy fears;
He roads the desert of th eyears.
Rearing his cities in the sand,
He builds where even God has banned.
With green a continent he crowns,
And stars a wilderness with towns.
His gyves of steel the great plain wears;
With roads the distances he snares.
A child given a world for toy,
To build a nation, or destroy.
His childish features frozen stern,
A nation's task he has to learn.
From feeble tribes to federate
One splendid, peace-encompassed State.
What if there be no goal to reach?
The road lies open, dawns beseech!
Enough that he lay down his load
A little further on the road.
So, toward undreamt-of destinies
He slouches down the centuries!
First published in The Bulletin, 17 June 1899;
and later in
Maoriland: and Other Verses by Arthur H. Adams, 1899;
The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1909;
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1918;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
The Poet's Discovery: Nineteenth Century Australia in Verse edited by Richard Douglas Jordan and Peter Pierce, 1990;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, 1998;
Our Country: Classic Australian Poetry: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, 2004; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
Parturient of another type.
While with the Past old nations merge
His foot is on the Future's verge;
They watch him, as they huddle pent,
Striding a spacious continent,
Above the level deserts marge
Looming in his aloofness large.
No flower with fragile sweetness graced --
A lank weed wrestling with the waste.
Pallid of face and gaunt of limb,
The sweetness withered out of him.
Sombre, indomitable, wan,
The juices dried, the glad youth gone.
A little weary from his birth;
His laugh the spectre of a mirth.
Bitter beneath a bitter sky,
To Nature he has no reply.
Wanton, perhaps, and cruel. Yes,
Is not his sun more merciless?
Joy his such niggard dole to give,
He laughs, a child, glad just to live.
So drab and neutral in his day
He gleans a splendour in the grey.
And from his life's monotony
He lifts a subtle melody.
When earth so poor a banquet makes
His pleasures at a gulp he takes.
The feast is his to the last crumb;
Drink while he can, the drought will come.
His heart a sudden tropic flower,
He loves and loathes within an hour.
Yet you who by the pools abide,
Judge not the man who swerves aside.
He sees beyond your hazy fears;
He roads the desert of th eyears.
Rearing his cities in the sand,
He builds where even God has banned.
With green a continent he crowns,
And stars a wilderness with towns.
His gyves of steel the great plain wears;
With roads the distances he snares.
A child given a world for toy,
To build a nation, or destroy.
His childish features frozen stern,
A nation's task he has to learn.
From feeble tribes to federate
One splendid, peace-encompassed State.
What if there be no goal to reach?
The road lies open, dawns beseech!
Enough that he lay down his load
A little further on the road.
So, toward undreamt-of destinies
He slouches down the centuries!
First published in The Bulletin, 17 June 1899;
and later in
Maoriland: and Other Verses by Arthur H. Adams, 1899;
The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1909;
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1918;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
The Poet's Discovery: Nineteenth Century Australia in Verse edited by Richard Douglas Jordan and Peter Pierce, 1990;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, 1998;
Our Country: Classic Australian Poetry: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, 2004; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
