On the storm-cloven Cape
The bitter waves roll
With the bergs of the Pole,
And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea;
For the storm-cloven Cape
Is an alien Shape
With a fearful face, and it moans and it stands
Outside all lands
Everlastingly!
When the fruits of the year
Have been gathered in Spain,
And the Indian rain
Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,
There comes to this Cape --
To this alien Shape,
As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth
The Wind of the North,
Euroclydon!
And the wilted thyme,
And the patches past
Of the nettles cast
In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
Are tumbled and blown
To every zone
With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
By this fourfold Wind --
This Wind sublime!
On the wrinkled hills
By starts and fits
The wild Moon sits,
And the rindles fill, and flash, and fall
In the way of her light
Through the straitened Night
When the sea heralds clamour and elves of the war
In the tortents afar,
Hold festival.
From ridge to ridge
The polar fires
On the naked spires
With a foreign splendeur flit and flow
And clough and cave
And architrave,
Are red from side to side, from wall to wall,
Like a nether hall
In the hells below!
The dead dry lips
Of the ledges, split
By the thunder-fit
And the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,
Anon break out
With a shriek and a shout,
Like a hard bitter laughter, cracked and thin
From a ghost with a sin
Too dark for a name!
And all through the year
The fierce seas run
From sun to sun;
Across the face of a vacant world!
And the Wind flies forth
From the wild white North,
That shivers and harries the heart of things,
And shapes with its wings
A Chaos uphurled!
Like one who sees
A rebel light
In the thick of the night,
As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar
Who looks to it still
Up hill and hill.
With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep
And rough and steep),
Like a steadfast star;
So I that Stand
On the outermost peaks
Of peril, with cheeks
Blue with the salts of a frosty Sea,
Have learnt to wait
With an eye elate,
And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze
Of the Beauty that rays
Like a glimpse for me.
Of the Beauty that grows
Whenever I hear
The Winds of Fear
From the tops and the bases of barrenness call.
And the duplicate lore
Which I learn evermore,
Is of harmony filling and rounding the Storm,
And the marvellous Form
That governs all!
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1866;
and later in
The Australasian, 23 March 1867;
Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall, 1869;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1957;
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966; and
Henry Kendall: Poetry, Prose and Selected Correspondence edited by Michael Ackland, 1993.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
The bitter waves roll
With the bergs of the Pole,
And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea;
For the storm-cloven Cape
Is an alien Shape
With a fearful face, and it moans and it stands
Outside all lands
Everlastingly!
When the fruits of the year
Have been gathered in Spain,
And the Indian rain
Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,
There comes to this Cape --
To this alien Shape,
As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth
The Wind of the North,
Euroclydon!
And the wilted thyme,
And the patches past
Of the nettles cast
In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
Are tumbled and blown
To every zone
With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
By this fourfold Wind --
This Wind sublime!
On the wrinkled hills
By starts and fits
The wild Moon sits,
And the rindles fill, and flash, and fall
In the way of her light
Through the straitened Night
When the sea heralds clamour and elves of the war
In the tortents afar,
Hold festival.
From ridge to ridge
The polar fires
On the naked spires
With a foreign splendeur flit and flow
And clough and cave
And architrave,
Are red from side to side, from wall to wall,
Like a nether hall
In the hells below!
The dead dry lips
Of the ledges, split
By the thunder-fit
And the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,
Anon break out
With a shriek and a shout,
Like a hard bitter laughter, cracked and thin
From a ghost with a sin
Too dark for a name!
And all through the year
The fierce seas run
From sun to sun;
Across the face of a vacant world!
And the Wind flies forth
From the wild white North,
That shivers and harries the heart of things,
And shapes with its wings
A Chaos uphurled!
Like one who sees
A rebel light
In the thick of the night,
As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar
Who looks to it still
Up hill and hill.
With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep
And rough and steep),
Like a steadfast star;
So I that Stand
On the outermost peaks
Of peril, with cheeks
Blue with the salts of a frosty Sea,
Have learnt to wait
With an eye elate,
And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze
Of the Beauty that rays
Like a glimpse for me.
Of the Beauty that grows
Whenever I hear
The Winds of Fear
From the tops and the bases of barrenness call.
And the duplicate lore
Which I learn evermore,
Is of harmony filling and rounding the Storm,
And the marvellous Form
That governs all!
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1866;
and later in
The Australasian, 23 March 1867;
Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall, 1869;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1957;
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966; and
Henry Kendall: Poetry, Prose and Selected Correspondence edited by Michael Ackland, 1993.
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
