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We played at love in Mulga Town,
   And oh, her eyes were blue,
We played at love in Mulga Town,
   And love's a game for two.
If three should play, alack-a-day!
   There's one of them will rue,
         Dear Heart,
   There's one of them will rue.

Three played at love in Mulga Town,
   True love they could not hide;
Three played at love in Mulga Town,
   Two laughed: the other sighed;
Though two may woo the wide world through,
   But one may kiss the bride,
         Dear Heart,
   But one may kiss the bride.

Three played at love in Mulga Town,
   And one's too sad to weep;
Three played at love in Mulga Town,
   The creek runs dark and deep;
So warm she flows no mortal knows
   How cold her dead may sleep,
         Dear Heart,
   How cold her dead may sleep.

First published in The Bulletin, 16 November 1895;
and later in
Fair Girls and Grey Horses: With Other Verses by Will H. Ogilvie, 1958.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also

Long time beside the squatter's gate
A great, grey box-tree, early, late,
Or shine or rain, in silence there
Had stood and watched the seasons fare.
Had seen the wind upon the plain
Caress the amber ears of grain,
The river burst its banks and come
Far past its belt of mighty gum:
Had seen the scarlet months of drought
Scourging the land with fiery knout.
And seasons ill and seasons good
Had alternated as they would;
The years were born, had grown and gone,
While suns had set and suns had shone,
Fierce flames had swept, chill waters drenched,
That sturdy yeoman never blenched.

The tree had watched the station grow,
The buildings rising row on row,
And from that point of vantage green,
Peering athwart its leafy screen,
The wondering soldier-birds had seen
The lumbering bullock-dray draw near,
Led by that swarthy pioneer,
Who, gazing at the pleasant shade,
Was tempted, dropped his whip and stayed,
Brought there his wanderings to a close,
Unloosed the polished yokes and bows;
The bullocks, thankful for the boon,
Rang on their bells a merry tune.
The hobbles clinked, the horses grazed,
The snowy calico was raised;
The fire was lit, the fragrant tea
Drunk to a sunset melody
Timed by the day before it died,
To waken on earth's other side.
There 'twas beneath that box-tree's shade
Fortune's foundation-stone was laid;
Cemented fast with toil and thrift
Stone upon stone was laid to lift
A mighty arch, commemorate
Of one who reached the goal too late.
That white-haired pioneer, with pride,
Fitted the keystone; then he died:
His toil, his thrift, all to what boot?
He gave his life for Dead Sea fruit:
What did it boot his wide domain
Of feathered pine and sweeping plain,
Sand-ridge and turf? for he lay dead,
Another reigning in his stead.

His sons forgot him; but that tree
Mourned for him long and silently,
And o'er the old man's lonely bier
Would, if he could, have dropped a tear;
One other being only shared
His grief, one other only cared.
And she was but a six years' maid --
His grandchild, who had watched him fade
In childish ignorance, and wept
Because the poor old grandad slept
So long a sleep and never came
To smile upon her at her game,
Or tell her stories of the fays
And giants of the olden days.
She cared, and as the seasons sped,
Linked by the memory of the dead,
They two, the box-tree and the child,
Grew old in friendship, and she smiled,
Clapping her chubby hands with glee,
When for her pleasure that old tree
Would shake his limbs, and let the light
Glance, in a million sparkles bright,
From off his polished olive cloak;
Then would the infant gently stroke
His massive bole, and laughing try
To count the patches of blue sky,
Betwixt his leaves, or in the shades
That trembled on the grassy blades
Trace curious faces, till her head
Of gold grew heavy, then he'd spread
His leaves to shield her, while he droned
A lullaby, so softly toned
It seemed but as the gentle sigh
Of Summer, as she floated by;
While bird and beast grew humble-voiced,
Seeing those golden ringlets moist
With dew of sleep. With one small hand
Grasping a grass-stem for a wand,
Titania slept; Nature nor spoke,
Nor dared to breathe, until she woke.

The years passed onward, and perchance
The tree had shot his tufted lance
Up to the sky a few slow feet,
But one great limb grew down to greet
His mistress, who had ne'er declined
In love for him, though far behind
Her child-life lay, and now she stood
Waiting to welcome womanhood;
She loved him always as of old;
Yet would his great roots grasp the mould,
And knotted branches grind and groan
To see her seek him not alone;
For lovers came and 'neath those boughs
With suave conversing sought to rouse
The slumbering passion in a breast
Whose coldness gave an added zest
To the pursuit, but all in vain
They spoke the once, nor came again
Save one alone who pressed his suit
(Man-like, he loved forbidden fruit)
And strove to change her nay to yea
Until it fell upon a day
Once more he put his fate to proof
Standing beneath that olive roof,
And though her answer still was "no"
He, half-incensed, refused to go,
Asking her, had she heart for none
Because there was some other one
Who claimed it all, whereon the maid
Slipped off her ring and laughing said:
"Look you, my friend, here now I prove
The truth of it, and pledge my love,"
And poised on tiptoe, touched a limb
That bent to gratify her whim;
She slipped the golden circle on
A tiny branchlet, whence it shone
Mocking the suitor with its gleam,
A quaint dispersal of his dream.
She left the trinket there, but when
She came to take it back again,
She found it not; nor though she knelt
Upon the scented grass, and felt
Among its roots, or parted sheaves
Could it be found, the box-tree held
Her troth for aye: his great form swelled
Until the bitter sap swept through
His veins and gave him youth anew.

With busy fingers, Lank and thin,
The fatal Sisters sit and spin
Life's web, in gloomy musings wrapt,
Caring not when a thread is snapped,
What harm its severance may do --
Whether it strangleth one or two.

Alas, there came an awful space
Of time, wherein that sweet, young face
Grew pale, its sharpened outline pressed
Deep in the pillow, for a guest,
Unsought, unbidden, forced his way
Into the chamber where she lay.
'Twas Death! -- outside the box-tree kept
Sad vigil, and at times he swept
His branches softly, as a thrill
Shot through his framework, boding ill
To her he loved, and so he bade
A bird fly ask her why she stayed.
The messenger, with glistening eye,
Returned, and said, "The maid doth lie
Asleep. I tapped upon the pane,
She stirred not, so I tapped again.
She rests so silent on her bed --
Tired, that I fear the maid is dead;
For they have cut great sprays of bloom
And laid them all about the room.
The scent of roses fills the air,
They nestle in her breast and hair,
Like snowy mourners, scented, sweet,
Around her pillow and her feet."
"Ah, me!" the box-tree, sighing, said;
"My love is dead, my love is dead!"
And shook his branches till each leaf
Chorused his agony of grief.

They bore the maiden forth and laid
Her down to rest, where she had played
Amid her piles of forest spoil
In childhood; now the sun-caked soil
Closed over her. "Ah!" sighed the tree,
"Mark how my love doth come to me."
He pushed brown rootlets down and slid
Between the casket and its lid,
And bade them very gently creep,
And wake the maiden from her sleep.
The tiny filaments slipped down
And plucked the lace upon her gown;
She stirred not when they ventured near,
And softly whispered in her ear.
The silken fibres gently press
Upon her lips a chill caress;
They wreathe her waist, they brush her hair
Under her pallid eyelids stare.
Yet all in vain; she will not wake --
Not even for her lover's sake.
The box-tree groaned aloud and cried:
"Ah, me! grim Death hath stole my bride.
Where is she hidden? Where hath flown
Her soul? I cannot bide alone;
But fain would follow." Then he called
And whispered to an ant that crawled
Upon a bough, and bade it seek
The white-ant colony, and speak
A message, where, beneath a dome
Of earth, the white queen hath her home.
She sent a mighty army forth
That fall upon the tree in wrath,
And, entering by a tiny hole,
Fill all the hollow of his bole;
Through all its pipes and crannies pour,
Sharp at his aching heart-strings tore;
Along his branches built a maze
Of sinuous, earthen-covered ways,
His smooth leaves shrunk, his sap ran dry,
The sunbeams laughing from the sky
Helped the ant workers at their toil,
Sucking all moisture from the soil.

Then on a night the wind swept down
And rustled 'mid the foliage brown.
The mighty framework creaked and groaned
In giant agony, and moaned,
Its wind-swept branches growing numb,
"I come, my love! my love, I come!"
A gust more furious than the rest
Struck the great box tree's shivering crest
The great bole snapped across its girth,
The forest monarch fell to earth
With such a mighty rush of sound
The settlers heard it miles around,
While upward through the windy night
That faithful lover's soul took flight.

The squatter smiled to see it fall,
He sent his men with wedge and maul
Who split the tree, but found it good
For nothing more than kindling-wood.
They marvelled much to find a ring
Asking themselves what chanced to bring
The golden circlet which they found
Clasping a branchlet firmly round.
Foolish and blind! they could not see
The faithfulness of that dead tree.

First published in The Bulletin, 5 November 1892;
and later in
Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems by Barcroft Boake, 1897; and
Barcroft Boake: Collected Works, Edited, With a Life edited by W. F. Refshauge, 2007.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Oh! teach me to forget the home,
   The blessed home that once was mine;
Ere thou, vain trifler! bid'st me come,
   A slave, the worst of slaves, to thine.

Nor this as guilt's perverseness blame;
   Although my bitter choice be still
To reap the harvest of my shame,
   A self abandoned thing of ill!

To live in sin, untasked to smile
   On all its hateful misery,
Is better sure than contract vile
   To serve a heartless wretch like thee.

I would not it should seem that one,
   So low, so lost as I am now,
Could rest mid ruin's dark work done,
   Nor feel the serpent on my brow!

Go, breathe thy words in empty air:
   Believe not woman's shuddering soul,
Still goaded on by crime's despair,
   E'er sought in vice a happy goal!

First published in The Australasian Chronicle, 28 October 1841;
and later in
Stolen Moments: A Short Series of Poems by Henry Parkes, 1842.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Could I borrow the laverock's lilting note,
Of the silvery song from the blackbird's throat,
Then would I warble the whole day long,
Telling, in floods of passionate song,
How worlds might tremble, or skies might fall,
But Love, true Love, outlasteth all.

Or, with picturesque words, in phrases neat,
With ringing rhymes, and in sonnets sweet,
Had I the skill of the schoolman's craft
My song the murmurous breeze should waft,
And tell to her whom my heart loves best,
How Love outlasteth all the rest.

First published in The Bulletin, 24 October 1891, and again in the same magazine on 29 April 1931;
and later in
The Poetry of 'Breaker' Morant: from "The Bulletin" 1891-1903 with original illustrations by Breaker Morant, 1980.
 
Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Morning sparkle on sea and shore,
   Skies that wait for the rising moon,
Park-lights glowing, and how much more --
   All are set to a plaintive tune.
Something whispers "She is not here;"
   Something sighs "She is still away;"   
And I am missing my dearest dear
               Night and day.

Sea we gloried in, blue and gold,
   Lonely cliffs that we wandered on,  
All lie now like a story told --
   Where's the soul of their beauty gone?
Something's wrong with the world, I fear,
   One thing only can set it right;
And I am missing my dearest dear  
               Day and night.  

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 1927

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I built myself a splendid dwelling-place,
   An airy castle proud;
Its lights the stars the green eaves interlace,
   Its bastions of cloud.

I wove myself a wondrous cloak of dreams
   All Jacaranda-blue
And crimson of the waratah, and gleams
   Of moon-fire threaded through.

I made me dear companions of the winds
   That smudge the placid pool;
The creamy flowering woodbine that entwines
   The rose-hung arbours cool.

The unnamed blossoms growing starry-eyed
   In ferny bushland aisles;
The storm-wind, shouting in untrammelled pride
   Down the long forest miles.

You lost the keys of mine own castled steep,
   Trampled my dreams, and made a mock of them;
The magic cloak I always thought to keep
   You tore from hem to hem.

I seek for comfort where the red leaves burn
   In old, familiar ways of flower and tree;
My old companions know me not, and turn
   Their faces far from me.

Shivering and homeless, my soul seeks in grief
   For shelter while the storms of life go by;
If this be done in days of the green leaf.
   What of the sere and dry?

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 22 September 1928

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.    

I am not fit to enter. I can lie
Across God's doorstep, seeing you go by
In all your dainty holy loveliness;
And, if you pass me, can I love you less?

I am not fit to enter. I can stand
And touch the portal with my sinful hand,
While you who have no sinning to confess
May scorn me; but I shall not love you less!

First published in The Queenslander, 19 September 1896

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Fear is the shadow cast by Love
(Oh, why should Love a shadow cast?)
Blue-crystal is the sky above,
And sweet the mate-call of the dove,
And yet my heart beats hard and fast --
Seeing that little shadow there
The man who waved me his good-bye,
And rode where ring-barked trees stand bare --
I strain my eyes against the glare,
And shudder at a black crow's cry.
What if an empty-saddled horse
Should canter back with swinging rein?
My heart, leaps at imagined loss,
My blood runs backward to its source,
And night, at noon-day, darks the plain.
But when the sunset brings the sound
Of ringing hoofs, and his clear call,
Joy's flaming gold ring clips me round,
As though, indeed, the lost were found,
And Love by fear crowned Lord of All.  

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September 1935

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Like sunbeams of an angry day,
Which seem to weep their warmth away;
Like waves which winds at midnight make,
Chasing the moonbeams o'er the lake;
Waves of a breath, which tremble forth,
   In hidden beauty, but to die
The moment they would cling to earth,
   Are your hearts doom'd to love and sigh.
A flower of hope -- and hope so brief!
Which, shaken, sheds the seeds of grief;
A beam of peace, which passes by
Before the mourner's cheek is dry;
A beauteous dream of sweet distress
Is all the happiest here possess!
Then, think ye, if so fleet and vain
The most which Fortune's favourites gain --
Oh! think ye, what must be the fate
Of the despised and desolate,
O'er whom the blight of love is hurl'd,
Left withering in a smiling world.

First published in Australasian Chronicle, 12 September 1840;
and later in
Launceston Advertiser, 8 October 1840; and
Stolen Moments: A Short Series of Poems by Henry Parkes, 1842.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

I dream of an old kissing-time
   And the flowered follies there;
In the dim place of cherry-trees,
   Of you, and yellow air.

It was an age of babbling,
   When the players would play
Mad with the wine and miracles
   Of a charmed holiday.

Bewildered was the warm earth
   With whistling and sighs,
And a young foal spoke all his heart
   With diamonds for eyes.

You were of Love's own colour
   In eyes and heart and hair;
In the dim place of cherry-trees
   Ridden by yellow air.

It was the time when red lovers
   With the red fevers burn;
A time of bells and silver seeds
   And cherries on the turn.

Children looked into tall trees
   And old eyes looked behind;
God in His glad October
   No sullen man could find.

Out of your eyes a magic
   Fell lazily as dew,
And every lad with lad's eyes
   Made summer love to you.

It was a reign of roses,
   Of blue flowers for the eye,
And the rustling of green girls
   Under a white sky.

I dream of an old kissing-time
   And the flowered follies there,
In the dim place of cherry-trees,
   Of you, and yellow air.

First published in The Sun [Sydney], 4 September 1910;
and later in
The Bookfellow, October 1912;
The Worker, 31 July 1919;
Poetry in Australia 1923;
Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson by John Shaw Neilson, 1934;
Poems by John Shaw Neilson, 1964;
Australian Letters, 4 September 1964;
Green Days and Cherries: the early verses of Shaw Neilson edited by Hugh Anderson and Leslie James Blake, 1981;
This Australia, Spring 1985;
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, 1991;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poems edited by Jennifer Strauss, 1993;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993;
The Australian, 5 January 1994;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard 1998;
Hell and After: Four Early English Language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, 2005; 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.

'Twas the Spring in the air
  And a laughter that ran
Over Moina's black hair
   To the heart of a man;
With the thorn-bush in leaf
   And the wet clover green --
Och, April, you thief,
  Is it love that you mean?

'Twas her mother's white goat
   On the side of the hill
And the rain on my coat
   With the sun laughing still,
And the thought of her eyes --
   Sure, my heart is a gift,
In the black of surprise,
   When her eyelashes lift!

'Twas the word that I spoke
   With the wind blowing clear
And the small sob that broke
   In my throat full of fear.
"Och, Danny," she said,
   "There's the white cream to set
And the pigs to be fed
   And you're plaguing me yet?"

Would she slide past the door?
   Och, her tongue was too wise;
But I listened far more
   To the look in her eyes --
"Sure, stay and be kist."
   But she turned by the wall
With a fine-lady twist
   Of her head and her shawl.

'Twas the Spring in the air
   And the green of the world,
And the black of her hair
   Set me mad where it curled.
"Och, Moina, come out,
   Girl of dreams, and be kist" --
But she hit me a clout
   with the white of her fist.

Would she slide past the door?
   Sure, her mouth was too red.
With the cheek of me sore
   And those eyes in her head.
Troth, I kist her too well --
   Twenty times at the least.
"Now, Danny, we'll tell
   A small word to the priest."

First published in The Bulletin, 30 August 1917 and again in the same magazine on 30 October 1929;
and later in
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

To a bird upon a tree,
   Singing, singing, sweetly singing,
"Sure," I said, "a sprite like thee
Knows what's in the heart of me,  
   Singing, sweetly singing."  

"True," he said, "and that I know,
   Lover, lover, foolish lover:
She has hands as white as snow,
And a heart as cold as woe,
   Lover, foolish lover.  

"Keep your, song within its deeps,
   Lover, lover, wiser lover;
Kiss each pretty eye that peeps,
Kiss her till, of Joy she weeps,
   Lover, wiser lover."

But because my heart was shy,
   Shy and lonely, shy and lonely,
All his wisdom passed me by ---
Yet I won her with a sigh,   
   Lonely, shy and lonely.  

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1925

Author: Cecil Mann (1896-1967) was born in Cudgen, New South Wales, and worked for The Bulletin between 1925 and 1960.  He was, for a time, the editor of the Red Page in the magazine.  He died in Concord, New South Wales in 1967.

Author reference sites: Austlit

Many and many's the brand of Love sold by the huckster Life,
   Crying his wares in the market place and the wide crossways;  
The love like a rose and the love that grows with the thorns of passion rife,
   But the love that was made in fairyland in the land of fairy stays.

Some of the brands are brought with gold and some with prayer and fasting;
   Some (and the sweetest) for nothing at all, and some dear got with pain;  
Most of them fair to first sight, and few of them made to lasting,
   But the loves that were wrought in fairyland in fairyland remain.

We choose each prize with blindfold eyes, a strange method, surely;
   All of us seeking and few to find, that aught is what it seems;
The gold turns brass and the keenest pass where a jewel gleams purely.
   But the rarest, fairest love of all we only find in dreams.

The first love and the false love, lad's love gathered with rue;
   Old loves laid in rosemary that buyers pass by these days;
And Time alone is the harvester and winnows the false from true,   
   But the love that belongs to fairyland in the land of fairy stays.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 17 August 1929

Author reference site: Austlit

See also. 

I called her once, heart-proud with youth's hot wine,
Deeming that but to call must make her mine,
Seeing responsive eyes in Fancy shine --
            I called her once.

But never answer gave she, sad or gay;
Only a silence o'er the untrod way,
Only a distance widening day by day.

I called her once, angry with Life's defeat,
Feeling forgiving eyes would be so sweet,
Ready to lay my failures at her feet ---   
            I called her once.

But only chiding gave she scornfully,
"Arise! and make the world take heed of thee,
And when triumphant then return to me."

I called her once; a whisper and a sigh,
"A prayer she must not hear" --- so faltered I;
"Yet my fond heart will call her ere I die!"   

            I called her once,
And what an answer gave she back to me!   
Ah! there was glory on the earth and sea,
And hands and lips that hovered tenderly!  

First published in The Queenslander, 13 August 1898

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Now, all the world is green and bright
   Outside the latticed pane;
The fields are decked with gold and white,
   And Spring has come again.
But though the world be fair without,
   With flow'rs and waving trees,
'Tis pleasanter to be about
   Where Nell's a-shelling peas.

Her eyes are blue as cloudless skies,
   And dimples deck her cheeks;
Whilst soft lights loiter in her eyes
   Whene'er she smiles or speaks.
So all the sunlit morning-tide
   I dally at mine ease,
To loaf at slender Nelly's side
   When Nell's a-shelling peas.

This bard, who sits a-watching Nell,
   With fingers white and slim,
Owns up that, as she breaks each shell,
   She also "breaks up" him;
And could devoutly drop upon
   Submissive, bended knees
To worship Nell with apron on -
   A saint a-shelling peas.

The tucked-up muslin sleeves disclose
   Her round arms white and bare -
'Tis only "shelling peas" that shows
   Those dainty dimples there.
Old earth owns many sights to see
   That captivate and please; -
The most bewitching sight for me
   Is Nell a-shelling peas.

First published in The Bulletin, 9 August 1902;
and later in
The Poetry of "Breaker" Morant: from The Bulletin 1891-903 with original illustrations by Breaker Morant; and
The Language of Love: An Anthology of Australian Love letters, Poetry and Prose edited by Pamela Allardice,1991.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also. 

Better the end of a thing
   Than the beginning thereof;
Farewell, you and caresses,
   Lavendered manners of love!
I'm for the burdens and stresses:
   Farewell, languid delays,
Pressed mouths pasturing,
   Poems of wondrous praise!

There's no mystery brooding
   Now on your excellent ways:
sunlight has gone from your hair,
   Stars have recalled your gaze.
You, though eternally fair,
   Lie at my heart like a stone,
All your ardor and mooding
   Ranged, exploited and known.

Better the end of a thing
   Than the beginning, my friend.
Better be patient than proud.
   Patience! Accept the end:
Scorn what your passion avowed.
   That was mere clamor and wail:
Pain is our stanchioning.
   Only irresolutes fail.

Not by a God-given light,
   Flaring on fates concealed --
Trial's the magic whereby
   Heights of our fate are revealed.
Stifle your heart should it cry,
   Hold your resentment at bay;
What is the word for to-night?
   Hate, hate and away.

Turn to lost things and forget
   When this spectre of wrong
Storms through a shattered defence,
   Lashes your flesh with a thong.
Moan your lost innocence --
   Love with ambition contending,
Love in its dying set,
   Stars at the highway's ending.

All that is sacred is named,
   Unknown regions are best,
Useless things I adore
   Trouble me, being possessed.
Taunt me with peace no more,
   Weary of home-fires tended,
These have left me ashamed,
   Yearning for ways unwended.

You have become too real,
   Love I so heavily rue.
All that has blossomed must die;
   Only illusion is true.
Uttered thought is a lie,
   Love, acknowledged, a snare;
In this dusk I will steal
   Out to I know not where.

Better the placid sea-love
   Than the cities of haste.
Better revolt than retract.
   Better be blasted than waste;
Better the dream than the fact,
   Illusions can seldom change.
Dreamers in strangeness move
   Knowing nothing is strange.

First published in The Bulletin, 31 July 1924

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Kenneth, the blue of your bright eyes,
Azure as new-winged butterflies
Or sea-lochs on a summer day,
Tell-ages gone and far away --
Of long ships ploughing furrowed seas
To seek the lonely Hebrides.

Those silk-fringed founts of tears and smiles
Tell stories of the Western Isles,
And tales of friendship or fray
Won by the sons of Norroway;
Tell of our Gaelic chieftains wed
To daughters of bold Somerled;

Aye, and in what Lochaber glen  
Bide not the bonnie, blue-eyed men,
Whose foredame's pledge lang syne was ta'en
To tryst the summer-roving Dane?

Your little life, so new begun
Beneath the kind Australian sun,
Where Warning pricks the matin's blue
(Not brighter than the eyes of you!)
Sings through a babe's dear witcheries
Old sagas of the northern seas.
Viking and Gael -- their history lies --
Old wars, old loves -- in those blue eyes.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 1933

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

Thinking of thee, my love, always of thee,
   Sweet are my dreams as the last sunbeam dies,
The morning reveals the far-severing sea,
   The gloaming brings glances from thy loving eyes.

Through vanishing distance each glance swiftly flies,
   Bringing its marvellous message to me;
Whispering softly, when lately it lies
   At home in my heart,"I am thinking of thee."

Thinking of thee, my love, loving hearts blend,
   Thought answers thought o'er the wide seas that sever;
In that wonderful land of dreams lover and friend
   May meet, and may linger for ever and ever.

Then welcome, dear dreamland, that comes with the gloaming,
   Till seas no more sever, till grief cannot rend
Fond hearts now far sundered, the wide world roaming,
   Till Love, all triumphant, unites in the end!

First published in The Queenslander, 18 June 1898

Author: William Main (1860-1946) was born in Glasgow and arrived in Queensland in 1887.  He worked in the agricultural industry and contributed to a number of Queensland and Sydney publications.  He died in Goodna, Queensland, in 1946.

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

In the moonlight, by the gum trees,
   Whispered he a tale of love,
And with weariless endeavour
   Strove his passioned words to prove;
But she laughed and jested lightly ---
   She would not believe it so ---
Then her laughter changed to anger,
   Haughtily she bade him go.     

So he went --- her words were bitter;
   So he went --- she told him to;
Through the moonlight, from the gum trees,
   So he went, nor said adieu.
While the moonlight on the gum trees
  „ Floods them with a silver light,
Still the heart of him who loves her
   Lives in one long moonless night.  

First published in The Queenslander, 13 June 1896

Author: nothing is known about the author of this poem.

Author reference site: Austlit

Oh! golden are the dreams of youth
   By ardent fancy brightly painted;
But broken dreams they prove, forsooth,
   As we with life grow more acquainted.
And thou, staid Benedict and meek,
   Who now at home by night must tarry,
Upon one theme thou durst not speak--
   "The girls we loved --- but didn't many."

O long array of peerless forms!
   O faultless faces, bold or tender!
O days of ardour, sighs in storms,   
   And unconditional surrender!
Surely their eyes were every hue;
   Their thrilling glances none could parry;
O fools! -- we loved, and thought them true ---
   The girls we loved --- but didn't marry.

Amelia swore, with brimming eyes,
   To love for ever and for ever;
And Agnes murmured thro' her sighs
   That Death alone our hearts could sever.
Where is the faithless Fanny gone?
   And where the captivating Carry!   
O bane deceivers --- false --- forsworn!
   The girls we loved --- but didn't marry.

How oft Georgina gave the hand
   A lingering pressure ere we parted!   
Sweet were the moments when we fanned
   False Bess, who left us broken-hearted.
Georgina now is Mrs. Pott,
   And Bess has wedded old Glengarry.
Alas! They found out what was what ---
   Those girls we loved --- but didn't marry.

Ah well! The plaited braid of hair,
   The faded scrawl on tinted paper,
The trinkets that we kept with care,
   The tiny glove, once white and taper.
Alas! 'tis all we have to show
   Romantic notions will miscarry.
They loved and left us --- Let them go ---
   The girls we loved -- but didn't marry!   

Come, fill your glasses to the brim,
   And thank the stars that shine above us
We could not gratify each whim,
   Nor wed with all who swore to love us.   
True freedom dies with single bliss,
   And wedlock's chains are hard to carry.
One toast I pledge you --- Drink to this:
   The girls we loved --- but didn't marry!

First published in The Queenslander, 9 June 1888;
and later in
The Boomerang, 2 April 1892.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

   It was, I well remember,
      The merry Springtime, when
   Young Dora in the eventide
      Came singing up the Glen:  
   Came singing up the Glen,
      Till I felt her tuneful art,
Like a subtle stream of vocal fire
   Run glowing through my heart.

   A fond resolve, long cherished,
      Till then I might control;     
   Till then-but oh! that witching strain,
      It drew it from my soul:
   It drew it from my soul,
      And she did not say me nay,  
And the world of Love was all the world
   To us that happy day.

   I'm happy now in thinking
      How happy I was then,  
   When tow'rds the glowing west, my love
      Went homeward down the Glen:
   Went homoward down the Glen,
      While my comfort surer grew,
Till methought the old-faced hills all looked  
   As they were happy too.      

First published in The Empire, 2 June 1856;
and later in
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R.H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982; and
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Was it the sun that broke my dream
or was't the dazzle of thy hair
caught where our olden meadows seem
themselves again and yet more fair?

Ah, sun that woke me, limpid stream,
then in the spring-mornings' rapture of air!
Was it the sun that broke my dream
of was't the dazzle of thy hair?

And dist not thou beside me gleam,
brought hither by a tender care
at least my slumbering grief to share?
Are only the cold seas supreme?
Was it the sun that broke my dream?

First published in The Australian Magazine, 30 May 1899;
and later in
The Verse of Christopher Brennan edited by A.R. Chisholm and John Joseph Quinn, 1960;
Poems [1913] by Christopher Brennan, 1972;
Selected Poems edited by G.A. Wilkes, 1973; and
Christopher Brennan edited by Terry Strum, 1984.

Note: this poem is also known by the title Towards the Source : 1894-97 : 21.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

We met: it was but to part; yet we had one month of gladness --
   Real gladness, sympathetic, ecstatic, voluptuous;
A prelude, it may be, to years of a regretful sadness --
   Such sadness as is possible to light-of-hearts like us.

Not that we loved as lovers do, for both of us were wedded;
   You to an absent husband, and I to a darling wife,
Whom I hardly leave an instant, so deeply is she imbedded
   'Mid my heart roots, and inseparably bound up with my life.

But you are my affinity, my female alter ego;
   You feel the same delights and woes and impulses as I;  
Beneath the same stars you were born as I -- sic astra lego --
   And love, as I, whate'er is fair and goodly 'neath the sky.  

How happy had we both been had your lot been cast to linger
   Among the canes and orange trees of your own sunny land;
Lounging on April afternoons, and reading some sweet singer,        
   Or talking half-tender banter when we had no book at hand.

How happy both of us might be if, with no long delaying,  
   'Twere mine to seek the great old land from which I drew my birth;
And with you in the English lanes take both our children maying,
   Or wander amid keeps and fanes half-hidden in the earth.      

We might live like model neighbours in a straggling Kentish village,
   In quaint old gabled houses perched on some commanding ridge,
And for our landscape have just hops and orchard trees and tillage,
   And a bluff Norman church-tow'r, and a narrow steep-arched bridge.

We might go up every June to see the million-peopled city;
   To see the best theatres, the Academy and Row:
For both of us delight in what is costly, grand, or pretty,
   And one's taste for the artistic wants a snack each year or so.

For my books we'd choose a room, with the morning sun to kiss it,
   And full of capabilities for adding fresh bookshelves
For swarms that would accumulate on every London visit;
   And, if we could contrive it, a bay-window for ourselves.

Lined with deep-cushioned lounges. We'd have sunny garden-closes,
   Where we could grow some hardy trees from our soft southern home,
And eke the puny summer out among the trees and roses,
   And cheat ourselves with the belief that winter'd never come.      

First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 26 May 1883

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

If, for some fault committed here,
You are condemned, who are my dear;
Or, for a word you could not say
All hope of Heaven were cast away --
   I should pray to be wherever you be, my dear,
   Without blame and without fear.

Love is not love that cannot share
The fine lot with the commoner;
Nor, having known perfected joy,
Disdains that, mingled with alloy --
   I should pray to be wherever you be, my dear,
   Without blame, and without fear.

If perfect bliss were offered me
To keep for all eternity
Nor any memory of you
To give me hurt, to bring me true --
   I should pray to be wherever you be, my dear,
   Without blame, and without fear.

The deepest hell could not affright
My heart, that knew a pure delight,
And it would be my splendid pride
To stay forever by your side --
   I should pray to be wherever you be, my dear,
   Without blame, and without fear.

And should you, freed from taint of sin,
Go heavenward, might I enter in.
A loving soul? No power can slay
The soul of love; it lasts alway! --
   I should pray to be wherever you be my dear,
   Without blame, and without fear.  

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 1934

Author reference site: Austlit

See also. 

Quietly as rosebuds
   Talk to thin air,
Love came so lightly
   I knew not he was there.

Quietly as lovers
   Creep at the middle noon,
Softly as players tremble
   In the tears of a tune;

Quietly as lilies
   Their faint vows declare,
Came the shy pilgrim:
   I knew not he was there.

Quietly as tears fall
   On a warm sin,
Softly as griefs call
   In a violin;

Without hail or tempest,
   Blue sword or flame,
Love came so lightly
   I knew not that he came.

First published in The Sun [Sydney], 14 May 1911;
and later in
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1918;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R.H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
New Song in an Old Land edited by Rex Ingamells, 1948;
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R.G. Howarth, 1958;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
Makar, May 1965;
Green Days and Cherries: the early verses of Shaw Neilson edited by Hugh Anderson and Leslie James Blake, 1981;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984;
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Love Came So Lightly: Australian Love Sonnets and Such, 1990;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
The Language of Love: An Anthology of Australian Love Letters, Poetry and Prose edited by Pamela Allardice, 1991;
The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poems edited by Jennifer Strauss, 1993;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993;
Hell and After: Four Early English Language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, 2005;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, 2007;
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, 2009; and
100 Australian Poems of Love and Loss edited by Jamie Grant, 2011.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

My love is the rosy-fingered dawn,
Which heralds the birth of the fragrant morn,
And beareth a chalice which sheddeth showers
Of crystal dew o'er the dreaming flowers.    

My love is the king with the torch of gold,
Whose flambent rays doth dear earth enfold,
Who kissed the amorous, waiting west,
And gildeth a path o'er the ocean's breast.  

My love is that queenly vision meek,
With pale fires quenched, and a paler cheek,
Who walketh so softly and regal, yet sad,
But who wreathed in such beauty doth make me glad.

My love is that temple with dome so blue,
Where those gleaming jewels the stars peep through,
With the swinging earth a cushion where we
May behold the celestial pageantry.

My love is life's music-the deep rich chords
Hath the soul for a reed, though it breathe no words,
Like a string of gems in a holy shrine,
And each gem a pure note on a lute divine.  

Oh, love! Life's song which is sweetest flows
To the stately measure the dreamer knows,
With a thrilling cadenza in mortal ears.
Where life's song endeth there are no tears.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 13 May 1914;
and later in
Rustling Leaves: Selected Poems by Emily Coungeau, 1920.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

For I have been no near -- so near
   That I could hear your heart's sweet rhyme
Singing its song of Love and Fear
   And joy of Youth and scorn of Time!
So near! The fragrance of your breast
   Beset me, bidding me forget
Name, fame and birthright and the rest --
   All things that bound me e'er we met!
So close I needs must hold my breath
   Lest it should shatter in a trice
The web 'twixt you and me and Death,
   Brittle as Love and cold as ice!
And I must school my eager hand
   To meet your hand and tell it nought!
Ah! Resolutions writ in sand!
   Ah! Selfish honor, dearly bought!
I know the soft sound of your tread,
   The sweetness of your loving lip,
And every curve from heel to head,
   From finger-tip to finger-tip!
And yet ---- . . .
   . . . The little space between
(Scarce a hand's breath, a tiny span!)
   Might all the world as well have been,
To part a woman and a man.

First published in The Bulletin, 28 April 1904;
and later in
Many Ladies (And Others) by Charles Souter, 1917.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

A long time waiting with little to show,
   We sat in our boat, at either side,
While the listless weeds washed to and fro.
   And here and there, at the will of the tide.

The bay was still. and the trees and flowers
   That nodded at noon were all asleep;
Yet never a silver-bream was ours.
   And never a crimson lord of the deep.

With little to say and much to think,
   We watched, while the velvet hours went by;
The ripples arise and the ripples sink,
   Alone on the water -- Rose and I.

I said to her then: "The good time flies.
   Let us get hence for the bay is wide."
Rose lifted her dark blue, laughing eys.
   And "Wait," she said, "till the turn of the tide."

The bay was azure from east to west --
   All still and azure from north to south;
The rose that reddened on Rose's breast
   Was red as the rose of Rose's mouth.

"'Tis weary waiting." I said to Rose.
   (Was ever a rose as fair as she?)
"The love-hour comes, and the love-hour goes.
   And when will the bright 'Yes° spoken be?."

Then Rose grew red -- do you wonder why? --
   And, somehow or other, I said or sighed:
"The line is set, but the prey is shy --
   I'll wait, dear Rose, till the turn of the tide."

First published in The Bulletin, 22 April 1915

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

God be with you, whose golden hair
Has been to me a beacon-glare
Of bright and virtuous womanhood.
Graceful and arch no less than good!
You who have had your hearty share
In every pleasure, every care,
That fell to me, while living there,
At home or in the summer air,
   God be with you!

And, while I whisper kindling hopes
Of true love-freighted envelopes
From one well worthy of your choice
To make your gentle heart rojoice,
My heart still echoes, as it droops,
   God be with you!

First published in The Queenslander, 21 April 1883;
and later in
A Poetry of Exiles and Other Poems by Douglas B. W. Sladen, 1884

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land ---
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung --- her face grew pale ---
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim! ---
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, "Good-bye, Mary!" "Good-bye, Jim!"

      Oh! he rides hard to race the pain
      Who rides from love, who rides from home;
      But he rides slowly home again
      Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.

A hand upon the horse's mane,
And one foot in the stirrups set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With "Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret!
When I come back" --- he laughed for her ---
"We do not know how soon 'twill be;
I'll whistle as I round the 'spur' ---
You let the sliprails down for me."

She gasped for sudden loss of hope,
As, with a backward wave to her,
He cantered down the grassy slope
And swiftly round the dark'ning spur.
Black-pencilled panels standing high,
And darkness fading into stars,
And blurring fast against the sky,
A faint white form beside the bars.

And often at the set of sun,
In winter bleak and summer brown,
She'd steal across the little run,
And shyly let the sliprails down.
And listen there when darkness shut
The nearer spur in silence deep;
And when they called her from the hut
Steal home and cry herself to sleep.

A great white gate where sliprails were,
A brick house 'neath the mountain brow,
The "mad girl" buried by the spur
So long ago, forgotten now.

      And he rides hard to dull the pain
      Who rides from one that loves him best;
      And he rides slowly back again,
      Whose restless heart must rove for rest.

First published in The Bulletin, 1 April 1899;
and later in
In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, 1900;
An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1907;
The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1909;
Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, 1924;
The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch, 1924;
Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stevens, 1925;
The Australian Women's Mirror, 5 January 1926;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
New Song in an Old Land edited by Rex Ingamells, 1943;
Out Back and Other Poems by Henry Lawson, 1943;
Spoils of Time: Some Poems of the English Speaking Peoples edited by Rex Ingamells, 1948;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
Poems of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, 1973;
The World of Henry Lawson edited by Walter Stone, 1974;
The Essential Henry Lawson edited by Brian Kiernan, 1982;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984;
A Camp-Fire Yarn: Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, 1984;
The Language of Love: An Anthology of Australian Love Letters, Poetry and Prose edited by Pamela Allardice, 1991;
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, 1993;
Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, 1998; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library, The Poetry of Henry Lawson website

See also.

I met her on the Lachlan Side --
   A darling girl I thought her,
And ere I left I swore I'd win
   The free-selector's daughter.

I milked her father's cows a month,
   I brought the wood and water,
I mended all the broken fence,
   Before I won the daughter.

I listened to her father's yarns,
   I did just what I 'oughter',
And what you'll have to do to win
   A free-selector's daughter.

I broke my pipe and burnt my twist,
   And washed my mouth with water;
I had a shave before I kissed
   The free-selector's daughter.

Then, rising in the frosty morn,
   I brought the cows for Mary,
And when I'd milked a bucketful
   I took it to the dairy.

I poured the milk into the dish
   While Mary held the strainer,
I summoned heart to speak my wish,
   And, oh! her blush grew plainer.

I told her I must leave the place,
   I said that I would miss her;
At first she turned away her face,
   And then she let me kiss her.

I put the bucket on the ground,
   And in my arms I caught her:
I'd give the world to hold again
   That free-selector's daughter!

First published in The Boomerang, 28 March 1891;
and later in
In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, 1900;
The Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 January 1905;
Humorous Verses by Henry Lawson, 1941;
Henry Lawson: Collected Verse: Vol 1 1885-1900 edited by Colin Roderick, 1967;
Along the Western Road: Bush Stories and Ballads, 1981;
A Camp-Fire Yarn: Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, 1984;
Henry Lawson: An Illustrated Treasury compiled by Glenys Smith, 1985;
A Collection of Australian Bush Verse, 1989; and
An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse edited by Jim Haynes, 2002.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library, The Poetry of Henry Lawson website

See also.

Lo, once thy loveliness a radiance shed,
   The lustre of the stars was in thine eye,   
An aureole of beauty o'er thy head,  
   Marked thee too beautiful a thing to die.

Silent and stiff, no breath of fragrance now
   Wafteth its balm to lead me to my goal,   
The silken hair that traileth o'er thy brow
   A girdle was which bound me to thy soul.

Or so I dreamed -- thy voice so softly low;
   The deepest fibres of my being stirred,
Falling in silver quivers from the bow
   Of thy curved lips as a sweet harpsichord.

And when thy slender fingers touched the strings
   In cadence sad or passionate lament,
In spirit I could feel the mystic wings  
   Of love which sanctified our sacrament.   

The golden bowl is empty, and in vain
   My burning tears on thy frail heart have shone;   
Living, yet dead, thou art another's gain,  
   Thou whom it breaks my heart to look upon.     

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 24 March 1915;
and later in
Rustling Leaves: Selected Poems by Emily Coungeau, 1920.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Winnie was winsome and sunny and fair,
   Golden her tresses, her sweet eyes of blue;
(Dora's dark eyes are divine, I declare:
   Off with the old love and on with the new!)

Winnie was winsome --- and witty was she;
   Winnie would yield in her beauty to few;
(Dora's so dainty, so frank, and so free:
   Off with the old love and on with the new!)

Winnie I loved with an ardour divine;
   Swore to be faithful --- and tried to be, too;   
(Dora has promised at last to be mine:
   Off with the old love and on with the new!)

Sweet 'tis to flutter on butterfly wing,
   Visit each flower for its sweet honey-dew;
Sip at each cup as we find it and sing:
   "Off with the old love and on with the new!"   

If a youth love a dear damsel to-day,
   Shall he not give her fair sisters their due?
If the maid pout in a petulant way,
   Shall he not change the old love for the new?
   
'Way with your tales of the lovers of old,
   Constant and crazy --- a pitiful crew:
This be the song of the Bachelor Bold:
   "Linger not long if the maiden wax cold ---
Off with the old love and on with the new!"

First published in The Queenslander, 11 March 1893

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

An'--wilt--yeh--take--this--woman--fer--to--be
   Yer--wedded--wife?-- .. . O, strike me!  Will I wot?
Take 'er?  Doreen?  'E stan's there arstin' me!
   As if 'e thort per'aps I'd rather not!
   Take 'er? 'E seemed to think 'er kind was got
Like cigarette-cards, fer the arstin'. Still,
   I does me stunt in this 'ere hitchin' rot,
An' speaks me piece: "Righto!" I sez, "I will."
 
"I will," I sez. An' tho' a joyful shout
   Come from me bustin' 'eart--I know it did--
Me voice got sorter mangled comin' out,
   An' makes me whisper like a frightened kid.
   "I will," I squeaks. An' I'd 'a' give a quid
To 'ad it on the quite, wivout this fuss,
   An' orl the starin' crowd that Mar 'ad bid
To see this solim hitchin' up of us.
 
"Fer--rich-er--er--fer--poorer." So 'e bleats.
   "In--sick-ness--an'--in--'ealth," ... An' there I stands,
An' dunno 'arf the chatter I repeats,
   Nor wot the 'ell to do wiv my two 'ands.
   But 'e don't 'urry puttin' on our brands --
This white-'aired pilot-bloke -- but gives it lip,
   Dressed in 'is little shirt, wiv frills an' bands.
"In sick-ness--an'--in--" Ar! I got the pip!
 
An' once I missed me turn; an' Ginger Mick,
   'Oo's my best-man, 'e ups an' beefs it out.
"I will!" 'e 'owls; an' fetches me a kick.
   "Your turn to chin!" 'e tips wiv a shout.
   An' there I'm standin' like a gawky lout.
(Aw, spare me! But I seemed to be all 'ands!)
   An' wonders wot 'e's goin' crook about,
Wiv 'arf a mind to crack 'im where 'e stands.
 
O, lumme! But ole Ginger was a trick!
   Got up regardless fer the solim rite.
('E 'awks the bunnies when 'e toils, does Mick)
   An' twice I saw 'im feelin' fer a light
   To start a fag; an' trembles lest 'e might,
Thro' force o' habit like. 'E's nervis too;
   That's plain, fer orl 'is air o' bluff an' skite;
An' jist as keen as me to see it thro'.
 
But, 'struth, the wimmnin! 'Ow they love this frill!
   Fer Auntie Liz, an' Mar, o' course, wus there;
An' Mar's two uncles' wives, an' Cousin Lil,
   An' 'arf a dozen more to grin and stare.
   I couldn't make me 'ands fit anywhere!
I felt like I wus up afore the Beak!
   But my Doreen she never turns a 'air,
Nor misses once when it's 'er turn to speak.
 
Ar, strike! No more swell marridges fer me!
   It seems a blinded year afore 'e's done.
We could 'a' fixed it in the registree
   Twice over 'fore this cove 'ad 'arf begun.
   I s'pose the wimmin git some sorter fun
Wiv all this guyver, an 'is nibs's shirt.
   But, seems to me, it takes the bloomin' bun,
This stylish splicin' uv a bloke an' skirt.
 
"To--be--yer--weddid--wife--" Aw, take a pull!
   Wot in the 'ell's 'e think I come there for?
An' so 'e drawls an' drones until I'm full,
   An' wants to do a duck clean out the door.
An' yet, fer orl 'is 'igh-falutin' jor,
   Ole Snowy wus a reel good-meanin' bloke.
   If 'twasn't fer the 'oly look 'e wore
Yeh'd think 'e piled it on jist fer a joke.
 
An', when at last 'e shuts 'is little book,
   I 'eaves a sigh that nearly bust me vest.
But 'Eavens! Now 'ere's muvver goin' crook!
   An' sobbin' awful on me manly chest!
   (I wish she'd give them water-works a rest.)
"My little girl!" she 'owls. "O, treat 'er well!
   She's young -- too young to leave 'er muvver's nest!"
"Orright, ole chook," I nearly sez. Oh, 'ell!
 
An' then we 'as a beano up at Mar's --
   A slap-up feed, wiv wine an' two big geese.
Doreen sits next ter me, 'er eyes like stars.
   O, 'ow I wished their blessed yap would cease!
   The Parson-bloke 'e speaks a little piece,
That makes me blush an' 'ang me silly 'ead.
   'E sez 'e 'opes our lovin' will increase --
I likes that pilot fer the things 'e said.
 
'E sez Doreen an' me is in a boat,
   An' sailin' on the matrimonial sea.
'E sez as 'ow 'e hopes we'll allus float
   In peace an' joy, from storm an' danger free.
   Then muvver gits to weepin' in 'er tea;
An' Auntie Liz sobs like a winded colt;
   An' Cousin Lil comes 'round an' kisses me;
Until I feel I'll 'ave to do a bolt.
 
Then Ginger gits end-up an' makes a speech --
   ('E'd 'ad a couple, but 'e wasn't shick.)
"My cobber 'ere," 'e sez, "'as copped a peach!
   Of orl the barrer-load she is the pick!
   I 'opes 'e won't fergit 'is pals too quick
As wus 'is frien's in olden days, becors,
   I'm trusting later on," sez Ginger Mick,
"To celebrate the chris'nin'." ... 'Oly wars!
 
At last Doreen an' me we gits away,
   An' leaves 'em doin' nothin' to the scram
(We're honey-moonin' down beside the Bay.)
   I gives a 'arf a dollar to the man
   Wot drives the cab; an' like two kids we ran
To ketch the train -- Ah, strike! I could 'a' flown!
   We gets the carridge right agen the van.
She whistles, jolts, an' starts ... An' we're alone!
 
Doreen an' me! My precious bit o' fluff!
   Me own true weddid wife! ... An' we're alone!
She seems so frail, an' me so big an' rough --
   I dunno wot this feelin' is that's grown
   Inside me 'ere that makes me feel I own
A thing so tender like I fear to squeeze
   Too 'ard fer fear she'll break ... Then, wiv a groan
I starts to 'ear a coot call, "Tickets, please!"
 
You could 'a' outed me right on the spot!
   I wus so rattled when that porter spoke.
Fer, 'struth! Them tickets I 'ad fair forgot!
   But 'e fist laughs, an' takes it fer a joke.
   "We must ixcuse," 'e sez, "new-married folk."
An' I pays up, an' grins, an' blushes red....
  It shows 'ow married life improves a bloke:
If I'd bin single I'd 'a' punched 'is head!

First published in The Bulletin, 4 March 1915;
and later in
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C. J. Dennis, 1915;
Selected Works of C. J. Dennis by C. J. Dennis, 1988; and
Favourite Poems of C. J. Dennis by C. J. Dennis, 1989.

Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Blue loveliness the Lassiandra flings
   Across the lawn and down the stone-flagged path --
A scattered host of broken, violet wings.
   The frail, drenched harvest of the storm wind's wrath;

Like songs some sweet, uncertain poet sings
   Amid life's storm - his heart's imaginings,
Lovely in hope, in young ambition's flings,
   But loveliest of all in aftermath.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 1928

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

The young girl stood beside me.  I
   Saw not what her young eyes could see:
- A light, she said, not of the sky
   Lives somewhere in the Orange Tree.

- Is it, I said, of east or west?
   The heartbeat of a luminous boy
Who with his faltering flute confessed
   Only the edges of his joy?

Was he, I said, borne to the blue
   In a mad escapade of Spring
Ere he could make a fond adieu
   To his love in the blossoming?

- Listen! the young girl said.  There calls
   No voice, no music beats on me;
But it is almost sound: it falls
  This evening on the Orange Tree.

- Does he, I said, so fear the Spring
   Ere the white sap too far can climb?
See in the full gold evening
   All happenings of the olden time?

Is he so goaded by the green?
   Does the compulsion of the dew
Make him unknowable but keen
   Asking with beauty of the blue?

- Listen! the young girl said.  For all
   Your hapless talk you fail to see
There is a light, a step, a call
   This evening on the Orange Tree.

- Is it, I said, a waste of love
   Imperishably old in pain,
Moving as an affrighted dove
   Under the sunlight or the rain?

Is it a fluttering heart that gave
   Too willingly and was reviled?
Is it the stammering at a grave,
   The last word of a little child?

- Silence! the young girl said.  Oh, why,
   Why will you talk to weary me?
Plague me no longer now, for I
   Am listening like the Orange Tree.

First published in The Bookfellow, 15 February 1921;
and later in
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R.H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson by John Shaw Neilson, 1934;
A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, 1956;
The Boomerang Book of Australian Poetry edited by Enid Moodie Heddle, 1956;
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R.G. Howarth, 1958;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, 1972;
Australian Poems in Perspective: A Collecton of Poems and Critical Commentaries edited by P.K. Elkin, 1978;
Golden Apples of the Sun: Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb, 1980;
The Collins Book of Australian Poetry compiled by Rodney Hall, 1981;
The World's Contracted Thus edited by J.A. McKenzie and J.K. McKenzie, 1983;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984;
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O'Connor, 1988;
The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Ken L. Goodwin and Alan Lawson, 1990;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, 1991;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993;
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;
Hell and After: Four Early English Language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, 2005;
80 Great Poems From Chaucer to Now edited by Geoff Page, 2006;
100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, 2008;
Sixty Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, 2009;
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, 2009;
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore and Elizabeth Webby, 2009; 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.

They leant upon the old sliprail,
   And she was mute, while he
Sent fairy ships away to sail
   Upon a rosy sea.
She listened, but no word she said,
   She knew it could not be.

He pictured what fate had in store
   When they came back from sea --
Great galleons from golden shore
   With treasure trove; but she
Just smiled and softly shook her head.
   She knew it could not be.

First published in The Sydney Mail, 9 February 1910;
and later in
Louisa Lawson: Collected Poems with Selected Critical Commentaries edited by L.M. Rutherford, M.E. Roughley and Nigel Spence, 1996.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

An Australian story to be read and sung hereafter.

Ye children of the Land of Gold
   I sing a song to you,
And if the jokes are somewhat old,
   The main idea is new.
So, be it sung, by hut and tent,
   Where tall the native grows;
And understand, the song is meant
   For singing through the nose.

There dwelt a hard old cockatoo
   On western hills far out --
Where ev'rything is green and blue,
   Except, of course, in drought --
A crimson Anarchist was he,
   Held other men in scorn,
Yet preach'd that ev'ry man was free,
   And also "ekal born."

He lived in his ancestral hut ---
   His missus wasn't there ---
And there was no one with him but
   His daughter, Mabel Clare.
Her eyes and hair were like the sun;
   Her foot was like a mat;
Her cheeks a trifle overdone;
   She was a democrat.

A manly independence, born
   Among the trees, she had,
She treated womankind with scorn,
   And often cursed her dad.
She hated swells and shining lights,
   For she had seen a few,
And she believed in "women's rights"
   (She mostly got'em, too).

A stranger at the neighb'ring run
   Sojourned, the squatter's guest,
He was unknown to anyone,
   But like a swell was dress'd;
He had an eyeglass to his eye,
   A collar to his ears,
His feet were made to tread the sky,
   His mouth was formed for sneers.

He wore the latest toggery,
   The loudest thing in ties ---
'Twas generally reckoned he
   Was something in disguise.
But who he was, or whence he came,
   Was long unknown, except,
Unto the squatter, who the name
   And noble secret kept.

And strolling in the noontide heat,
   Beneath the "blinding glare,"
This noble stranger chanced to meet
   The radiant Mabel Clare.
She saw at once he was a swell ---
   According to her lights ---
But, ah! 'tis very sad to tell,
   She met him oft of nights.

And, strolling through a moonlit gorge,
   She chatted all the while
Of Ingersoll, and Henry George,
   And Bradlaugh and Carlyle --
In short, he learned to love the girl,
   And things went on like this,
Until he said he was an Earl,
   And asked her to be his.

"Oh, say no more, Lord Kawlinee,
   Oh, say no more!" she said;
"Oh, say no more, Lord Kawlinee,
   I wish that I was dead:
My head is in a hawful whirl,
   The truth I dare not tell ---
I am a democratic girl,
   And cannot wed a swell!"

"Oh love!" he cried, "but you forget
   That you are most unjust;
'Twas not my fault that I was set
   Within the uppercrust.
Heed not the yarns the poets tell ---
   Oh, darling, do not doubt
A simple lord can love as well
   As any rouseabout!

"For you I'll give my fortune up ---
   I'd go to work for you!
I'll put the money in the cup
   And drop the title, too.
Oh, fly with me! Oh, fly with me
   Across the mountains blue!
Hoh, fly with me! Hoh, fly with me! ---"
    That very night she flew.

They took the train and journeyed down ---
   Across the range they sped ---
Until they came to Sydney town,
   Where shortly they were wed.
And still upon the western wild
   Admiring teamsters tell
How Mabel's father cursed his child
   For clearing with a swell.

"What ails my bird this bridal night,"
   Exclaimed Lord Kawlinee;
"What ails my own this bridal night ---
   Oh love, confide in me!"
"Oh now," she said, "that I am yaws
   You'll let me weep --- I must ---
I did desert the people's cause
   To join the upper crust."

O proudly smiled his lordship then ---
   His chimney-pot he floor'd ---
"Look up, my love, and smile again,
   For I am not a lord!"
His eye glass from his eye he tore,
   The dickey from his breast,
And turned and stood his bride before
   A rouseabout --- confess'd!

"Unknown I've loved you long," he said,
   "And I have loved you true ---
A-shearing in your guv'ner's shed
   I learned to worship you.
I do not care for place or pelf,
   For now, my love, I'm sure
That you will love me for myself
   And not because I'm poor.

"To prove your love I spent my cheque
   To buy this swell rig-out;
So fling your arms about my neck
   For I'm a rouseabout!"
At first she gave a startled cry,
   Then, safe from care's alarms,
She sigh'd a soul-subduing sigh
   And sank into his arms.

He pawned the togs, and home he took
   His bride in all her charms;
The proud old cockatoo received
   The pair with open arms.
And long they lived, the faithful bride,
   The noble rouseabout ---
And if she wasn't satisfied
   She never let it out.

First published in The Bulletin, 16 January 1892;
and later in
Humorous Verses by Henry Lawson, 1941;
Freedom on the Wallaby: Poems of the Australian People edited by Marjorie Pizer, 1953;
Along the Western Road: Bush Stories and Ballads, 1981;
The Essential Henry Lawson edited by Brian Kiernan, 1982;
A Camp-Fire Yarn: Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, 1984;
The Penguin Book of Australian Satirical Verse edited by Philip Neilsen, 1986;
The Sting in the Wattle: Australian Satirical Verse edited by Philip Neilsen, 1993; and
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, 1993.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library, The Poetry of Henry Lawson website

See also.

In silence I had loved her long:
   In silence for my words were weak,
   And any prayer that I might speak
Had only done my passion wrong.

Till, as it chanced upon a day,
   Under the spreading garden limes,
   I read to her the burning rhymes
Of Love's own poet past away.

And, lo! the might of my desire
   Made his high minstrelsy my own,
   And breathed in every word and tone
The lover's not the poet's fire.

His eloquence grew mine -- nay, more,
   Taught by his pure imagining,
   My love became an altered thing,   
Holier and deeper than before.      

Then, as I laid the volume by  
   And turned to meet her eyes with mine,   
   I caught the long unhoped-for shine
Of love's light dawning in their sky.

So won I that sweet prize of her;
   The voice of the immortal dead
   Had pleaded for me as I read,
And been my love's interpreter.

First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 28 December 1895

Author: Clarinda Sarah Parkes (1839-1915) was the eldest child of Henry Parkes and his wife Clarinda. She started writing poetry in her teens and also completed 6 novels during her writing career.  She had some success with her writing during her lifetime but little is known of it now.  She died in Ashfield, New South Wales, in 1915.

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

Her lips were a red peril
   To set men quivering
And in her feet there lived the ache
   And the green lilt of Spring.

'Twas on a night of red blossoms,
   Oh, she was a wild wine!
The colour of all the hours
   Lie in this heart of mine.

I was impelled by the white moon
   And the deep eyes of the Spring,
And the voices of purple flutes
   Waltzing and wavering.

Of all the bloom most delicate
   Sipping the gold air
Was a round girl with round arms,
   The Girl with the Black Hair.

Her breath was the breath of roses,
   White roses clean and clear,
Her eyes were blue as the high heavens
   Where God is always near.

Her lips were a red peril
   To set men quivering
And in her feet there lived the ache
   And the green lilt of Spring.

First published in The Bookfellow, 15 December 1913;
and later in
Poems by John Shaw Neilson, 1964;
Australian Letters, 4 September 1964;
Green Days and Cherries: the early verses of Shaw Neilson edited by Hugh Anderson and Leslie James Blake, 1981;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993; and
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore and Elizabeth Webby, 2009.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

I am shut out of mine own heart
because my Love is far from me
nor in the wonder have I part
that fills its hidden empery:

the wildwood of adventurous thought
and lands of dawn my dream had won,
the riches out of Faerie brought
are buried with our bridal sun;

and I am in a narrow place
and all its little streets are cold
because the absence of her face
hath reft the sullen air of gold.

My home is in a broader day
-- sometimes I catch it glistening
thro' the dull gate, a flower'd play
and odour of undying spring;

the long days that I lived alone,
sweet madness of the springs I miss'd,
are shed beyond, and thro' them blown
clear laughter, and my lips are kiss'd

-- and here from mine own joy apart
I wait the turning of the key:
I am shut out of mine own heart
because my Love is far from me.

First published in The Bulletin, 10 December 1898, and again in the same magazine on 1 February 1950, and 29 January 1980;
and later in
The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1909;
The Bookfellow, 15 March 1915;
Poetry in Australia 1923;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
The Verse of Christopher Brennan edited by A. R. Chisholm and John Joseph Quinn, 1960;
Poems [1913] by Christopher Brennan,1972;
Selected Poems by Christopher Brennan, 1973;
Christopher Brennan edited by Terry Sturm, 1984;
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
The Language of Love: An Anthology of Australian Love Letters, Poetry and Prose edited by Pamela Allardice, 1991;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, 2007.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

The saddle-slaves of Love are we
   Who mount by sun and moon,
No matter what the season be
   So long as it be soon!
The golden and the gray light
   Have seen the girth-straps drawn
For Love that rules the daylight,
   The dark and dusk and dawn.

What hoof beat on the gravel!
   What haste with Love to be!
What snatching at the snaffle!
   What reefing, head to knee!
Now faster still and faster --
   The white Moon laughs above --
She knows we have no master
   Except the Lord of Love.

The low road keeps the river,
   The high road skirts the hill ---
No road so short but ever
   We find a shorter still;
And if the floods run blindly
   Where Love, not Life, 's the loss,
Dame Fortune treats us kindly
   And holds our hands across.

The bush-Wind blows to meet us
   As though she understands,
The hop-bush holds to greet us
   A hundred clasping hands;
There's not a bird but sings us
   A welcome in the grove,
They know 'tis Love that brings us ---
   And all the world loves Love!

Be skies alight or leaden
   Long miles bring no regret,
And if the white spurs redden
   Our horses soon forget:
So toss the bars, my beauty,
   And cream the reins with foam ;
It's ten moon-miles to duty,
   And ten more dawn-miles home!

Gleam lights in the verandah,
   Flash lamps across the lawn;
But soft the shadows yonder
   Where reins are tightly drawn.
Out there the dews are glistening;
   The leaves are scarcely stirred,
So close the Night-Wind's listening
   To every whispered word!

The moon she dips to morning,
   The lamps are burning low,
Our love belated scorning --
   "One kiss before I go!"
Now slowly through the starlight,
   Slow, slow, in dreams away,
Till eastward gleams the far light
   That leads the breaking Day.

First published in The Bulletin, 27 November 1897;
and later in
Fair Girls and Gray Horses: With Other Verses by Will H. Ogilvie, 1958

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I remember days all glowing, love,
   With sunshine and delight,  
When the tide of life was flowing, love,
   With many a sail in sight.
I remember evermore, love,   
   That long-ago of ours,      
When the sands along the shore, love,  
   Were strewed with shells and flowers.

What a nest of flowers that cottage was,
   The Severn's flow beside,
Where, to see my rose, I used to pass
   At morn and eventide:
Oh ! thou little then didst dream, love,
   That other loving eyes
Than thy white-hair'd sire's did beam, love,
   On all thy reveries.

And I could have watched for ever, love,
   Methinks, in secret so,
If the spoiler's hand had never, love,
   There scattered death and woe!   
And I think I see thee yet, love,
   As 'midst thy garden flowers,
When the sun seemed loth to set, love,
   And leave thy happy bowers.

I remember, I remember, love,
   One later Autumn eve,
When the leaves of chill September, love,
   Had changed like things that grieve,
How I saw thee sit and mourn, love,
   Where sat thy sire before,
With the crape about thee worn, love,
   Which told he was no more.

And my heart found voice in sorrow, then,
  Thy comforter to be;  
And it sought no garb to borrow, then,
   For true love's sympathy.
Soon unfeeling strangers came, love,
   Who bade thee thence begone;
And thy beauty and fair name, love,
   Were left to thee alone.

Then I woo'd and won thee for my bride,
   Nor did more fondly vow,
When we left the winding Severn's side,
   To love, than I do now.
In the city's depths we dwelt, love,  
   Till half life's sands were run;
And fair children round us knelt, love,
  'Twas joy to gaze upon.

Still the memory of those early days
   Came fresh, and at all hours,  
How I used to steal unknown to gaze  
   On thee among thy flowers!
And misfortunes came at last, love,  
   Which fell like tempest rain:
But the sunlight of the past, love,
   Broke through the clouds again.

Thou didst cling to me the fonder, love,    
   Alone on ruin's brink,
When the storm had burst asunder, love,
   Poor Friendship's frailer link.
I remembered 'mid the blast, love,
   Which rushed o'erwhelming on,
Other days of light long passed, love!  
   And blest thee, faithful one!

When I rose up from affliction's bed,
   Hope beckoned o'er the sea,
And how cheerfully the word was said --
   That thou would'st go with me.
As we watched the levelling shore, love,
   From 'mid the waves' unrest,
To behold it never more, love,
   No murmur 'scaped thy breast.

I remembered, on the billow rude,
   The happy Severn's side,
By our little daughter's pillow rude,
   Even in the night she died:
As they lowered her dust unurned, love,
   Down in the restless sea,
To my brain that light returned, love,
   That blessed memory.

I remember days all glowing, love,
   With sunshine and delight;  
Now the sea is round us flowing, love,
   Nor land nor sail in sight.
I'll remember evermore, love,
   Beneath a milder sun,
All those happy days of yore, love,
   Mine own beloved one!  

First published in The Empire, 22 November 1853;
and later in
Murmurs of the Stream by Henry Parkes, 1857.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Let your song be delicate.
   The skies declare
No war --- the eyes of lovers
   Wake everywhere.

Let your voice be delicate.
   How faint a thing
Is Love, little Love crying
   Under the Spring.

Let your song be delicate.
   The flowers can hear:
Too well they know the tremble,
   Of the hollow year.

Let your voice be delicate.
   The bees are home:
All their day's love is sunken
   Safe in the comb.

Let your song be delicate.
   Sing no loud hymn:
Death is abroad ... oh, the black season!
   The deep --- the dim!

First published in The Bookfellow, 15 November 1913;
and later in
Poetry in Australia 1923;
An Australasian Anthology: Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll and Frank Wilmot, 1927;
Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson by John Shaw Neilson, 1934;
A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, 1956;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, 1972;
The Golden Apples of the Sun: Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb, 1980;
Green Days and Cherries: the early verses of Shaw Neilson edited by Hugh Anderson and Leslie James Blake, 1981;
Cross-Country: A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes, 1984;
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
My Country: Australian poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O'Connor, 1988;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991;
The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poems edited by Jennifer Strauss, 1993;
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993;
A Return to Poetry 2000, edited by Michael Duffy, 2000;
Our Country: Classic Australian Poetry: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, 2004;
Hell and After: Four Early English Language Poets of Australia edited by Les Murray, 2005;
Southerly, Vol. 68, No.3, 2008; and
100 Australian Poems of Love and Loss edited by Jamie Grant, 2011.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Here, by the brook, at eve to meet
   Idalia promised me --
But even, with her zephyrs sweet,
   Is here, and where is she!
And naught are sweetest airs that fall
Around me, if beyond my call
Be my sweet love -- my all in all.

The flowers beneath -- the clouds above --
   Imbibe a deeper glow;
The shadows of each ancient grove
   To giant phantoms grow:
But nature's blushes charm not, thine,
Idalia, absent -- nor seem fine
Her shadows while thus lone is mine.

A thousand songsters 'tune their throats
   Along the gleaming brook;
In every air their music floats,
   From every bough is shook:
But if her happy voice I hear
Not mingled, to my anxious ear
No song is sweet, no music dear.

The sun sinks - and, in pairs or lone,
   All birds that far must go,
The crane and eagle, voyage on,
   The plover and the crow:
So, love, upon thy wonted wing,
To her wild bower beside the spring
The lingering Idalia bring.

Now first from heaven's dim dome, one star
   Looks down with eye of gold;
First o'er the eastern clouds afar
   The lady moon behold:
And, kindred sight! enwreathed with blooms,
Snatched, passing, from the fragrant brooms,
My bright, my chaste Idalia comes.

First published in The Australasian Chronicle, 10 November 1842;
and later in
The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur edited by Elizabeth Perkins, 1984.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Beloved! And if this bitter thing must be,
Look up to God --- then turn in faith to me,
And let there be bare truth twixt me and thee.
Let there be truth; the lie has ceased to be ---
The lie of love, that was so sweet to me,
The gracious mask that hid reality.

Beloved! Remember all it might have been   
Had both hearts meant what only one can mean --
Had we both known what only one has seen.
Let there be truth --- unvarnished, curt, and keen.
Skies are but blue, and meadows only green ---
Ah God! That still the lie had been!

First published in The Queenslander, 6 November 1897

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.  

(Overheard in Rose Bay Tram.)

Grey-eye fritters love away
   To hapless ones who woo her;
Grey-eye smiles at what they say,
   Content that they pursue her.
Grey eyes smile -- that is all:
Yet could Love wish a sweeter pall?

Grey-eye smiles when each has said
   Whats ense forbade him tell her;
Grey-eye smiles when love is dead,
   And pique and hate repel her.
Grey eyes smiles -- and yet grow old
While the same old tale is told!

Grey-eye, will you come and play
   On shining sands with me-ee?
Grey-eye, smile not when I say
   What I so long to be-ee!
Grey-eye in the moonlight stroll
Near the languid waters' roll...
         Will yer?  Ah -- do!

First published in The Bulletin, 29 October 1898

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I did not want that you should tire of me,
   That I should each day see the shadow grow,
   That all I used to be I still might know,
Feeling I was not as of yore to thee.

I did not want to see your eyes meet mine
   And then pass quickly, caring not to rest
   One moment on me, just to catch the best
Of Love's replying, that would answer thine.

I did not want to live to sea you fall
   Into indifference of my smile or frown;
   I did not want pale Pity bending down
In place of Love, that once was over all.

'Twere not enough of comfort, knowing this,
   No other was before me in your heart,
   No other life could thrust our lives apart,
No other lips would quiver to your kiss.

And because all you strove for is your own,
   The worth must leave the prize for which you strove,
   "'Tis only foolishness"; what once was Love,   
It was not worth the winning, now 'tis won,

Yet unwise I to blame, unwise to cry
   To-day a secret that the world has known.
   Forgive me, dear; when you are left alone
Think not of what I said -- not bitterly.

But ah! prophetic heart! and so I die,
   Not much regretting, while you are unchanged;  
   'Twere harder to have lived with Love estranged,
To feel that custom held you, and not I.

And I shall go while yet your eager hand
   Is stretched to hold me, longs to keep me there,
   Loves still to smooth with trembling touch my hair,
And all my feebleness can understand.

Ah! weep not ! Do you think that I could bear
   Never to hear one note of unasked praise,
   Never to feel, as in the dear dead days,
That I was something greater by your care?

No, let me go. Man-like, you cannot see
   Beyond, as I can see, the passion pale;
   See how I strive to tell, and how you fail
To understand, what once was life to thee!

What profit then to think "I had my day;
   He lay there gladly, even at my feet"?
   The bitter in that knowledge kills the sweet,
Feeling how very much has passed away.

How long abides the truth of heart to heart?
   Good-bye, dear. This is not the hardest thing;
   Fresh hope to you unfettered years will bring,
And you will love me, now, until we part!

First published in The Queenslander, 17 October 1896

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

"The Little More..."

Powerless we are when love will come;
   Powerless, when love will go.
The tender voice, how soon grown dumb!
   The racing pulse, how slow!

'Twere better then, while love is strong--
   At the high heat of bliss--
To seize the passions that belong
   To each impetuous kiss;

And, undivided in our will,
   Join hands, and lips, and eyes;
Even though morning holds no thrill
   Of wakening surprise. . . .

Life is a road that I have trod;
   Is a known, charted sea.
What I have had, not even God
   Can take away from me.

"The Little Less..."

You are more distant from me than that star!
   I scarce believe that we have ever met --
   So sweet, so brief, with no time to regret --
And now you trace your orbit aeons afar.
So soon grown inaccessible you are,
   As if you were a planet that had set
   Beyond my outer universe; and yet
What leagues of space to dreams were ever bar?

There was a moment when you drew as near
   As does the sun to ocean at nightfall,
On some still evening when no clouds appear.
   And nothing stirs the peace but a birdcall ....
Yea! Close as sun and ocean have we been --
Why should I weep if worlds now roll between?

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 October 1937

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.

"I wish't yeh meant it, Bill." Oh, 'ow me 'eart
   Went out to 'er that ev'nin' on the beach.
I knoo she weren't no ordinary tart,
      My little peach!
I tell yeh, square an' all, me 'eart stood still
To 'ear 'er say, "I wish't yeh meant it, Bill."
 
To 'ear 'er voice! Its gentle sorter tone,
   Like soft dream-music of some Dago band.
An' me all out; an' 'oldin' in me own
      'Er little 'and.
An' 'ow she blushed! O, strike! it was divine
The way she raised 'er shinin' eyes to mine.
 
'Er eyes! Soft in the moon; such boshter eyes!
   An' when they sight a bloke ... O, spare me days!
'E goes all loose inside; such glamour lies
       In 'er sweet gaze.
It makes 'im all ashamed uv wot 'e's been
To look inter the eyes of my Doreen.
 
The wet sands glistened, an' the gleamin' moon
   Shone yeller on the sea, all streakin' down.
A band was playin' some soft, dreamy choon;
       An' up the town
We 'eard the distant tram-cars whir an' clash.
An' there I told 'er 'ow I'd done me dash.
 
"I wish't yeh meant it." 'Struth! And did I, fair?
   A bloke 'ud be a dawg to kid a skirt
Like 'er. An' me well knowin' she was square.
      It 'ud be dirt!
'E'd be no man to point wiv 'er, an' kid.
I meant it honest; an' she knoo I did.
 
She knoo. I've done me block in on 'er, straight.
   A cove 'as got to think some time in life
An' get some decent tart, ere it's too late,
      To be 'is wife.
But, Gawd! 'Oo would 'a' thort it could 'a' been
My luck to strike the likes of 'er? ... Doreen!
 
Aw, I can stand their chuckin' off, I can.
   It's 'ard; an' I'd delight to take 'em on.
The dawgs! But it gets that way wiv a man
      When 'e's fair gone.
She'll sight no stoush; an' so I 'ave to take
Their mag, an' do a duck fer 'er sweet sake.
 
Fer 'er sweet sake I've gone and chucked it clean:
   The pubs an' schools an' all that leery game.
Fer when a bloke 'as come to know Doreen,
      It ain't the same.
There's 'igher things, she sez, for blokes to do.
An' I am 'arf believin' that it's true.
 
Yes, 'igher things -- that wus the way she spoke;
   An' when she looked at me I sorter felt
That bosker feelin' that comes offer a bloke,
      An' makes 'im melt;
Makes 'im all 'ot to maul 'er, an' to shove
'Is arms about 'er ... Bli'me? But it's love!
 
That's wot it is. An' when a man 'as grown
   Like that 'e gets a sorter yearn inside
To be a little 'ero on 'is own;
      An' see the pride
Glow in the eyes of 'er 'e calls 'is queen;
An' 'ear 'er say 'e is a shine champeen.
 
"I wish't yeh meant it," I can 'ear 'er yet,
   My bit o' fluff! The moon was shinin' bright,
Turnin' the waves all yeller where it set --
      A bonzer night!
The sparklin' sea all sorter gold an' green;
An' on the pier the band -- O, 'Ell! ... Doreen!

First published in The Bulletin, 30 September 1909;
and later in
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis, 1915.

Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

"You must not pause in Life's bye-ways and listen,
         Dear, to Love's songs --
Your way lies up where the glory-stars glisten
         Far from the throngs.
You may not wait till to-day is to-morrow,
         Lest you repine.
You must forget me" -- (Life's studded with sorrow,
         Lady o' mine!)

So wrote you on to the end of your letter,
         Once came the thought.
"Does she but fret at the gall of the fetter
         We two have wrought?"
Dream how the moon shone that night in her glory
         Through forests of pine;
When the night winds came whispering story on story,
         Lady o' mine!

I will not turn from the things I am doing,
         Striving for you.
Nor will I cool from the heat of my wooing,
         Knowing you true.
I will win up where, in every weather,
         Glory-stars shine --
"You must forget!" -- Nay, we'll go there together,
         Lady o' mine!

First published in Melbourne Punch, 29 September 1904

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Welcome, sweet Spring, but not for wealth
   Of wattle bloom, or daffodil,
Or violets, or lilies fair,
   Or perfumed, pale jonquil;
We love them all, but willingly
   We would them all delete,
Rather than lose thy heavenly breath,
   Boronia, brown and sweet.

Thou fair, fair West, what wealth is then,
   Thy kauri forests grand,
Thy happy homesteads, and thy stretch
   Of green, productive land;
Thy streamlets margined rich with flowers,
   Thy rivers deep and wide,
Where the graceful black swans thou hast limned
   For thy insignia glide.

Thou hast thy "Gold of Ophir," too,
   Where in the deep, dark mine,
With hidden wealth for workers' hands
   The wine-red rubies shine;
We envy not thee one or all,
   But gladly turn to greet
Thy spring-sent messages of love,
   In brown Boronia sweet.

The lover lays thee on his lips,
   And sighs for kisses fled,
The mother lays thee on her breast,
   And weeps her baby dead;
I place thy by my weakling pen,
   And Heaven-sent tidings greet,
For well I know thou hast been there,
   Boronia, brown and sweet.

First published in The Australasian, 23 September 1907

Author: Mary Helena Fortune (nee Wilson) (1833?-1910?) was born in Belfast and emigrated to Canada as a child.  While there she married Joseph Fortune in 1851.  When her father emigrated to Australia in 1855 Fortune followed him with her child, probably leaving her husband behind.  For the rest of her life she supported her family by her writing, mainly in The Australian Journal.  She is best known for her detective stories and other works, including poetry, under the pseudonym "Waif Wander".  She died in Melbourne sometime around 1910.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

(AN AUSTRALIAN BALLAD.)

Well-known on the border, strong, handsome and straight,
A reckless, wild liver, but true-hearted mate --
What his name was I'm not in position to swear,
But we called him --- it suited him--- Devil-may-care!

Drink! He drank Bullocky Jim out of breath!
Dance! He could dance the red stars to their death!
Ride! There was nothing in hide or in hair
Too rough to be ridden by Devil-may-care!

Where did he come from? Well! where are they bred
With those laughing blue eyes, that proud lift of the head?
Oh! it's England, and England, and only up there
Where they breed 'em light-hearted, like Devil-may-care!

He was fond of the women! Ay, that you might think;
Love 'o women goes mostly with dancing and drink;
He had eyes for the dark ones and lips for the fair,
And a careless, gay gallant was Devil-may-care!

But there came to our hero, as mostly to those
Who expect to go scatheless, a wound of love's woes,
And an armful of roses and ruddy-gold hair
Set the love-stars a-reeling for Devil-may-care!

It was merely in touch with the fitness of things
And the maxim of "true love" --- which somebody sings
That the gallant went droving all day in the sun,
And the maid was the heiress of Merrida run.

But love laughs at locksmiths, so, somewhere, they say,
And true love tastes sweeter for bars in the way;
And bars must be big ones to part a fond pair
When the one is a rebel like Devil-may-care!

So it chanced that on camp where the tired cattle lay
And the drovers kept double night-watch till the day,
The boss took the road on his ambling bay mare
And a girl in the dim light met Devil-may-care.

When he reined the bay mare at the love-chosen place
It was pure love that shone on his wild, haggard face,
And the men that had drunk with this reckless Lothair
Would hardly have known him as Devil-may-care!

So they met -- so they parted --- a kiss for a troth!
And the earth seemed a fairy land built for them both;
But some late laggard passing caught sight of the mare,
And --- True Heart no longer met Devil-may-care!

And they took her away --- for her good --- to the South
With a rebel's wild kiss on her rosy child-mouth;
And ah! for her good were they right to beware
That she sent no word Northward to Devil-may-care!

And he curses her mem'ry on Merrida Run
Since she cared to make light of the love that she won --
Yet he broods all alone o'er one lock of her hair
Who had wakened a pure love in Devil-may-care!

When the long trip is done, and the cattle safe down,
Then he drinks --- how he drinks! down in Albury Town;
And "Why should I sorrow, it's only my share
Who believed in a woman!" says Devil-may-care!

First published in The Bulletin, 30 August 1902;
and later in
The Overlander Songbook edited by Ronald George Edwards, 1971;
Old Ballads from the Bush edited by Bill Scott, 1987; and
ReCollecting Albury Writing: Poetry and Prose from Albury and District 1859 to 2000 edited by Jane Downing and Dirk H. R. Spenneman, 2000.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

After Johnson's dance --
   Don't you recollects?
I says, "Goin' 'ome?"
   You says, "I expect!"
I says, "So am I!"
   You says, "Not with me!"
I says, "An' for w'y?"
   Blowed if I could see!
      You says, "Go to France!"
      After Johnson's dance.

After Johnson's dance --
   I says, "Em, you might!"
"Might I, tho'!" says you.
   "Garn, you silly fright!"
Then I kissed you, fair!
   (How you did object!)
Towsled all your hair!
   Don't you recollect?
      Took my bloomin' chance --
      After Johnson's dance!

After Johnson's dance --
   Smacked my face, you did!
Then I caught you -- so! --
   Like you was a kid.
"Just do it again --
   Just you do," you says.
You says, "do it!" plain:
   An' of course, I does!
      Who made that advance --
      After Johnson's dance?

First published in The Bulletin, 19 August 1899;
and later in
To Many Ladies (And Others) by Charles Henry Souter, 1917;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964; and
Along the Western Road: Bush Stories and Ballads, 1981.

Author: Charles Henry Souter (1864-1944) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and emigrated to Australia in 1879.  He returned to Scotland to study medicine before settling in South Australia, where he lived in a number of locations around the state.  Mainly known as a "Bulletin" poet, he published four collections of his poetry during his lifetime.  He died in Adelaide in 1944.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

I asked her for a rosebud,
   She quickly answered "No!"
Swept gaily laughing by me,
   And left me grieving so;
Around me sweet are blooming
   A thousand flowers and more,
But not one hath the beauty
   Of the blossom that she bore.

Tho' deeply thou hast wronged me,
   Yet mayst thou never rue,
May joy's dear fount ne'er fail thee,
   Nor soft affection's dew;
And though thy love hath left me
   I may not angry be,
For, deep within my bosom,
   Remembrance pleads for thee.

First published in The Queenslander, 17 August 1895

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

'Er name's Doreen ...Well, spare me bloomin' days!
You could er knocked me down wiv 'arf a brick!
   Yes, me, that kids meself I know their ways,
   An' 'as a name for smoogin' in our click!
I just lines up 'an tips the saucy wink.
But strike! The way she piled on dawg! Yer'd think
   A bloke was givin' back-chat to the Queen....
      'Er name's Doreen.
 
I seen 'er in the markit first uv all,
Inspectin' brums at Steeny Isaacs' stall.
   I backs me barrer in -- the same ole way --
   An' sez, "Wot O!  It's been a bonzer day.
'Ow is it fer a walk?" ... Oh, 'oly wars!
The sorta look she gimme! Jest becors
   I tried to chat 'er, like you'd make a start
      Wiv any tart.
 
An' I kin take me oaf I wus perlite.
An' never said no word that wasn't right,
   An' never tried to maul 'er, or to do
   A thing yeh might call croook.  Ter tell yeh true,
I didn't seem to 'ave the nerve -- wiv 'er.
I felt as if I couldn't go that fur,
   An' start to sling of chiack like I used...
      Not intrajuiced!
 
Nex' time I sighted 'er in Little Bourke,
Where she was in a job.  I found 'er lurk
   Wus pastin' labels in a pickle joint,
   A game that -- any'ow, that ain't the point.
Once more I tried to chat 'er in the street,
But, bli'me!  Did she turn me down a treat!
   The way she tossed 'er head an' swished 'er skirt!
      Oh, it wus dirt!
 
A squarer tom, I swear, I never seen,
In all me natchril, than this 'ere Doreen.
   It wer'n't no guyver neither; fer I knoo
   That any other bloke 'ad Buckley's 'oo
Tried fer to pick 'er up.  Yes, she was square.
She jest sailed by an' lef me standin' there
   Like any mug.  Thinks I, "I'm out er luck,"
      And done a duck.
 
Well, I dunno.  It's that way wiv a bloke.
If she'd ha' breasted up ter me an' spoke.
   I'd thort 'er jist a common bit er fluff,
   An' then fergot about 'er, like enough.
It's jest like this.  The tarts that's 'ard ter get
Makes you all 'ot to chase 'em, an' to let
   The cove called Cupid get a 'ammer-lock;
      An' lose yer block.
 
I know a bloke 'oo knows a bloke 'oo toils
In that same pickle found-ery.  ('E boils
   The cabbitch storks or somethink.)  Anyway,
   I gives me pal the orfis fer to say
'E 'as a sister in the trade 'oo's been
Out uv a jorb, an' wants ter meet Doreen;
   Then we kin get an into, if we've luck.
      'E sez, "Ribuck."
 
O' course we worked the oricle; you bet!
But, 'struth, I ain't recovered frum it yet!
   'Twas on a Saturdee, in Colluns Street,
   An' - quite by accident, o' course -- we meet.
Me pal 'e trots 'er up an' does the toff --
'E allus wus a bloke fer showin' off.
   "This ere's Doreen," 'e sez.  "This 'ere's the Kid."
      I dips me lid.
 
"This 'ere's Doreen," 'e sez.  I sez "Good day."
An' bli'me, I 'ad nothin' more ter say!
   I couldn't speak a word, or meet 'er eye.
   Clean done me block!  I never been so shy,
Not since I was a tiny little cub,
An' run the rabbit to the corner pub --
   Wot time the Summer days wus dry and 'ot --
      Fer me ole pot.
 
Me! that 'as barracked tarts, an' torked an' larft,
An' chucked orf at 'em like a phonergraft!
   Gorstrooth!  I seemed to lose me pow'r o' speech.
   But 'er!  Oh, strike me pink!  She is a peach!
The sweetest in the barrer!  Spare me days,
I carn't describe that cliner's winnin' ways.
   The way she torks!  'Er lips!  'Er eyes!  'Er hair! ...
      Oh, gimme air!
 
I dunno 'ow I done it in the end.
I reckerlect I arst ter be 'er friend;
   An' tried to play at 'andies in the park,
   A thing she wouldn't sight.  Aw, it's a nark!
I gotter swear when I think wot a mug
I must 'a' seemed to 'er.  But still I 'ug
   That promise she give me fer the beach.
      The bonzer peach!
 
Now, as the poit sez, the days drag by
On ledding feet.  I wish't they'd do a guy.
   I dunno 'ow I 'ad the nerve ter speak,
   An' make that meet wiv 'er fer Sundee week!
But strike!  It's funny wot a bloke'll do
When 'e's all out ... She's gorn, when I come-to.
   I'm yappin' to me cobber uv me mash....
      I've done me dash!
 
'Er name's Doreen....An' me -- that thort I knoo
   The ways uv tarts, an' all that smoogin' game!
An' so I ort; fer ain't I known a few?
   Yet some'ow ... I dunno.  It ain't the same.
I carn't tell wot it is; but all I know,
I've dropped me bundle -- an' I'm glad it's so.
   Fer when I come ter think uv wot I been....
      'Er name's Doreen.

First published in The Bulletin, 3 August 1911;
and later in
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C. J. Dennis, 1916;
Favourite Australian Poems edited by Ian Mudie, 1963;
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
Selected Works of C.J. Dennis by C.J. Dennis, 1988; and
Favourite Poems of C.J. Dennis by C.J. Dennis, 1989.

Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Who will not drink the toast of wives and sweet hearts?
   Who will not pledge "Our sweethearts and our wives?"
What greater boon is deigned us than to greet hearts
   Destined to sway the current of our lives
With influence, like a good star, benignant,
   With magnet-power drawing men to home;
And counter-spells to break the spell malignant,
   The curse of Cain, that tempts us all to roam?

Your healths, great-hearted, staunch, devoted women,
   Ready, for sake of home, to live the life
Of serfs, in duty fearless as are few men,
   Who if Death stood amidst the path of wife
Would swerve not to the left side or the right side,
   But walk straight on into his cold embrace;
Who carry your life-exile from life's bright side
   Branded indelibly upon your face.

Your healths, stout-hearted, cheery, little women,
   With little homes, small means, and little spheres,
Who manage with your small lights to illumine
   Lives not too full of this world's gifts and cheers;
Who smiling share the struggle for subsistence,
   And laughing lighten many a hard day;
And all without one glimmer in the distance
   To give you hope that clouds will clear away.

Your healths, brave sufferers in the early trials
   Of genius in uncongenial straits,
Who feel that, when ill-fate has drained her vials,
   Veiled in the future somewhere glory waits:
Wives of Carlyles and sisters loved of Wordsworths,
   Who fight the good fight spite of toils and strains,
Confident that your hero has whole herds worths
   Of ordinary mortals' aims and brains.

Your healths, refined, appreciative, women,
   Graceful and bright, easy in circumstance,   
Who make it yours to cheer all good and true men
   Upon their high emprize with kindly glance;
Women with yearnings noble and poetic,
   Women with worship for heroic deeds,
Longing to make oblation sympathetic
   Or all your witchery for great men's meeds.

Your health, O much revered and Royal Woman
   Sitting aloft on empire's dazzling heights,
Crowned with a halo almost superhuman,
   And thrown into relief with such strong lights;
And yours, Princess, whose days have ever found you
   Offering some fresh word or act of grace
To the poor folk who love to throng around you
   To gaze upon the fairness of your face,

Who will not drink the toast of wives and sweet hearts?
   Who will not pledge "Our sweethearts and our wives?"
Bright hearts and brave hearts, gentle hearts and great hearts,
   Deigned to be stars or flowers of our lives;
Beautiful, graceful, love-inspiring lovers,
   Dutiful, dauntless, uncomplaining mates?
Each woman that I meet to me discovers
   Some new gift to alleviate our fates.

First published in The Queenslander, 21 July 1883

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.