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Through forest holes the storm-wind rolls
   Vext of the sea-driven rain,
And up in the clift through many a rift
   The voices of torrents complain.
The sad marsh fowl and the lonely owl
   Are heard in the fog-wreaths grey
When the Warrigal wakes and listens and takes
   To the woods that shelter the prey!
         When the Warrigal wakes
         And listens and takes
   To the woods that shelter the prey!

In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,
   And the silver showery moon
Glides over the hills, and floats and fills
   And dreams in the dark lagoon  
While, halting hard by the station yard,
   Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,
The Warrigal yells,and the flats and fells
   Are loud with his dismal cry!  
         The Warrigal yells,
         And the flats and fells
   Are loud with his dismal cry!   

On the topmost peak of mountains bleak
   The south wind sobs and strays,
Through moaning pine and turpentine
   And the rippling runnel ways;
And strong streams flow and great mists go
   Where the Warrigal starts to hear
The watchdog's bark break sharp in the dark
   And flees like a phantom of Fear!
         The watchdog's bark
         Break sharp in the dark
   And flees like a phantom of Fear!

The swift rains beat and the thunders fleet
   On the wings of the fiery gale,
And down in the glen of pool and fen,
   The wild gums whistle and wail,
As over the plains, and past the chains    
   Of waterholes glimmering deep,
The Warrigal flies from the Shepherd's cries  
   And the clamour of dogs and sheep!
         The Warrigal flies
         From the Shepherd's cries  
   And the clamour of dogs and sheep!

The Warrigal's lair is pent in bare
   Black rocks, at the gorge's month:
It is set in ways where summer strays
   With the sprites of flame and drouth;
But, when the heights are touched with lights
   Of hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,
His bed is made of the dead grass-blade
   And the leaves of the windy pine.
         His bed is made         
         Of the dead grass-blade  
   And the leaves of the windy pine.      

He roves through the lands of sultry sands,
   He hunts in the iron range,     
Untamed as surge of the far sea-verge    
   And fierce and fickle and strange.  
The white man's track and the haunts of tbe black  
   He shuns and shudders to see,     
For his joy he tastes, in lonely wastes,    
   Where his mates are torrent and tree!  
         For his joy he tastes,
         In lonely wastes,     
   Where his mates are torrent and tree!

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 1867;
and later in
The Australasian, 13 June 1868;
Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall, 1869;
A Century of Australian Song edited by Douglas Sladen, 1888;
The Children's Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, 1913;
Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stevens, 1925;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1957;
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966;
Silence into Song: An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, 1968;
A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, 1982;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1988; and
Henry Kendall: Poetry, Prose and Selected Correspondence edited by Michael Ackland, 1993.

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

See also.

My annals have it so:
A thing my mother saw
Near eighty years ago
With happiness and awe.

Along a level hill --
A clearing in wild space;
And night's last tardy chill
Yet damp on morning's face.

Sight never to forget:
Solemn against the sky
In stately silhouette
Ten emus stalking by.

One after one they went
In line. and without haste:
On their unknown intent,
Ten emus grandly paced.

She, used to hedged-in fields,
Watched them go filing past
Into the great bush wilds
Silent and vast.

Sudden that hour she knew
That this far place was good,
This mighty land and new,
For the soul's hardihood;

For hearts that love the strange
That carry wonder:
The bush the hills the range,
And the dark flats under.

First published in The Bulletin, 9 August 1944;
and later in
Australian Poetry, 1946 edited by T. Inglis Moore,1947;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry edited by Les Murray, 1986;
Classic Australian Verse edited by Maggie Pinkney, 2001;
The Turning Wave: Poems and Songs of Irish Australia edited by Colleen Burke and Vincent Woods, 2001;
Our Country: Classic Australian Poetry: From the Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, 2004;
100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, 2008; and
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, 2009.

Author: Mary Elizabeth Fullerton (1868-1946) was born in Glenmaggie, Victoria, and was mainly home and self-educated.  By the 1890s she was living in Melbourne and working as a journalist.  She was an active supporter of the suffrage movement, the Victorian Socialist Party and the Women's Political Association.  In 1922 she moved to England where she lived until her death in 1946.

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

The rain-clouds have gone to the deep --
The East like a furnance doth glow,
And the Day-spring in flooding the steep,
And sheening the landscape below!
Oh! ye who are gifted with souls
That delight in the music of birds,
Come forth where the scattered mist rolls,
And listen to eloquent words! --
Oh! ye who are fond of the sport,
And would travel yon wilderness through,
Gather -- each to his place -- for a life-stirring chase
In the wake of the wild kangaroo!    
   Gather -- each to his place --  
   For a life-stirring chase
In the wake of the wild kangaroo!  

Beyond the wide rents of the fog,  
The trees are illumm'd with gold,
And the bark of the shepherd's brave dog
Shoots away from the sheltering fold!
Down the depths of yon rock-border'd glade,
A torrent goes foaming along;
While the blind owls retire into shade,
And the "echu"* beginneth its song.
By the side at that yawning abyss
Where the vapours are hurrying to,
We will merrily pass, looking down to the grass
For the tracks of the wild kangaroo!
   We will merrily pass,
   Looking down to the grass,
For the tracks of the wild kangaroo.

Ho! brothers, away to the woods!
Euroka+ hath clamber'd the hill;
But the morning there seldom intrudes,
Where the night shadows slumber on still!
We will roam o'er these forest-land's wild,
And thread the dark masses of vines,
Where the winds, like the a voice of a child,
Are singing aloft in the pines!
We must keep down the glee of our hounds --
We must steal through the glittering dew;
And the breezes shall sleep, as we cautiously creep
To the haunts of the wild kangaroo!
   And the breezes shall sleep,
   As we cautiously creep
To the haunts of the wild kangaroo!    

When we pass thro' a stillness like Death,
The swamp-fowl and timorous quail,
Like the leaves in a hurricane's breath,
Will start from their nests in the vale.
And the forester#, snuffing the air,
Will bound from his covert so dark,
While we follow along in the rear,
As arrows speed on to their mark!
Then the swift hounds shall bring him to bay,
And we'll send forth a hearty halloo;
As we gather them all, to be in at the fall --
At the death of the wild kangaroo!
   As we gather them all,
   To be in at the fall --
At the death of the wild kangaroo!    

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1861;
and later in
Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle, 2 August 1862;
Poems and Songs by Henry Kendall, 1862; and
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966.

* A bird commonly called "The Coachman's Whip."       
+ " Euroka," an aboriginal name for the Sun.      
# This is a term applied by settlers to the "Old Man Kangaroo." 

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

See also.

He has the full moon on his breast,
The moonbeams are about his wing;
He has the colours of a king.
I see him floating unto rest
When all eyes wearily go west,
And the warm winds are quieting.
The moonbeams are about his wing:
He has the full moon on his breast.

First published in The Clarion, 10 May 1909;
and later in
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;
My Country: Australian poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
John Shaw Neilson: Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, 1991; and
Selected Poems edited by Robert Gray, 1993;
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.

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

See also.