An Anthology of Australian Verse Part 6

The sea in murmurous tone Whispers the story of their loves, Re-echoes the story of their loves -- The story of Tui Viti, Of Sina and Tui Viti, By the rising tide, The rising tide, Sina, beneath the setting moon!

She has gone!

She has fled!

Sina!

Sina, for whom the warriors decked their s.h.i.+ning hair, Wreathing with pearls their bosoms brown and bare, Flinging beneath her dainty feet Mats crimson with the feathers of the parrakeet.

Ho, Samoans! rouse your warriors full soon, For Sina is across the rippling wave, With Tigilau, the bold and brave.

Far, far upon the rising tide!

Far upon the rising tide!

Far upon the rising tide, Sina, beneath the setting moon.

Patrick Moloney.

Melbourne

O sweet Queen-city of the golden South, Piercing the evening with thy star-lit spires, Thou wert a witness when I kissed the mouth Of her whose eyes outblazed the skyey fires.

I saw the parallels of thy long streets, With lamps like angels s.h.i.+ning all a-row, While overhead the empyrean seats Of G.o.ds were steeped in paradisic glow.

The Pleiades with rarer fires were tipt, Hesper sat throned upon his jewelled chair, The belted giant's triple stars were dipt In all the splendour of Olympian air, On high to bless, the Southern Cross did s.h.i.+ne, Like that which blazed o'er conquering Constantine.

Alfred Domett.

An Invitation

Well! if Truth be all welcomed with hardy reliance, All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science, All that Logic can prove or disprove be avowed: Is there room for no faith -- though such Evil intrude -- In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good?

Is there room for no hope -- such a handbreadth we scan -- In the permanence yet of the Spirit of Man? -- May we bless the far seeker, nor blame the fine dreamer?

Leave Reason her radiance -- Doubt her due cloud; Nor their Rainbows enshroud? --

From our Life of realities -- hard -- shallow-hearted, Has Romance -- has all glory idyllic departed -- From the workaday World all the wonderment flown?

Well, but what if there gleamed, in an Age cold as this, The divinest of Poets' ideal of bliss?

Yea, an Eden could lurk in this Empire of ours, With the loneliest love in the loveliest bowers? -- In an era so rapid with railway and steamer, And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphael gone -- What if this could be shown?

O my friends, never deaf to the charms of Denial, Were its comfortless comforting worth a life-trial -- Discontented content with a chilling despair? -- Better ask as we float down a song-flood unchecked, If our Sky with no Iris be glory-bedecked?

Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steal If no darkling aureolar rays may reveal That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless: While the Present has joy and adventure as rare As the Past when most fair?

And if weary of mists you will roam undisdaining To a land where the fanciful fountains are raining Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray In the violet splendour of skies that illume Such a wealth of green ferns and rare crimson tree-bloom; Where a people primeval is vanis.h.i.+ng fast, With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past: O with reason and fancy unfettered and fearless, Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day -- Come away -- and away! --

A Maori Girl's Song

"Alas, and well-a-day! they are talking of me still: By the tingling of my nostril, I fear they are talking ill; Poor hapless I -- poor little I -- so many mouths to fill -- And all for this strange feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain!

"O! senseless heart -- O simple! to yearn so, and to pine For one so far above me, confest o'er all to s.h.i.+ne, For one a hundred dote upon, who never can be mine!

O, 'tis a foolish feeling -- all this fond, sweet pain!

"When I was quite a child -- not so many moons ago -- A happy little maiden -- O, then it was not so; Like a sunny-dancing wavelet then I sparkled to and fro; And I never had this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain!

"I think it must be owing to the idle life I lead In the dreamy house for ever that this new bosom-weed Has sprouted up and spread its shoots till it troubles me indeed With a restless, weary feeling -- such a sad, sweet pain!

"So in this pleasant islet, O, no longer will I stay -- And the shadowy summer dwelling I will leave this very day; On Arapa I'll launch my skiff, and soon be borne away From all that feeds this feeling -- O, this fond, sweet pain!

"I'll go and see dear Rima -- she'll welcome me, I know, And a flaxen cloak -- her gayest -- o'er my weary shoulders throw, With purfle red and points so free -- O, quite a lovely show -- To charm away this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain!

"Two feathers I will borrow, and so gracefully I'll wear Two feathers soft and snowy, for my long, black, l.u.s.trous hair.

Of the albatross's down they'll be -- O, how charming they'll look there -- All to chase away this feeling -- O, this fond, sweet pain!

"Then the lads will flock around me with flattering talk all day -- And, with anxious little pinches, sly hints of love convey; And I shall blush with happy pride to hear them, I daresay, And quite forget this feeling -- O, this sad, sweet pain!"

James Brunton Stephens.

The Dominion of Australia

(A Forecast, 1877)

She is not yet; but he whose ear Thrills to that finer atmosphere Where footfalls of appointed things, Reverberant of days to be, Are heard in forecast echoings, Like wave-beats from a viewless sea -- Hears in the voiceful tremors of the sky Auroral heralds whispering, "She is nigh."

She is not yet; but he whose sight Foreknows the advent of the light, Whose soul to morning radiance turns Ere night her curtain hath withdrawn, And in its quivering folds discerns The mute monitions of the dawn, With urgent sense strained onward to descry Her distant tokens, starts to find Her nigh.

Not yet her day. How long "not yet"? ...

There comes the flush of violet!

And heavenward faces, all aflame With sanguine imminence of morn, Wait but the sun-kiss to proclaim The Day of The Dominion born.

Prelusive baptism! -- ere the natal hour Named with the name and prophecy of power.

Already here to hearts intense, A spirit-force, transcending sense, In heights unscaled, in deeps unstirred, Beneath the calm, above the storm, She waits the incorporating word To bid her tremble into form.

Already, like divining-rods, men's souls Bend down to where the unseen river rolls; --

For even as, from sight concealed, By never flush of dawn revealed, Nor e'er illumed by golden noon, Nor sunset-streaked with crimson bar, Nor silver-spanned by wake of moon, Nor visited of any star, Beneath these lands a river waits to bless (So men divine) our utmost wilderness, --

Rolls dark, but yet shall know our skies, Soon as the wisdom of the wise Conspires with nature to disclose The blessing prisoned and unseen, Till round our lessening wastes there glows A perfect zone of broadening green, -- Till all our land, Australia Felix called, Become one Continent-Isle of Emerald;

So flows beneath our good and ill A viewless stream of Common Will, A gathering force, a present might, That from its silent depths of gloom At Wisdom's voice shall leap to light, And hide our barren feuds in bloom, Till, all our sundering lines with love o'ergrown, Our bounds shall be the girdling seas alone.