Songs, Legends, and Ballads/Western Australia
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
Nation of sun and sin,
Thy flowers and crimes are red,
And thy heart is sore within
While the glory crowns thy head.
Land of the songless birds,
What was thine ancient crime,
Burning through lapse of time
Like a prophets cursing words
Aloes and myrrh, and tears
Mix in thy hitter wine:
Drink, while the cup is thine.
Drink, for the draught is sign
Of thy reign in the coming yearn.
PROLOGUE.
Nor rich-wrought chasing on design of art;
But rugged relics of an unknown sphere
Where fortune chanced I played one time a part.
Unthought of here the critic blame or praise,
These recollections all their faults atone;
To hold the scenes, I've writ of men and ways
Uncouth and rough as Austral ironstone.
Of skies and flowers unheeded or forgot;
It may be so,—but, looking back, it seems
When I was with them I beheld them not,
I was no rambling poet, but a man
Hard-pressed to dig and delve, with naught of each
The hot day through, save when the evening's fan
Of sea-winds rustled through the kindly trees.
At my poor hand and brain to paint the charms
Of God's first-hlazoned canvas! here the aisle
Moonlit and deep of reaching gothic arms
From towering gum, mahogany, and palm,
And odorous jam and sandal; there the growth
Of arm-long velvet leaves grown hoar in calm,—
In calm unbroken since their luscious youth.
With strange metallic glintings on the wing?
Or how tell half their sadness in cold words,—
The poor dumb lutes, the birds that never sing?
Of wondrous parrot-greens and iris hue
Of sensuous flower and of gleaming snake,—
Ah! what I see I long that so might you,
But of these things what picture can I make?
A mind God-gifted, and not dull and weak;
And he will come and paint that land so fair.
And show the beauties of which I but speak.
But in the hard, sad days that there I spent.
My mind absorbed rude pictures: these I show
As best I may, and just with this intent,—
To tell some things that all folk may not know.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
O BEAUTEOUS Southland! land of yellow air,
That hangeth o'er thee slumbering, and doth hold
The moveless foliage of thy valleys fair
And wooded hills, like aureole of gold.
O thou, discovered ere the fitting time,
Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth!
Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime,
Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North.
O land, God made thee wondrous to the eye!
But His sweet singers thou hast never heard;
He left thee, meaning to come by-and-bye.
And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird.
He painted with fresh hues thy myriad flowers.
But left them scentless: ah! their woful dole,
Like sad reproach of their Creator's powers,—
To make so sweet fair bodies, void of soul.
He gave thee trees of odorous precious wood;
But, midst them all, bloomed not one tree of fruit.
He looked, but said not that His work was good,
When leaving thee all perfumeless and mute.
He blessed thy flowers with honey: every bell
Looks earthward, sunward, with a yearning wist;
But no bee-lover ever notes the swell
Of hearts, like lips, a-huugering to be kist.
O strange land, thou art virgin! thou art more
Than fig-tree barren! Would that I could paint
For others' eyes the glory of the shore
Where last I saw thee; but the senses faint
In soft delicious dreaming when they drain
Thy wine of color. Virgin fair thou art,
All sweetly fruitful, waiting with soft pain
The spouse who comes to wake thy sleeping heart.