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~~~ Australian War Song ~~~
If the men of other nations
Look upon familiar places, ~~~ The Ivy on the Wall ~~~
The fairy flowers that once did bloom
Thus heavenly hope will still survive, ~~~ The Australian Emigrant ~~~
We had roam'd o'er the ocean -- had travers'd a path,
How often while ploughing the `watery waste',
But when that red morning awoke from its sleep,
'Tis true -- of the hopes that were verdant that day ~~~ To My Brother, Basil E. Kendall ~~~
~~~ The Waterfall ~~~
The cliffs on the mountain,
I heard the wild downfall,
Oh! was it a daughter
. . .
And listen, my Sister,
"Oh where are the shadows
"Oh, where are my playmates
"Mine eyes have been blinded
"These hills are so flinty! --
"What valley leads up to
"There lift me," -- it crieth,
Ye rocks, that look over
My sister so wistful,
Ah! you with the blue eyes
Supposing a darling
If your fathers and mothers, ~~~ The Song of Arda ~~~
Low as a lute, my love, beneath the call
A song in whose voice is the voice of the foam
The torrent flies over the thunder-struck clift
Whoever goes thither by night or by day
Oh! cover your faces and shudder, and turn ~~~ The Helmsman ~~~
His face is smitten with the wind,
Ho, Sailor! Will to-morrow bring
Now you are right, brave mariner,
And those who go abroad in ships,
But you are wrinkled, grey and worn;
Is there no absent face to love
The answer slides betwixt our words --
"It matters not to one so old
Your speech is wise, brave mariner,
"Oh, talk not of the Beauty lost, ~~~ To Miss Annie Hopkins ~~~
The lovely tint that crowns the hill ~~~ Foreshadowings ~~~
Yesterday we both were happy; but my soul is filled with change,
Have you faith at all in omens? Fits of passion I have known
When you called me I was dreaming that this thunder raged no more,
Why was our delight so fickle? Was it well while there to mourn;
Talking thus my friend I fronted, and in trustful tones he spake --
Since he answered I have rested, for his brave words fell like balm; ~~~ Sonnets on the Discovery of Botany Bay by Captain Cook ~~~
I II III IV
(* A wild lily grows on the spot supposed to be Sutherland's grave. -- H.K.)
To: The List of Poetic Works of Henry Kendall
To: Australian Master Poets Menu
Hurl, Australians, back the lie;
Whet the swords you have in keeping,
Forward stand to do or die!
Hear ye not, across the ocean,
Echoes of the distant fray,
Sounds of loud and fierce commotion,
Swiftly sweeping on the way?
Hearts have woke from sluggish trances,
Woke to know their native worth;
Freedom with her train advances --
Freedom newly sprung to birth.
Despots start from thrones affrighted --
Tyrants hear the angry tread;
Where the slaves, whose prayers were slighted,
Marching -- draw the sword instead.
Dash their fetters to the ground;
When the foeman seeks your stations,
Will you willing slaves be found?
You the sons of hero fathers --
Sires that bled at Waterloo!
No! Your indignation gathers --
To your old traditions true;
Should the cannon's iron rattle
Sound between your harbour doors,
You will rise to wage the battle
In a just and righteous cause.
Patriot fires will scorch Oppression
Should it dare to draw too near;
And the tide of bold Aggression
~Must~ be stayed from coming here.
Mountain, river, hill and glade;
Look upon those beauteous faces,
Turning up to you for aid.
Think ye, in the time of danger,
When that threatening moment comes --
Will ye let the heartless stranger
Drive your kindred from their homes?
By the prayers which rise above you,
When you face him on the shore,
By the forms of those that love you --
Greet him with the rifle's roar!
While an arm can wield a sabre,
While you yet can lift a hand,
Strike and teach your hostile neighbour,
This is Freedom's chosen land.
Yon moss be-mantled wall,
As if it sought to hide the stones,
That crumbling soon must fall:
That relic of a bygone age
Now tottering to decay,
Has but one friend -- the ivy -- left.
The rest have passed away.
And smile beneath its shade;
They lingered till the autumn came,
And autumn saw them fade:
The emerald leaves that blushed between --
The winds away have blown;
But yet to cheer the mournful scene,
The ivy liveth on.
When earthly joys have fled;
And all the flow'ry dreams of youth
Lie withering and dead.
When Winter comes -- it twines itself
Around the human heart;
And like the ivy on the wall
Will ne'er from thence depart.
When Australia first rose in the distance away,
As welcome to us on the deck of the bark,
As the dove to the vision of those in the ark!
What fairylike fancies appear'd to the view
As nearer and nearer the haven we drew!
What castles were built and rebuilt in the brain,
To totter and crumble to nothing again!
Where the tempest surrounded and shriek'd in its wrath:
Alike we had roll'd in the hurricane's breath,
And slumber'd on waters as silent as death:
We had watch'd the Day breaking each morn on the main,
And had seen it sink down in the billows again;
For week after week, till dishearten'd we thought
An age would elapse ere we enter'd the port.
Our thoughts -- from the Future have turn'd to the Past;
How often our bosoms have heav'd with regret;
For faces and scenes we could never forget:
For we'd seen as the shadows o'er-curtain'd our minds
The cliffs of old England receding behind;
And had turned in our tears from the view of the shore,
The land of our childhood, to see it no more.
To show us this land like a cloud on the deep;
And when the warm sunbeams imparted their glow,
To the heavens above and the ocean below;
The hearts ' had been aching then revell'd with joy,
And a pleasure was tasted exempt from alloy;
The souls ' had been heavy grew happy and light
And all was forgotten in present delight.
There is more than the half of them withered away:
'Tis true that emotions of temper'd regret,
Still live for the country we'll never forget;
But yet we are happy, since learning to love
The scenes that surround us -- the skies are above,
We find ourselves bound, as it were by a spell,
In the clime we've adopted contented to dwell.
And ancient rhymes are ringing in my head,
The many lilts of song we sang and said,
My friend and brother, when we journeyed round
Our haunts at Wollongong, that classic ground
For me at least, a lingerer deeply read
And steeped in beauty. Oft in trance I tread
Those shining shores, and hear your talk of Fame
With thought-flushed face and heart so well assured
(Beholding through the woodland's bright distress
The Moon half pillaged of her loveliness)
Of this wild dreamer: Had you but endured
A dubious dark, you might have won a name
With brighter bays than I can ever claim.
Doomed ever to roam,
A beautiful exile,
Afar from its home.
The grand and the gray,
They took the bright creature
And hurled it away!
And knew it must spill
A passionate heart out
All over the hill.
Of sorrow and sin,
That they threw it so madly
Down into the lynn?
For this is the song
The Waterfall taught me
The ridges among: --
So cool and so sweet
And the rocks," saith the water,
"With the moss on their feet?
The wind and the flowers --
The golden and purple --
Of honey-sweet bowers,
Because of the sun;
And moaning and moaning
I listlessly run.
Ah! tell me, dark Earth,
What valley leads back to
The place of my birth? --
The haunts where a child
Of the caverns I sported,
The free and the wild?
"I faint from the heat;
With a sob for the shadows
So cool and so sweet."
With never a tear,
I yearn for one half of
The wasted love here!
You know I believe,
Like a child for the mountains
This water doth grieve.
And golden-brown hair,
Come closer and closer
And truly declare: --
Once happened to sin,
In a passionate space,
Would you carry her in --
The grand and the gray,
Had taken the weak one
And hurled her away?
Of storm, I hear a melancholy wind;
The memorably mournful wind of yore
Which is the very brother of the one
That wanders, like a hermit, by the mound
Of Death, in lone Annatanam. A song
Was shaped for this, what time we heard outside
The gentle falling of the faded leaf
In quiet noons: a song whose theme doth turn
On gaps of Ruin and the gay-green clifts
Beneath the summits haunted by the moon.
Yea, much it travels to the dens of dole;
And in the midst of this strange rhyme, my lords,
Our Desolation like a phantom sits
With wasted cheeks and eyes that cannot weep
And fastened lips crampt up in marvellous pain.
And the rhyme of the wintering wave,
And the tongue of the things that eternally roam
In forest, in fell or in cave;
But mostly 'tis like to the Wind without home
In the glen of a desolate grave --
Of a deep and desolate grave.
With many and many a call;
The leaves are swept down, and a dolorous drift
Is hurried away with the fall.
But mostly 'tis like the Wind without home
In the glen of a desolate grave --
Of a deep and desolate grave.
Must mutter, O Father, to Thee,
For the shadows that startle, the sounds that waylay
Are heavy to hear and to see;
And a step and a moan and a whisper for aye
Have made it a sorrow to be --
A sorrow of sorrows to be.
And hide in the dark of your hair,
Nor look to the Glen in the Mountains, to learn
Of the mystery mouldering there;
But rather sit low in the ashes and urn
Dead hopes in your mighty despair --
In the depths of your mighty despair.
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past --
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?
His cheeks are chilled with rain;
And you were right, his hair is white,
But eyes are calm and heart is light
~He~ does not fear the strife to-night,
He knows the roaring main.
The hours of pleasant rest?
An answer low -- "I do not know,
The thunders grow and far winds blow,
But storms may come and storms may go --
Our God, He judgeth best!"
But we are not like you;
We, used to shore, our fates deplore,
And fear the more when waters roar;
So few amongst us look before,
Or stop to think that Heaven is o'er --
Ah! what you say is true.
Who seldom see the land,
But sail and stray so far away,
Should trust and pray, for are not they,
When Darkness blinds them on their way,
All guided by God's hand?
'Tis time you dwelt in peace!
Your prime is past; we fail so fast;
You may not last through every blast,
And, oh, 'tis fearful to be cast
Amongst the smothering seas!
That you must live alone?
If faith did fade, if friends betrayed,
And turned, and staid resolves you'd made,
Ah, still 'tis pleasant to be laid
Where you at least are known.
"The season shines and glooms
On ship and strand, on sea and land,
But life must go and Time is spanned,
As well you know when out you stand
With Death amongst the tombs!
Who mourns when Fate comes round,
And one may sleep down in the deep
As well as those beneath the heap
That fifty stormy years will sweep
And trample to the ground."
And we would let you be;
You speak with truth, you strive to soothe;
But, oh, the wrecks of Love and Truth,
What say you to our tears for Youth
And Beauty drowned at sea?
Since first these decks I trod
The hopeless stare on faces fair,
The streaming, bare, dishevelled hair,
The wild despair, the sinking -- where,
Oh where, oh where? -- My God!"
In undisturbed repose --
Unruffled by the kiss of breeze --
There lurks a smiling rose;
Beneath thine outer beauty, gleams,
In holy light enshrined,
A symbol of the blooming flower,
A pure, unspotted mind.
When westward sinks the sun,
The milder dazzle in the stream
That evening sits upon,
The morning blushes, mantling o'er
The face of land and sea,
They all recall to mind the charms
That are combined in thee!
Faces thrust towards the day-break, listening for our native land!
Close-reefed topsails shuddering over, straining down the groaning mast;
For a tempest cleaves the darkness, hissing, howling, shrieking past!
Lo! the air is flecked with stormbirds, and their melancholy wail
Lends a tone of deeper pathos to the melancholy gale!
Whilst away they wheel to leeward, leaving in their rapid flight
Wind and water grappling wildly through the watches of the night.
And I'm sad, my gallant comrade, with foreshadowings vague and strange!
Dear old place, are we so near you? Like to one that speaks in sleep,
I'm talking, thinking wildly o'er this moaning, maddened deep!
Much it makes me marvel, brother, that such thoughts should linger nigh
Now we know what shore is hidden somewhere in that misty sky!
Oh! I even fear to see it; and I've never felt so low
Since we turned our faces from it, seven weary years ago.
When it seemed in crowded towns as if I walked the Earth alone!
And amongst my comrades often, o'er the lucent, laughing sea,
I have felt like one that drifteth on a dark and dangerous lee!
As a man who, crossing waters underneath a moony night,
Knows there will be gloomy weather if a cloudrack bounds the light,
So I hold, when Life is splendid, and our hopes are new and warm,
We can sometimes, looking forward, see the shade and feel the storm.
And we travelled, both together, on a calm, delightful shore;
That we went along rejoicing, for I thought I heard you say,
"Now we soon shall see them, brother -- now our fears have passed away!"
Pleasant were those deep green wild-woods; and we hurried, like a breeze,
Till I saw a distant opening through the porches of the trees;
And our village faintly gleaming past the forest and the stream;
But we wandered sadly through it with the Spirit of my Dream.
When the loved -- the loving, crowding, came to welcome our return?
In my vision, once so glorious, did we find that aught was changed;
Or that ONE whom WE remembered was forgotten or estranged?
Through a mist of many voices, listening for sweet accents fled,
Heard we hints of lost affection, or of gentle faces dead?
No! but on the quiet dreamscape came a darkness like a pall
And a ghostly shadow, brother, fell and rested over all.
"I have long been waiting, watching here to see the morning break;
Now behold the bright fulfilment! Did my Spirit yearn in vain;
And amidst this holy splendour can a moody heart remain?
Let them pass, those wayward fancies! Waking thoughts return with sleep;
And they mingle strangely sometimes, while we lie in slumber deep;
But, believe me, dreams are nothing. If unto His creatures weak
God should whisper of the Future, not in riddles will He speak."
And we reached the land in daylight, and the tempest died in calm;
Though the sounds of gusty fragments of a faint and broken breeze
Still went gliding with the runnels, gurgling down the spangled leas!
So we turned and travelled onward, till we rested at a place
Where a Vision fell about us, sunned with many a lovely face;
Then we heard low silvery voices; and I knelt upon the shore --
Knelt and whispered, "God I thank Thee! and will wander never more."
The First Attempt to Reach the Shore
My Austral brothers, with a pencil steeped
In hues of Truth, the weather-smitten crew
Who gazed on unknown shores -- a thoughtful few --
What time the heart of their great Leader leaped
Till he was faint with pain of longing? New
And wondrous sights on each and every hand,
Like strange supernal visions, grew and grew
Until the rocks and trees, and sea and sand,
Danced madly in the tear-bewildered view!
And from the surf a fierce, fantastic band
Of startled wild men to the hills withdrew
With yells of fear! Who'll paint thy face, O Cook!
Turned seaward, "after many a wistful look!"
The Second Attempt, Opposed by Two of the Natives
The Captain wrote, "that dauntless couple throve,
And faced our wildering faces; and I said
`Lie to awhile!' I did not choose to let
A strife go on of little worth to ~us~.
And so unequal! But the dying tread
Of flying kinsmen moved them not: for wet
With surf and wild with streaks of white and black
The pair remained." -- O stout Caractacus!
'Twas thus you stood when Caesar's legions strove
To beat their few, fantastic foemen back --
Your patriots with their savage stripes of red!
To drench the stormy cliff and moaning cove
With faithful blood, as pure as any ever shed.
The Spot Where Cook Landed
Dark, heavy crags, against a straitened sea
That cometh, like a troubled soul in quest
Of voiceless rest where never dwelleth rest,
With noise "like thunder everlasting."
But here, behold a silent space of sand! --
Oh, pilgrim, halt! -- it even seems to be
~Asleep in other years~. How still! How grand!
How awful in its wild solemnity!
~This~ is the spot on which the Chief did land,
And there, perchance, he stood what time a band
Of yelling strangers scoured the savage lea.
Dear friend, with thoughtful eyes look slowly round --
By all the sacred Past 'tis sacred ground.
Sutherland's Grave
And darks undreamed of, falling year by year
Upon his sleep, in soft Australian nights,
Are joys enough for him who lieth here
So sanctified with Rest. We need not rear
The storied monument o'er such a spot!
That soul, the first for whom the Christian tear
Was shed on Austral soil, hath heritage
Most ample! Let the ages wane with age,
The grass which clothes ~this~ grave shall wither not.
See yonder quiet lily! Have the blights
Of many winters left it on a faded tomb?*
Oh, peace! Its fellows, glad with green delights,
Shall gather round it deep eternal bloom!
Copyright 1996-2001 - KRACKATINNI IS THE REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF RODNEY JOHN O'BRIEN