Henry Kendall

Here in this gold-green evening end, While air is soft and sky is clear, What tender message shall I send

The hut was built of bark and shrunken slabs, That wore the marks of many rains, and showed Dry flaws wherein had crept and nestled rot.

You may have heard of Proclus, sir, If you have been a reader; And you may know a bit of her

He knows the sweet vexation in the strife Of Love with Time, this bard who fain would stray To fairer place beyond the storms of life,

Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet Of thunder and the 'wildering wings of rain Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,

Because a steadfast flame of clear intent Gave force and beauty to full-actioned life; Because his way was one of firm ascent,

From Andalusian gardens I bring the rose and rue, And leaves of subtle odour,

Feet of the flying, and fierce Tops of the sharp-headed spear, Hard by the thickets that pierce,

Hath he not followed a star through the darkness, Ye people who sit at the table of Jephthah? Oh! turn with the face to a light in the mountains,

The song that once I dreamed about, The tender, touching thing, As radiant as the rose without

I cannot tell what change hath come to you To vex your splendid hair. I only know One grief. The passion left betwixt us two,

Underneath the windy mountain walls Forth we rode, an eager band, By the surges and the verges and the gorges,

A splendid sun betwixt the trees Long spikes of flame did shoot, When turning to the fragrant South,

The silvery dimness of a happy dream I've known of late. Methought where Byron moans, Like some wild gulf in melancholy zones,

I walked through a Forest, beneath the hot noon, On Etheline calling and calling! One said: 'She will hear you and come to you soon,

LO! in storms, the triple-headed Hill, whose dreaded Bases battle with the seas,

River, myrtle rimmed, and set Deep amongst unfooted dells Daughter of grey hills of wet,

Take this rose, and very gently place it on the tender, deep Mosses where our little darling, Araluen, lies asleep. Put the blossom close to baby kneel with me, my love, and pray;

Across the dripping ridges, O, look, luxurious night! She comes, the bright-haired beauty,

At dusk, like flowers that shun the day, Shy thoughts from dim recesses break, And plead for words I dare not say

They built his mound of the rough, red ground, By the dip of a desert dell, Where all things sweet are killed by the heat,

To-night a strong south wind in thunder sings Across the city. Now by salt wet flats, And ridges perished with the breath of drought,

Five years ago! you cannot choose But know the face of change, Though July sleeps and Spring renews

What though his feet were shod with sharp, fierce flame, And death and ruin were his daily squires, The Scythian, helped by Heaven's thunders, came:

Who cometh from fields of the south With raiment of weeping and woe, And a cry of the heart in her mouth,

Men have said that ye were sleeping Hurl, Australians, back the lie; Whet the swords you have in keeping,

Sing, mountain-wind, thy strong, superior song Thy haughty alpine anthem, over tracts Whose passes and whose swift, rock-straitened streams

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling, And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling; It lives in the mountain, where moss and the sedges

Amongst the thunder-splintered caves On Ocean's long and windy shore, I catch the voice of dying waves

Wild-eyed woodlands, here I rest me, underneath the gaunt and ghastly trees; Underneath fantastic-fronted caverns crammed with many a muffled breeze. Far away from dusky towns and cities twinkling with the feet of men;

Down in the South, by the waste without sail on it, Far from the zone of the blossom and tree, Lieth, with winter and whirlwind and wail on it,

The leaders of millions, the lords of the lands, Who sway the wide world with their will And shake the great globe with the strength of their hands,

No song is this of leaf and bird, And gracious waters flowing; I'm sick at heart, for I have heard

Kate, they say, is seventeen Do not count her sweet, you know. Arms of her are rather lean

The gloved and jewelled bards who sing Of Pippa, Maud, and Dorothea, Have hardly done the handsome thing

The dauntless three! For twenty days and nights These heroes battled with the haughty heights; For twenty spaces of the star and sun

Singer of songs of the hills Dreamer, by waters unstirred, Back in a valley of rills,

By red-ripe mouth and brown, luxurious eyes Of her I love, by all your sweetness shed In far, fair days, on one whose memory flies

In a far-away glen of the hills, Where the bird of the night is at rest, Shut in from the thunder that fills

The caves of the sea have been troubled to-day With the water which whitens, and widens, and fills; And a boat with our brother was driven away

Turn from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name She is fairer than flowers of the fire she is brighter than brightness of flame. As a song that strikes swift to the heart with the beat of the blood of the South,

'All day a strong sun has been drinking The ponds in the Wattletree Glen; And now as they're puddles, I'm thinking

'A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.' The priests and the Levites went forth, to feast at the courts of the Kings;

Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams, And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping, Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,

Phantom streams were in the distance mocking lights of lake and pool Ghosts of trees of soft green lustre groves of shadows deep and cool! Yea, some devil ran before them changing skies of brass to blue,

Too cold, O my brother, too cold for my wife Is the Beauty you showed me this morning: Nor yet have I found the sweet dream of my life,

Sing her a song of the sun: Fill it with tones of the stream, Echoes of waters that run

Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee, Coogee in the distance white, With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light; Haunt of gledes, and restless plovers of the melancholy wail

Years fifty, and seven to boot, have smitten the children of men Since sound of a voice or a foot came out of the head of that glen. The brand of black devil is there an evil wind moaneth around

A clamour by day and a whisper by night, And the Summer comes with the shining noons, With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light

Take the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings: Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs. Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old

When lost Francesca sobbed her broken tale Of love and sin and boundless agony, While that wan spirit by her side did wail

Daphne! Ladon's daughter, Daphne! Set thyself in silver light, Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade,

To her who, cast with me in trying days, Stood in the place of health and power and praise; Who, when I thought all light was out, became

Just when the western light Flickered out dim, Flushing the mountain-side,

Spirit of Loveliness! Heart of my heart! Flying so far from me, Heart of my heart! Above the eastern hill, I know the red leaves thrill,

A brother wandered forth with me, Beside a barren beach: He harped on things beyond the sea,

Gloomy cliffs, so worn and wasted with the washing of the waves, Are ye not like giant tombstones round those lonely ocean graves? Are ye not the sad memorials, telling of a mighty grief

Here, pent about by office walls And barren eyes all day, 'Tis sweet to think of waterfalls

I hear no footfall beating through the dark, A lonely gust is loitering at the pane; There is no sound within these forests stark

Into that good old Hebrew's soul sublime The spirit of the wilderness had passed; For where the thunders of imperial Storm

Through many a fragrant cedar grove A darkened water moans; And there pale Memory stood with Love

A quiet song for Ellen The patient Ellen Ray, A dreamer in the nightfall,

The heart that once was rich with light, And happy in your grace, Now lieth cold beneath the scorn

On the storm-cloven Cape The bitter waves roll, With the bergs of the Pole,

Argument. Hail to thee, Sound! The power of Euterpe in all the scenes of life    in religion; in works of charity; in soothing troubles by means of music; in all humane and high purposes; in war; in grief; in the social circle; the children's lullaby; the dance; the ballad; in conviviality; when far from home; at evening the whole ending with an allegorical chorus, rejoicing at the building of a mighty hall erected for the recreation of a nation destined to take no inconsiderable part in the future history of the world. Overture

Child of Light, the bright, the bird-like! wilt thou float and float to me, Facing winds and sleets and waters, flying glimpses of the sea? Down amongst the hills of tempest, where the elves of tumult roam

The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide; And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride. The gleaming clouds, above the brows of western steeps uphurled,

A morning crowns the Western hill, A day begins to reign, A sun awakes o'er distant seas

Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away, Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay; Lurid wastelands, pent in silence, thick with hot and thirsty sighs,

Have faith in God. For whosoever lists To calm conviction in these days of strife, Will learn that in this steadfast stand exists

The embers were blinking and clinking away, The casement half open was thrown; There was nothing but cloud on the skirts of the Day,

Out of the body for ever, Wearily sobbing, 'Oh, whither?' A Soul that hath wasted its chances

Fifteen miles and then the harbour! Here we cannot choose but stand, Faces thrust towards the day-break, listening for our native land! Close-reefed topsails shuddering over, straining down the groaning mast;

In the roar of the storm, in the wild bitter voice of the tempest-whipped sea, The cry of my darling, my child, comes ever and ever to me; And I stand where the haggard-faced wood stares down on a sinister shore,

Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell The torrent voice rings strong And clear, above a star-bright well,

A silver slope, a fall of firs, a league of gleaming grasses, And fiery cones, and sultry spurs, and swarthy pits and passes! .        .        .        .        .

My head is filled with olden rhymes beside this moaning sea, But many and many a day has gone since I was dear to thee! I know my passion fades away, and therefore oft regret

'Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now, For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now; Shut your ears, stranger,' saith the grey mother, crooning

The wild night comes like an owl to its lair, The black clouds follow fast, And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,

The harp we love hath a royal burst! Its strings are mighty forest trees; And branches, swaying to and fro,

Here, where the great hills fall away To bays of silver sea, I hold within my hand to-day

In the beams of a beautiful day, Made soft by a breeze from the sea, The horses were started away,

Two years had the tiger, whose shape was that of a sinister man, Been out since the night of escape two years under horror and ban. In a time full of thunder and rain, when hurricanes hackled the tree,

'Daughter,' said the ancient father, pausing by the evening sea, 'Turn thy face towards the sunset turn thy face and kneel with me! Prayer and praise and holy fasting, lips of love and life of light,

Encompassed by the psalm of hill and stream, By hymns august with their majestic theme, Here in the evening of exalted days

A strong sea-wind flies up and sings Across the blown-wet border, Whose stormy echo runs and rings

They come from the highways of labour, From labour and leisure they come; But not to the sound of the tabor,

The grand, authentic songs that roll Across grey widths of wild-faced sea, The lordly anthems of the Pole,

Shall he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus, Turned gracious eyes and countenance of shine, Be left to lie without a wreath from us,

At rest! Hard by the margin of that sea Whose sounds are mingled with his noble verse, Now lies the shell that never more will house

A voice of grave, deep emphasis Is in the woods to-night; No sound of radiant day is this,

Because this man fulfilled his days, Like one who walks with steadfast gaze Averted from forbidden ways

In the depths of a Forest secluded and wild, The night voices whisper in passionate numbers; And I'm leaning again, as I did when a child,

Said the yellow-haired Spirit of Spring To the white-footed Spirit of Snow, 'On the wings of the tempest take wing,

Be his rest the rest he sought: Calm and deep. Let no wayward word or thought

The bard who is singing of Wollombi Jim Is hardly just now in the requisite trim To sit on his Pegasus fairly;

With reverent eyes and bowed, uncovered head, A son of sorrow kneels by fanes you knew; But cannot say the words that should be said

The song that is last of the many Whose music is full of thy name, Is weaker, O father! than any,

Towards the hills of Jamberoo Some few fantastic shadows haste, Uplit with fires

We stood by the window and hearkened To the voice of the runnels sea-driven, While, northward, the mountain-heads darkened,

With noise of battle and the dust of fray, Half hid in fog, the gloomy mountain lay; But Succoth's watchers, from their outer fields,

A waving of hats and of hands, The voices of thousands in one, A shout from the ring and the stands,

The gums in the gully stand gloomy and stark, A torrent beneath them is leaping, And the wind goes about like a ghost in the dark

If Laura lady of the flower-soft face Should light upon these verses, she may take The tenderest line, and through its pulses trace

Lordly harp, by lordly master wakened from majestic sleep, Yet shall speak and yet shall sing the words which make the fathers weep! Voice surpassing human voices high, unearthly harmony

Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing Falters because of the vision it sees; Voice that is not of the living is ringing

When God drave the ruthless waters From our cornfields to the sea, Came she where our wives and daughters

(Inscribed to Madame Lucy Escott.) As you glided and glided before us that time, A mystical, magical maiden,

Manasseh, lord of Judah, and the son Of him who, favoured of Jehovah, saw At midnight, when the skies were flushed with fire,

Path beside the silver waters, flashing in October's sun Walk, by green and golden margins where the sister streamlets run Twenty shining springs have vanished, full of flower, and leaf, and bird,

Far in the ways of the hyaline wastes in the face of the splendid Six of the sisters the star-dowered sisters ineffably bright, Merope sitteth, the shadow-like wife of a monarch unfriended

(Written in the shadow of 1872.) Ah, to be by Mooni now, Where the great dark hills of wonder,

Above the skirts of yellow clouds, The god-like Sun, arrayed In blinding splendour, swiftly rose,

Dim dreams it hath of singing ways, Of far-off woodland water-heads, And shining ends of April days

A mighty theatre of snow and fire, Girt with perpetual Winter, and sublime By reason of that lordly solitude

It lies amongst the sleeping stones, Far down the hidden mountain glade; And past its brink the torrent moans

Rifted mountains, clad with forests, girded round by gleaming pines, Where the morning, like an angel, robed in golden splendour shines; Shimmering mountains, throwing downward on the slopes a mazy glare

Across bleak widths of broken sea A fierce north-easter breaks, And makes a thunder on the lea

From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms, Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms From the home of bold echoes, whose voices of wonder

A song that is bitter with grief a ballad as pale as the light That comes with the fall of the leaf, I sing to the shadows to-night. The laugh on the lyrical lips is sadder than laughter of ghosts

Stand out, swift-footed leaders of the horns, And draw strong breath, and fill the hollowy cliff With shocks of clamour, let the chasm take

Oh, tell me, ye breezes that spring from the west, Oh, tell me, ere passing away, If Leichhardt's bold spirit has fled to its rest?

A grace that was lent for a very few hours, By the bountiful Spirit above us; She sleeps like a flower in the land of the flowers,

Where the strength of dry thunder splits hill-rocks asunder, And the shouts of the desert-wind break, By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,

Every happy expression in these stanzas may fairly be claimed by the Hon. W. B. Dalley (Author's note) Deep under the spires of a hill, by the feet of the thunder-cloud trod, I pause in a luminous, still, magnificent temple of God!

I dread that street its haggard face I have not seen for eight long years; A mother's curse is on the place,

As when the strong stream of a wintering sea Rolls round our coast, with bodeful breaks of storm, And swift salt rain, and bitter wind that saith

The strong sob of the chafing stream That seaward fights its way Down crags of glitter, dells of gleam,

Twelve years ago our Jack was lost. All night, Twelve years ago, the Spirit of the Storm Sobbed round our camp. A wind of northern hills

I see, as one in dreaming, A broad, bright, quiet sea; Beyond it lies a haven

The spirit of beautiful faces, The light on the forehead of Love, And the spell of past visited places,

I am writing this song at the close Of a beautiful day of the spring In a dell where the daffodil grows

He has a name which can't be brought Within the sphere of metre; But, as he's Peter by report,

I I purposed once to take my pen and write, Not songs, like some, tormented and awry

Gaul whose keel in far, dim ages ploughed wan widths of polar sea Gray old sailor of Massilia, who hath woven wreath for thee? Who amongst the world's high singers ever breathed the tale sublime

Sometimes we feel so spent for want of rest, We have no thought beyond. I know to-day, When tired of bitter lips and dull delay

Said one who led the spears of swarthy Gad, To Jesse's mighty son: 'My Lord, O King, I, halting hard by Gibeon's bleak-blown hill

High travelling winds by royal hill Their awful anthem sing, And songs exalted flow and fill

Sweet water-moons, blown into lights Of flying gold on pool and creek, And many sounds and many sights

No classic warrior tempts my pen To fill with verse these pages No lordly-hearted man of men

Strong pinions bore Safi, the dreamer, Through the dazzle and whirl of a race, And the earth, raying up in confusion,

Another battle! and the sounds have rolled By many a gloomy gorge and wasted plain O'er huddled hills and mountains manifold,

Grey winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest, And, behold, for repayment, September comes in with the wind of the West

What bitter sorrow courses down Yon mourner's faded cheek? Those scalding drops betray a grief

Barren age and withered World! Oh! the dying leaves, Like a drizzling rain,

Ah! the solace in the sitting, Sitting by the fire, When the wind without is calling

While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams, And the water-pools flash in its glow, Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry

In dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods And the dingoes nightly yell Where the curlew's cry goes floating by,

A lofty Type of all her sex, I ween, My English brothers, though your wayward race Now slight the Soul that never wore a screen,

The Bard of ancient lore! Like one forlorn, He turned, enamoured, to the silent Past; And searching down its mazes gray and vast,

Dark days have passed, but you who taught me then To look upon the world with trustful eyes, Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise

Where is the painter who shall paint for you, My Austral brothers, with a pencil steeped In hues of Truth, the weather-smitten crew

'There were but two, and we were forty! Yet,' The Captain wrote, 'that dauntless couple throve, And faced our wildering faces; and I said

Chaotic crags are huddled east and west Dark, heavy crags, against a straitened sea That cometh, like a troubled soul in quest

'Tis holy ground! The silent silver lights And darks undreamed of, falling year by year Upon his sleep, in soft Australian nights,

The sunsets fall and the sunsets fade, But still I walk this shadowy land; And grapple the dark and only the dark

It is better, O day, that you go to your rest, For you go like a guest who was loth to remain! Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west,

All night long the sea out yonder all night long the wailful sea, Vext of winds and many thunders, seeketh rest unceasingly! Seeketh rest in dens of tempest, where, like one distraught with pain,

Part I Chorus Songs of morning, with your breath

Where Hornby, like a mighty fallen star, Burns through the darkness with a splendid ring Of tenfold light, and where the awful face

A heap of low, dark, rocky coast, Unknown to foot or feather! A sea-voice moaning like a ghost;

Shades of my father, the hour is approaching. Prepare ye the 'cava' for 'Yona' on high; Make ready the welcome, ye souls of Arrochin.

January The first fair month! In singing Summer's sphere She glows, the eldest daughter of the year.

How dazzling the sunbeams awoke on the spray, When Australia first rose in the distance away, As welcome to us on the deck of the bark,

She knelt by the dead, in her passionate grief, Beneath a weird forest of Tanna; She kissed the stern brow of her father and chief,

From the runs of the Narran, wide-dotted with sheep, And loud with the lowing of cattle, We speed for a land where the strange forests sleep

She sleeps and I see through a shadowy haze, Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,

The viewless blast flies moaning past, Away to the forest trees, Where giant pines and leafless vines

Wizened the wood is, and wan is the way through it; White as a corpse is the face of the fen; Only blue adders abide in and stray through it

There's music wafting on the air, The evening winds are sighing Among the trees and yonder stream

Australia, advancing with rapid winged stride, Shall plant among nations her banners in pride, The yoke of dependence aside she will cast,

Set your face toward the darkness tell of deserts weird and wide, Where unshaken woods are huddled, and low, languid waters glide; Turn and tell of deserts lonely, lying pathless, deep and vast,

With sweet Regret'(the dearest thing that Yesterday has left us)' We often turn our homeless eyes to scenes whence Fate has reft us. Here sitting by a fading flame, wild waifs of song remind me

A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts Are beating round the windows in the cold, With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape

Like one who meets a staggering blow, The stout old ship doth reel, And waters vast go seething past

Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound About with clouds and racks of rain, And dry, dead leaves go whirling round

The verdant ivy clings around Yon moss be-mantled wall, As if it sought to hide the stones,

He crouches, and buries his face on his knees, And hides in the dark of his hair; For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,

Sad faces came round, and I dreamily said 'Though the harp of my country now slumbers, Some hand will pass o'er it, in love for the dead,

Rolling through the gloomy gorges, comes the roaring southern blast, With a sound of torrents flying, like a routed army, past, And, beneath the shaggy forelands, strange fantastic forms of surf

I Brothers from far-away lands, Sons of the fathers of fame,

The sun o'er the waters was throwing In the freshness of morning its beams; And the breast of the ocean seemed glowing

Where the pines with the eagles are nestled in rifts, And the torrent leaps down to the surges, I have followed her, clambering over the clifts,

It passed like the breath of the night-wind away, It fled like a mist at the dawn of the day; It lasted its moment, then backward was hurled,

Hear ye not the waters beating where the rapid rivers, meeting With the winds above them fleeting, hurry to the distant seas, And a smothered sound of singing from old Ocean upwards springing,

The night grows dark, and weird, and cold; and thick drops patter on the pane; There comes a wailing from the sea; the wind is weary of the rain. The red coals click beneath the flame, and see, with slow and silent feet

And they shook their sweetness out in their sleep, On the brink of that beautiful stream, But it wandered along with a wearisome song

Low as a lute, my love, beneath the call Of storm, I hear a melancholy wind; The memorably mournful wind of yore

Who framed the stanza of Childe Harold? He It was who, halting on a stormy shore, Knew well the lofty voice which evermore,

(The poem which won the prize offered by the proprietors of the 'Sydney Morning Herald'.) Now, while Orion, flaming south, doth set A shining foot on hills of wind and wet

(Written in the shadow of 1872.) Twelve years ago, when I could face High heaven's dome with different eyes

Ill fares it with the man whose lips are set To bitter themes and words that spite the gods; For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways

Where the lone creek, chafing nightly in the cold and sad moonshine, Beats beneath the twisted fern-roots and the drenched and dripping vine; Where the gum trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise,

The Warrigal's lair is pent in bare, Black rocks at the gorge's mouth; It is set in ways where Summer strays

The song of the water Doomed ever to roam, A beautiful exile,

The rain-clouds have gone to the deep The East like a furnace doth glow; And the day-spring is flooding the steep,

A handmaid to the genius of thy song Is sweet, fair Scholarship. 'Tis she supplies The fiery spirit of the passioned eyes

Ah, often do I wait and watch, And look up, straining through the Real With longing eyes, my friend, to catch

I would sit at your feet for long days, To hear the sweet Muse of the Wild Speak out through the sad and the passionate lays

Where the sinister sun of the Syrians beat On the brittle, bright stubble, And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat,

You know I left my forest home full loth, And those weird ways I knew so well and long, Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth

Beneath the shelter of the bush, In undisturbed repose Unruffled by the kiss of breeze

To-night the sea sends up a gulf-like sound, And ancient rhymes are ringing in my head, The many lilts of song we sang and said,

To thee, O father of the stately peaks, Above me in the loftier light to thee, Imperial brother of those awful hills

I The cool grass blowing in a breeze Of April valleys sooms and sways;

Alone alone! With a heart like a stone, She maketh her moan

Like drifts of balm from cedared glens, those darling memories come, With soft low songs, and dear old tales, familiar to our home. Then breathe again that faint refrain, so tender, sad, and true,

Euroka, go over the tops of the hill, For the Death-clouds have passed us to-day, And we'll cry in the dark for the foot-falls still,

I loiter by this surging sea, Here, by this surging, sooming sea, Here, by this wailing, wild-faced sea,

Just a shell, to which the seaweed glittering yet with greenness clings, Like the song that once I loved so, softly of the old time sings Softly of the old time speaketh bringing ever back to me

Like a beautiful face looking ever at me A pure bright moon cometh over the sea; And I stand on the crags, and hear the falls

When underneath the brown dead grass My weary bones are laid, I hope I shall not see the glass

That love of letters which is as the light Of deathless verse, intense, ineffable, Hath made this scholar's nature like the white,

Let me talk of years evanished, let me harp upon the time When we trod these sands together, in our boyhood's golden prime; Let me lift again the curtain, while I gaze upon the past,