John le Gay Brereton

While to the clarion blown by Marlowe's breath Tall Tragedy tramped by in hues of death, And Shakespeare yet was tuning string by string,

Within my heart I hear the cry Of loves that suffer, souls that die, And you may have no praise from me

On a monument formed as a curving wave By ceaseless waves, that break and waste, All human record is effaced:

I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine; Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea, On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,

The Blatant Beast saw meadows, made for peace, Sunlit and gently asway, and held them light, Till each green blade grew rigid in the night

A timid child with heart oppressed By images of sin, I slunk into the bush for rest,

Eternal cold of silence, where each sound Dies in its birth, and Death's pale henchmen meet With soft Lethean traps unwary feet

He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart Ere the breasts where his baby lips fed have forgotten their softness, we part. We part. He was mine, he was here, though he travelled by land and by sea,

Grant me a moment of peace, Let me but open mine eyes, Forgetting the empire of lies

When fires have burnt your forest bare and black, And you are parched and dizzy, and search in vain For pools in dust unvisited of rain,

A singing voice is in my dream The voice of Erskine, on his boulders, Babbling and shouting till he shoulders

Hail to you, comrades, who have won, Where the torn lines of battle run By tattered town and ruined mead,

Not till the sun, that brings to birth The myriad marvels of the earth And bids us look with wandering eyes

'Where shall we dwell?' say you. Wandering winds reply: 'In a temple with roof of blue

From every quarter we, Who bent the trembling knee And cowered or grovelled prostrate day and night,

One of the twain was long and dusty grey, And like a spark that in the ashes lies, Satiric laughter glinted in his eyes

'Twas Jack-o'-Winter hailed it first, But now more timid angels sing, For what dull ear can fail to hear

Love may trace his echoing footsteps, yet we never more shall meet Rugged Kretschmann, the musician, plodding down a Sydney street, Never see the low broad figure, massive head and shaggy mane

While the summer day is hot You and I will loaf awhile, Lolling in a leafy spot,

'Our loss was light,' the paper said, 'Compared with damage to the Hun': She was a widow, and she read

And can you tell me Love is blind Because your faults he will not find, Because the image that he sees

The spell of Shakespeare fills the heart With earthly music loud and low; But Marlowe drives the clouds apart,

The heart is hard that cannot feel The bruising of a light appeal. The heart is deaf that cannot hear

O Merlin, how the magic from your eyes Bids the world flame about your idle feet, And makes a marvel of the humming street,

He looks beyond the veils of night and day; He hearkens in the silence, and has heard The ancient woods by dryad singing stirred,

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping! Sky-line broken by stirring trees, Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,

An outcry in the bush below, A crash, and boughs that sway, And shouts of laughter let me know

How many years, how many years have fled, Since in the cool dim parlour sat the three Lawson and I and, lounging easily,

I The Sphinx The spires of sand spring up at every gust

Spring, and the wispy clouds that fade away And draw the ecstatic soul in pain to aspire In maddening flight through heaven's thin flood of fire

Swags up! and yet I turn upon the way. The yellow hill against a dapple sky, With tufts and clumps of thorn, the bush whereby

One very rough day on the Pride of the Fray In the scuppers a poor little cabin-boy lay, When the Bosun drew nigh with wrath in his eye

Alone I sit in the dusk and see Surely the living faces, dear to me,

Borne in the car along a crowded way, Sun-soaked, I saw the world like shadows glide, Or phantom boats, upon a running tide,

Beside the path, on either hand, To keep the garden beds, The rusted iron pickets stand

When I cast my slough of clay Put it quietly away. Let no bloom untimely fade

Hail and farewell to those who fought and died, Not laughingly adventurous, nor pale With idiot hatred, nor to fill the tale

Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire To glimmering fire the watchword leaps, The dirge floats up from those who build the pyre

The bulging cloud mounts lazily In shade where sunlight glances through, And sweeping lightly from the tree

I Dearest, when I left your side, I stood a moment, hesitating,

When I was but a little boy Who hunted in the wood To scare or mangle or destroy

His shatter'd Empire thunders to the ground: A myriad hearts peal laughter as it falls, While red flags flutter on its ruined walls

The cold green rocks and lapping waves Are all my world as here I sit With downcast eye and heart that craves

What imps are these that come with scowl and leer? Black motes upon the morning's amber beam, They crowd and float about each happy dream

The foamy waves are swishing As patiently we thud, But O the wave of wishing

Far down the reach a creeping mist Hung dim along the mountain side; On shadowed water, sleek and whist,

The patriot from his walls of brass Is singing loudly as I pass; With fearless heart and open eyes,

The seeking souls, by baleful fires made blind, Torn by entrapping brambles, thirsty and mad, Hear on the lonely waste the stealthy pad

'There is no place,' he said, 'For love or pity here; We dread and only dread

Here lies the woven garb he wore Of grass he gathered by the shore Whereon the phantom waves still fret and foam

In what pearl-paven mossy cave By what green sea Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave,

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand Of many a hope that flared against the sky To plant its heaven-storming banners high,

I. Yonder, with eyes that tears, not distance, dim, With ears the wide world's thickness cannot daunt,

Stupidity and Selfishness and Fear, Who hold enslaved the intellect of Man, Have found their victims here.

Once more the Christian festival is near, And I, for whom each day repeats all days Continuously in ecstasy of praise,

Hey, Toby, Toby, Toby!'Dead? The silence is a flood That closes, choking, overhead,

Where yonder ruddy-misted star Is tumbling down the placid sky The people's aims were not so high

Behind us lay the homely shore With youthful memories aureoled; A sky of dazzling blue before,

The world, all busy round us here of late, Is still unchanged: but you are twenty-one. The mind, victorious with the rising sun,

O wistful eyes that haunt the gloom of sleep, Are you my own, remembered from the night I sat before my glass in dumb affright

Nurse not your grief, nor make obsequious moan When I have shed this flesh I love so well, Nor slowly toll the dull heart-bruising knell,

I. The beast exultant spreads the nostril wide, Snuffing a sickly hate-enkindling scent;

The doom is imminent of unholy hate. Hail to the light that glimmers where the leaves Are shaken by winds of dawning, and the sheaves

When my time is come to die, I would shun the decent gloom, Whispered word and weeping eye,

What of these tender feet That have never toddled yet? What dances shall they beat,

When winter chills your aged bones As by the fire you sit and nod, You'll hear a passing wind that moans,

A golden largesse from a store untold Announced the ruddy day's imperial birth, And woke a loyal world to jubilant mirth