'Tis strange that in a land so
So strong and bold in mighty youth,
We have no poet's voice of
To sing for us a wondrous song.
Our chiefest singer yet has
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain,
All carelessly and sadly
To that dull world he thought so vain."I care for nothing, good nor bad,
My hopes are gone, my pleasures fled,
I am but sifting sand," he said:
What wonder Gordon's songs were sad!
And yet, not always sad and hard;
In cheerful mood and light of
He told the tale of Britomarte,
And wrote the Rhyme of Joyous Garde.
And some have said that Nature's
To us is always sad; but
Have never felt the smiling
Of waving grass and forest
On sunlit plains as wide as seas."A land where dull Despair is kingO'er scentless flowers and songless bird!"But we have heard the bell-birds
Their silver bells at eventide,
Like fairies on the mountain side,
The sweetest note man ever heard.
The wild thrush lifts a note of mirth;
The bronzewing pigeons call and
Beside their nests the long day through;
The magpie warbles clear and strongA joyous, glad, thanksgiving song,
For all God's mercies upon earth.
And many voices such as
Are joyful sounds for those to tell,
Who know the Bush and love it well,
With all its hidden mysteries.
We cannot love the restless sea,
That rolls and tosses to and
Like some fierce creature in its glee;
For human weal or human
It has no touch of sympathy.
For us the bush is never sad:
Its myriad voices whisper low,
In tones the bushmen only know,
Its sympathy and welcome glad.
For us the roving breezes
From many a blossum-tufted tree —Where wild bees murmur dreamily —The honey-laden breath of Spring. * * * *We have our tales of other days,
Good tales the northern wanderers
When bushmen meet and camp-fires blaze,
And round the ring of dancing
The great, dark bush with arms of
Folds every hearer in its spell.
We have our songs — not songs of
And hot blood spilt on sea and land;
But lilts that link achievement
To honest toil and valiant life.
Lift ye your faces to the
Ye barrier mountains in the
Who lie so peacefully at
Enshrouded in a haze of blue;'Tis hard to feel that years went
Before the pioneers broke
Your rocky heights and walls of stone,
And made your secrets all their own.
For years the fertile Western
Were hid behind your sullen walls,
Your cliffs and crags and
All weatherworn with tropic rains.
Between the mountains and the
Like Israelites with staff in hand,
The people waited restlessly:
They looked towards the mountains
And saw the sunsets come and
With gorgeous golden afterglow,
That made the West a fairyland,
And marvelled what that West might
Of which such wondrous tales were told.
For tales were told of inland
Like sullen oceans, salt and dead,
And sandy deserts, white and wan,
Where never trod the foot of man,
Nor bird went winging overhead,
Nor ever stirred a gracious
To wake the silence with its breath —A land of loneliness and death.
At length the hardy
By rock and crag found out the way,
And woke with voices of todayA silence kept for years and tears.
Upon the Western slope they
And saw — a wide expanse of
As far as eye could stretch or
Go rolling westward endlessly.
The native grasses, tall as grain,
Bowed, waved and rippled in the breeze;
From boughs of blossom-laden
The parrots answered back again.
They saw the land that it was good,
A land of fatness all untrod,
And gave their silent thanks to God.
The way is won!
The way is won!
And straightway from the barren
There came a westward-marching host,
That aye and ever onward
With eager faces to the West,
Along the pathway of the sun.
The mountains saw them marching by:
They faced the all-consuming drought,
They would not rest in settled land:
But, taking each his life in hand,
Their faces ever westward
Beyond the farthest settlement,
Responding to the challenge cryof "better country farther out".
And lo, a miracle! the
But yesterday was all unknown,
The wild man's boomerang was
Where now great busy cities stand.
It was not much, you say, that
Should win their way where none withstood;
In sooth there was not much of blood —No war was fought between the seas.
It was not much! but we who
The strange capricious land they trod —At times a stricken, parching sod,
At times with raging floods beset —Through which they found their lonely
Are quite content that you should
It was not much, while we can
That nothing in the ages old,
In song or story written
On Grecian urn or Roman arch,
Though it should ring with clash of steel,
Could braver histories
Than this bush story, yet untold —The story of their westward march. * * * *But times are changed, and changes
From old to new — the olden days,
The old bush life and all its ways,
Are passing from us all unsung.
The freedom, and the hopeful
Of toil that brought due recompense,
Of room for all, has passed away,
And lies forgotten with the dead.
Within our streets men cry for
In cities built but yesterday.
About us stretches wealth of land,
A boundless wealth of virgin
As yet unfruitful and untilled!
Our willing workmen, strong and skilled,
Within our cities idle stand,
And cry aloud for leave to toil.
The stunted children come and
In squalid lanes and alleys black:
We follow but the beaten
Of other nations, and we
In wealth for some — for many, woe.
And it may be that we who
In this new land apart,
The hard old world grown fierce and
And bound by precedent and bond,
May read the riddle right, and
New hope to those who dimly
That all things yet shall be for good,
And teach the world at length to
One vast united brotherhood. * * * *So may it be! and he who
In accents hopeful, clear, and strong,
The glories which that future
Shall sing, indeed, a wondrous song.
