When the red fox broke from the gorse,
In a country so deep, with a scent so hot,
That the hound could outpace the horse;
I remember how few in the front rank show’d,
How endless appeared the tail,
On the brown hillside, where we cross’d the road
And headed towards the vale.
The dark brown steed on the left was there,
On the right was a dappled grey,
And between the pair on a chestnut mare
The duffer who writes this lay.
What business had ‘this child’ there to ride?
But little or none at all;
Yet I hold my own for awhile in the pride
That goeth before a fall.
Though rashness can hope but for one result,
We are heedless when fate draws nigh us,
And the maxim holds good, ‘_Quem perdere vult
Deus dementat prius_.’
The right-hand man to the left-hand said,
As down in the vale we went,
‘Harden your heart like a millstone, Ned,
And set your face as flint;
Solid and tall is the rasping wall
That stretches before us yonder;
You must have it at speed or not at all,
’Twere better to halt than to ponder;
For the stream runs wide on the take off side,
And washes the clay bank under;
Here goes for a pull, ’tis a madman’s ride,
And a broken neck if you blunder!’
No word in reply his comrade spoke,
Nor waver’d, nor once look’d round,
But I saw him shorten his horse’s stroke
As we splash’d through the marshy ground;
I remember the laugh that all the while
On his quiet features played:--
So he rode to his death, with that careless smile,
In the van of the Light Brigade;
So stricken by Russian grape, the cheer
Rang out while he toppled back,
From the shattered lungs as merry and clear
As it did when it roused the pack.
Let never a tear his memory stain,
Give his ashes never a sigh,
One of the many who fell--not in vain--
A TYPE OF OUR CHIVALRY!
I remember one thrust he gave to his hat,
And two to the flanks of the brown,
And still as a statue of old he sat,
And he shot to the front, hands down;
I remember the snort and the stag-like bound
Of the steed six lengths to the fore,
And the laugh of the rider while, landing sound,
He turned in his saddle and glanced around;
I remember--but little more,
Save a bird’s-eye gleam of the dashing stream,
A jarring thud on the wall,
A shock, and the blank of a nightmare’s dream,--
I was down with a stunning fall!
_Adam Lindsay Gordon._
STEPHENS
CCXXI
FULFILMENT
(_January 1, 1901_)
Ah, now we know the long delay
But served to assure a prouder day,
For while we waited, came the call
To prove and make our title good--
To face the fiery ordeal
That tries the claim to Nationhood--
And now, in pride of challenge, we unroll,
For all the world to read, the record-scroll
Whose bloody script attests a Nation’s soul.
O ye, our Dead, who at the call
Fared forth to fall as heroes fall,
Whose consecrated souls we failed
To note beneath the common guise
Till all-revealing Death unveiled
The splendour of your sacrifice,
Now, crowned with more than perishable bays,
Immortal in your country’s love and praise,
Ye too have portion in this day of days!
And ye who sowed where now we reap,
Whose waiting eyes, now sealed in sleep,
Beheld far off with prescient sight
This triumph of rejoicing lands--
Yours too the day! for though its light
Can pierce not to your folded hands,
These shining hours of advent but fulfil
The cherished purpose of your constant will
Whose onward impulse liveth in us still.
Still lead thou vanward of our line
Who, shaggy, massive, leonine,
Couldst yet most finely phrase the event--
For if a Pisgah view was all
Vouchsafed to thine uncrowned intent,
The echoes of thy herald-call
Not faintlier strive with our saluting guns,
And at thy words through all Australia’s sons
The ‘crimson thread of kinship’ redder runs.
But not the memory of the dead,
How loved soe’er each sacred head,
To-day can change from glad to grave
The chords that quire a Nation born--
Twin-offspring of the birth that gave,
When yester-midnight chimed to morn,
Another age to the Redeemer’s reign,
Another cycle to the widening gain
Of Good o’er Ill and Remedy o’er Pain.
Our sundering lines with love o’ergrown,
Our bounds the girdling seas alone--
Be this the burden of the psalm
That every resonant hour repeats,
Till day-fall dusk the fern and palm
That forest our transfigured streets,
And night still vibrant with the note of praise
Thrill brotherhearts to song in woodland ways,
When gum-leaves whisper o’er the camp-fire’s blaze.
* * * * *
The Charter’s read; the rites are o’er;
The trumpet’s blare and cannon’s roar
Are silent, and the flags are furled;
But not so ends the task to build
Into the fabric of the world
The substance of our hope fulfilled--
To work as those who greatly have divined
The lordship of a continent assigned
As God’s own gift for service of mankind.
O People of the onward will,
Unit of Union greater still
Than that to-day hath made you great,
Your true Fulfilment waiteth there,
Embraced within the larger fate
Of Empire ye are born to share--
No vassal progeny of subject brood,
No satellite shed from Britain’s plenitude,
But orbed with _her_ in one wide sphere of good!
_James Brunton Stephens._
RUSSELL
CCXXII
THE BIRTH OF AUSTRALIA
Not ’mid the thunder of the battle guns,
Not on the red field of an Empire’s wrath,
Rose to a nation Australasia’s sons,
Who trod to greatness Industry’s pure path.
Behold a people through whose annals runs
No damning stain of falsehood, force or wrong,--
A record clear as light, and sweet as song,
Without one page the patriot’s finger shuns!
Where ’mid the legends of old Rome, or Greece,
Glows such a tale? Thou canst not answer, Time!
With shield unsullied by a single crime,
With wealth of gold and still more golden fleece,
Forth stands Australia, in her birth sublime,--
The only nation from the womb of Peace!
_Percy Russell._
LAWSON
CCXXIII
THE WAR OF THE FUTURE
There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride
Who’ll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by
side, Who’ll hold the cliffs ’gainst the armoured hells that batter a
coasted town, Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come
crashing down; And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home
to-day, Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn
away-- Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the
distant gun, And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is
lost or won,-- As a mother or wife, in the years to come, will kneel,
mild-eyed and white, And pray to God in her darkened home for the ‘men
in the fort to-night.’
But, O! if the cavalry charge again as they did when the world was
wide, ’Twill be grand in the ranks of a thousand men in that glorious
race to ride, And strike for all that is true and strong, for all that
is grand and brave, And all that ever shall be, so long as man has a
soul to save.
He must lift the saddle, and close his ‘wings,’ and shut his angels
out, And steel his heart for the end of things, who’d ride with the
stockman scout, When the race is rode on the battle track, and the
waning distance hums, And the shelled sky shrieks or the rifles crack
like stockwhips amongst the gums-- And the ‘straight’ is reached, and
the field is ‘gapped,’ and the hoof-torn sward grows red With the blood
of those who are handicapped with iron and steel and lead; And the
gaps are filled, though unseen by eyes, with the spirit and with the
shades Of the world-wide rebel dead who’ll rise and rush with the Bush
Brigades.
All creeds and trades will have soldiers there--give every class its
due-- And there’ll be many a clerk to spare for the pride of the
jackeroo. They’ll fight for honour, and fight for love, and a few will
fight for gold, For the devil below, and for God above, as our fathers
fought of old; And some half-blind with exultant tears, and some
stiff-lipped, stern-eyed, For the pride of a thousand after-years and
the old eternal pride. The soul of the world they will feel and see in
the chase and the grim retreat-- They’ll know the glory of victory--and
the grandeur of defeat.
They’ll tell the tales of the ‘nights before’ and the tales of the
ship and fort, Till the sons of Australia take to war as their fathers
took to sport, Their breath come deep and their eyes grow bright at
the tales of chivalry, And every boy will want to fight, no matter
what cause it be-- When the children run to the doors and cry, ‘O,
mother, the troops are come!’ And every heart in the town leaps high at
the first loud thud of the drum. They’ll know, apart from its mystic
charm, what music is at last, When, proud as a boy with a broken arm,
the regiment marches past; And the veriest wreck in the drink-fiend’s
clutch, no matter how low or mean, Will feel, when he hears the march,
a touch of the man he might have been. And fools, when the fiends of
war are out and the city skies aflame, Will have something better to
talk about than a sister’s or brother’s shame, Will have something
nobler to do by far than to jest at a friend’s expense, Or to blacken a
name in a public bar or over a backyard fence. And this you learn from
the libelled past (though its methods were somewhat rude), _A nation’s
born when the shells fall fast, or its lease of life renewed;-- We
in part atone for the ghoulish strife--for the crimes of the peace
we boast-- And the better part of a people’s life in the storm comes
uppermost_.
_Henry Lawson._
MAQUARIE
CCXXIV
A FAMILY MATTER
Come, my hearties--work will stand--
Here’s your Mother calling!--
Wants us all to lend a hand,
And go out Uncle-Pauling.
Catch your nags, and saddle slick,
Quick to join the banners!
Folks that treat the fam’ly thick
Must be taught their manners.
Who would potter round a farm
Fearful of clubbed gunstroke,
And, keeping cosy out of harm,
Die of loafer’s sunstroke?
Gusts of distant battle-noise
Tell that men are falling;
Get your guns, my bonny boys,
Here’s your Mother calling!
Buckle on your cartridge belts,
Waste no time about it!
Force is massing on the veldts,
We must off and rout it.
What if fate should work its worst!
Men can grin in falling;
Come on, chaps, and be the first,--
Here’s your Mother calling!
_Arthur Maquarie._
ADAMS
CCXXV
THE DWELLINGS OF OUR DEAD
They lie unwatched, in waste and vacant places,
In sombre bush or wind-swept tussock spaces,
Where seldom human tread
And never human trace is--
The dwellings of our dead!
No insolence of stone is o’er them builded;
By mockery of monuments unshielded,
Far on the unfenced plain
Forgotten graves have yielded
Earth to free earth again.
Above their crypts no air with incense reeling,
No chant of choir or sob of organ pealing;
But ever over them
The evening breezes kneeling
Whisper a requiem.
For some the margeless plain where no one passes,
Save when at morning far in misty masses
The drifting flock appears.
Lo, here the greener grasses
Glint like a stain of tears!
For some the common trench where, not all fameless,
They fighting fell who thought to tame the tameless,
And won their barren crown;
Where one grave holds them nameless--
Brave white and braver brown.
But, in their sleep, like troubled children turning,
A dream of mother-country in them burning,
They whisper their despair,
And one vague, voiceless yearning
Burdens the pausing air....
‘_Unchanging here the drab year onward presses,
No Spring comes trysting here with new-loosed tresses,
And never may the years
Win Autumn’s sweet caresses--
Her leaves that fall like tears._
_And we would lie ’neath old-remembered beeches,
Where we could hear the voice of him who preaches
And the deep organ’s call,
While close about us reaches
The cool, grey, lichened wall._’
But they are ours, and jealously we hold them;
Within our children’s ranks we have enrolled them,
And till all Time shall cease
Our brooding bush shall fold them
In her broad-bosomed peace.
They came as lovers come, all else forsaking,
The bonds of home and kindred proudly breaking;
They lie in splendour lone--
The nation of their making
Their everlasting throne!
_Arthur Adams._
OGILVIE
CCXXVI
THE BUSH, MY LOVER
The camp-fire gleams resistance
To every twinkling star;
The horse-bells in the distance
Are jangling faint and far;
Through gum-boughs lorn and lonely
The passing breezes sigh;
In all the world are only
My star-crowned Love and I.
The still night wraps Macquarie;
The white moon, drifting slow,
Takes back her silver glory
From watching waves below;
To dalliance I give over,
Though half the world may chide,
And clasp my one true Lover
Here on Macquarie side.
The loves of earth grow olden
Or kneel at some new shrine;
Her locks are always golden--
This brave Bush-Love of mine;
And for her star-lit beauty,
And for her dawns dew-pearled,
Her name in love and duty
I guard against the world.
They curse her desert places!
How can they understand,
Who know not what her face is
And never held her hand?--
Who may have heard the meeting
Of boughs the wind has stirred,
Yet missed the whispered greeting
Our listening hearts have heard.
For some have travelled over
The long miles at her side,
Yet claimed her not as Lover
Nor thought of her as Bride:
And some have followed after
Through sun and mist for years,
Nor held the sunshine laughter,
Nor guessed the raindrops tears.
If we some white arms’ folding,
Some warm, red mouth should miss--
Her hand is ours for holding,
Her lips are ours to kiss;
And closer than a lover
She shares our lightest breath,
And droops her great wings over
To shield us to the death.
The winds of Dawn are roving,
The river-oaks astir ...
What heart were lorn of loving
That had no Love but her?
Till last red stars are lighted
And last winds wander West,
Her troth and mine are plighted--
The Lover I love best!
_William Ogilvie._
EVANS
CCXXVII
A FEDERAL SONG
In the greyness of the dawning we have seen the pilot-star,
In the whisper of the morning we have heard the years afar.
Shall we sleep and let them be
When they call to you and me?
Can we break the land asunder God has girdled with the sea?
For the Flag is floating o’er us,
And the track is clear before us;--
From the desert to the ocean let us lift the mighty chorus
For the days that are to be.
We have flung the challenge forward:--‘Brothers stand or fall as one!’
She is coming out to meet us in the splendour of the sun;--
From the graves beneath the sky
Where her nameless heroes lie,
From the forelands of the Future they are waiting our reply!
We can face the roughest weather
If we only hold together,
Marching forward to the Future, marching shoulder-firm together;
For the Nation yet to be.
All the greyness of the dawning, all the mists are overpast;
In the glory of the morning we shall see her face at last.
He who sang, ‘She yet will be,’
He shall hail her, crowned and free!
Could we break the land asunder God had girdled with the sea?
For the Flag is floating o’er us,
And the star of Hope before us,
From the desert to the ocean, brothers, lift the mighty chorus
For Australian Unity!
_George Essex Evans._
O’HARA
CCXXVIII
FLINDERS
He left his island home
For leagues of sleepless foam,
For stress of alien seas,
Where wild winds ever blow;
For England’s sake he sought
Fresh fields of fame, and fought
A stormy world for these,
A hundred years ago.
And where the Austral shore
Heard southward far the roar
Of rising tides that came
From lands of ice and snow,
Beneath a gracious sky
To fadeless memory
He left a deathless name
A hundred years ago.
Yea, left a name sublime
From that wild dawn of Time,
Whose light he haply saw
In supreme sunrise flow,
And from the shadows vast,
That filled the dim dead past,
A brighter glory draw,
A hundred years ago.
Perchance, he saw in dreams
Beside our sunlit streams
In some majestic hour
Old England’s banners blow;
Mayhap, the radiant morn
Of this great nation born,
August with perfect power,
A hundred years ago.
We know not,--yet for thee
Far may the season be,
Whose harp in shameful sleep
Is soundless lying low!
Far be the noteless hour
That holds of fame no flower
For those who dared our deep
A hundred years ago!
_John Bernard O’Hara._
CCXXIX
THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH
Lo, ’tis the light of the morn
Over the mountains breaking,
And our Empire’s day is born,
The life of a Nation waking
To the triumph of regal splendour,
To the voice of conquering fate
That cries ‘No longer wait!’
To the rising hopes that send her
Fearless upon her way
With no thoughts of her yesterday,
But dreams of a mighty State
Great ’mid the old grave nations,
Divine in her aspirations;
Blest be the men who brought her,
Freedom’s starriest daughter,
Out of the night
Into the light,
A power and a glory for evermore!--
Let the old world live in the pages
Time wrote in the dark of the ages,
For us ’tis the light of the morning breaking on sea and shore!
They found her a maiden with dower
Only of seasons sunny,
Blue skies and the frail white flower
Of Peace with its song’s sweet honey,
And the joy of her wild seas flinging
Their voices on fairy strands
Where only the winds’ soft singing
Broke on the sleep of day,
Or a whistling spear by the dim green way
Of the water and the lands.
Green were the woodlands round her,
Blue were the seas that bound her,
Soft was the sky above her,
A dreamily lonely lover;
Streams and dells
And the mountain wells,
And the voice of the forest were hers alone,
And the life of the grim grave ranges,
The night and the noon and the changes
Of light on the topmost peaks when the rose of the dawn was blown.
Lift up thine honoured head!
The skies are all aflame;
The east to morn is wed;
Lift up thine honoured head,
And fearless keep thy fame!
There is work for thee to do,
A nation’s work is thine;
O land, beloved, mine!
Gird thee for life anew!
With strength, that fails not, keep
Thy pathway bright with Good;
Let Honour, Justice, sweep
Aside the weeds that creep--
Grim Error, Unbelief,
And their Titanic brood,
Be thine the task to rear
The spacious halls of Art,
To hearken to sweet Song,
Be thine the pride to fear
No foe while in thy heart
The love of Truth is strong,
To help the weak, and be
Beloved and great and free,
Even as thy Mighty Mother--the Grey Queen of the Sea!
_John Bernard O’Hara._
IX
NEW ZEALAND
BRACKEN
CCXXX
NEW ZEALAND HYMN
God of Nations! at Thy feet
In the bonds of love we meet,
Hear our voices, we entreat,
God defend our free land!
Guard Pacific’s triple star
From the shafts of strife and war.
Make her praises heard afar,
God defend New Zealand!
Men of every creed and race
Gather here before Thy face,
Asking Thee to bless this place,
God defend our free land!
From dissension, envy, hate,
And corruption guard our State,
Make our country good and great,
God defend New Zealand!
Peace, not war, shall be our boast,
But, should foes assail our coast,
Make us then a mighty host,
God defend our free land!
Lord of Battles, in Thy might,
Put our enemies to flight,
Let our cause be just and right,
God defend New Zealand!
Let our love for Thee increase,
May Thy blessings never cease,
Give us plenty, give us peace,
God defend our free land!
From dishonour and from shame
Guard our country’s spotless name,
Crown her with immortal fame,
God defend New Zealand!
May our mountains ever be
Freedom’s ramparts on the sea,
Make us faithful unto Thee,
God defend our free land!
Guide her in the nations’ van,
Preaching love and truth to man,
Working out Thy glorious plan,
God defend New Zealand!
_Thomas Bracken._
BATHGATE
CCXXXI
OUR HERITAGE
A perfect peaceful stillness reigns,
Not e’en a passing playful breeze
The sword-shaped flax-blades gently stirs:
The vale and slopes of rising hills
Are thickly clothed with yellow grass,
Whereon the sun, late risen, throws
His rays, to linger listlessly.
Naught the expanse of yellow breaks,
Save where a darker spot denotes
Some straggling bush of thorny scrub;
While from a gully down the glen,
The foliage of the dull-leaved trees
Rises to view; and the calm air
From stillness for a moment waked
By parakeets’ harsh chattering,
Swift followed by a tui’s trill
Of bell-like notes, is hushed again.
The tiny orbs of glistening dew
Still sparkle, gem-like, ’mid the grass;
While morning mist, their Mother moist,
Reluctant loiters on the hill,
Whence presently she’ll pass to merge
In the soft depths of the blue heav’ns.
This fertile Isle to us is given
Fresh from its Maker’s hand; for here
No records of the vanished past
Tell of the time when might was right,
And self-denial weakness was;
But all is peaceful, pure, and fair.
Our heritage is hope. We’ll rear
A Nation worthy of the land;
And when in age we linger late,
Upon the heights above life’s vale,
Before we, like the mist, shall merge
In depths of God’s eternity,
We’ll see, perchance, our influence
Left dew-like, working for the good
Of those whose day but dawns below.
_Alexander Bathgate._
MONTGOMERY
CCXXXII
TO ONE IN ENGLAND
I send to you
Songs of a Southern Isle,
Isle like a flower
In warm seas low lying:
Songs to beguile
Some wearisome hour,
When Time’s tired of flying.
Songs which were sung
To a rapt listener lying,
In sweet lazy hours,
Where wild-birds’ nests swing,
And winds come a-sighing
In Nature’s own bowers.
Songs which trees sing,
By summer winds swayed
Into rhythmical sound;
Sweet soul-bells sung
Through the Ngaio’s green shade,
Unto one on the ground.
Songs from an Island
Just waking from sleeping
In history’s morning;
Songs from a land
Where night shadows creep
When your day is dawning.
* * * * *
O songs, go your way,
Over seas, over lands,
Though friendless sometimes,
Fear not, comes a day
When the world will clasp hands
With my wandering rhymes.
_Eleanor Elizabeth Montgomery._
CCXXXIII
A VOICE FROM NEW ZEALAND
_Cooee!_ I send my voice
Far North to you,
Rose of the water’s choice,
Dear England true!
Guardian angels three--
Faith, Hope, and Charity--
Welcome the strong sons free
Born unto you.
_Cooee!_ Through flamegirt foam
Speeds now my soul
Straight to thy hero home.
Blue waters roll
Round where Immortals trod--
Shakespeare--half man, half God--
Laughed, with divining rod,
Sounding the soul.
Thou shining gem of sea!
Angels on wing,
Resting where men are free,
Teach them to sing
Such songs blind Milton heard,
Coleridge and Wordsworth stirred,
Keats’, and our own lost bird’s
Haunting, sweet ring.
_Cooee!_ North, hear the song
On the South’s breath,
Laurels to life belong;
Cypress to death!
Wreathe in song’s garland fair,
Culled with a Nation’s care,
My cypress leaf--a prayer,
Warm with South’s breath!
_Eleanor Elizabeth Montgomery._
NOTES
I.--ENGLAND
I
_Agincourt, or the English Bowmans Glory. To a pleasant new Tune._
Quoted in Heywood’s _King Edward IV._, and, therefore, popular before
1600. This ballad has been severely edited, and I omit several stanzas.
It is printed in full in Hazlitt’s edition of Collier’s ‘Shakespeare’s
Library,’ vol. i. (Reeves & Turner, 1825).
II
Published in 1589.
III-IV
Both were published in _Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall_ (1605?) and
_Poemes_ (1619). As to the first:--l. 6. _Caux_ (‘commonlie called
Kidcaux,’ says Holinshed) was the district north-east of the mouth of
the Seine.
l. 83. _bilbos._ Swords, from Bilbao.
92. _ding._ To belabour with blows.
V-VI
The first is from John of Gaunt’s dying speech (_King Richard II._,
Act ii. sc. 1). _King Richard II._ was probably written early in
1593. It was published anonymously in 1597. The second is from _King
John_, Act v. sc. 7. 1594 is the date assigned to Shakespeare’s _King
John_, which was first printed in the First Folio (1623). These and
the two succeeding numbers follow the text of ‘The Globe Edition’ of
Shakespeare’s Works. I am indebted to the publishers of that edition,
Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press,
Oxford, for kindly extending to readers of this volume the benefits of
the scientific labours of Dr. W. G. Clark and Mr. W. A. Wright.
VII
From various parts of _King Henry V._ The play was written in 1598, and
performed for the first time early in 1599. The first complete version
was published in the First Folio (1623).
l. 23. _rivage._ The shore.
27. _sternage._ (To sternage of=astern of, so as to follow.)
40. _puissance._ Strength.
87. _battle._ An army, or division of an army.
90. _accomplishing._ Equipping.
144. _Crispian._ ‘The daie following,’ says Holinshed, ‘was the
five and twentieth of October in the year 1415, being then fridaie,
and the feast of Crispine and Crispinian, a daie faire and fortunate
to the English, but most sorrowfull and unluckie to the French.’
174. _Whiffler._ Herald or usher.
183. _ostent._ Clear, visible.
VIII
_King Henry VIII._, Act ii. sc. 3.
IX
Printed by Percy (_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, 1765). ‘From an
old black-letter copy.’
_Cailìver_ (l. 21)=Caliver, a kind of light musket.
X