Halt! Who goes there? The sentry's call
Rose on the midnight air
Above the noises of the camp,
The roll of wheels, the horses' tramp.
The challenge echoed over all --
Halt! Who goes there?
A quaint old figure clothed in white,
He bore a staff of pine,
An ivy-wreath was on his head.
'Advance, oh friend,' the sentry said,
Advance, for this is Christmas night,
And give the countersign.'
'No sign nor countersign have I,
Through many lands I roam
The whole world over far and wide,
To exiles all at Christmastide,
From those who love them tenderly
I bring a thought of home.
'From English brook and Scottish burn,
From cold Canadian snows,
From those far lands ye hold most dear
I bring you all a greeting here,
A frond of a New Zealand fern,
A bloom of English rose.
'From faithful wife and loving lass
I bring a wish divine,
For Christmas blessings on your head.'
'I wish you well,' the sentry said,
But here, alas! you may not pass
Without the countersign.'
He vanished -- and the sentry's tramp
Re-echoed down the line.
It was not till the morning light
The soldiers knew that in the night
Old Santa Claus had come to camp
Without the countersign.
From a section of Advertisements, 1909.
THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER,
AND OTHER VERSES.
By A. B. Paterson.
* "The immediate success of this book of bush ballads is without parallel
in Colonial literary annals, nor can any living English or American poet
boast so wide a public, always excepting Mr. Rudyard Kipling."
* "These lines have the true lyrical cry in them.
Eloquent and ardent verses."
* "Swinging, rattling ballads of ready humour, ready pathos,
and crowding adventure. . . . Stirring and entertaining ballads
about great rides, in which the lines gallop like the very hoofs
of the horses."
* "At his best he compares not unfavourably with the author
of 'Barrack-Room Ballads'."
* Mr. A. Patchett Martin (London): "In my opinion,
it is the absolutely un-English, thoroughly Australian style and character
of these new bush bards which has given them such immediate popularity,
such wide vogue, among all classes of the rising native generation."
* "Australia has produced in Mr. A. B. Paterson a national poet
whose bush ballads are as distinctively characteristic of the country
as Burns's poetry is characteristic of Scotland."
* "A book like this . . . is worth a dozen of the aspiring,
idealistic sort, since it has a deal of rough laughter
and a dash of real tears in its composition."
* "These ballads . . . are full of such go that the mere reading of them
make the blood tingle. . . . But there are other things
in Mr. Paterson's book besides mere racing and chasing,
and each piece bears the mark of special local knowledge, feeling, and colour.
The poet has also a note of pathos, which is always wholesome."
* "He gallops along with a by no means doubtful music,
shouting his vigorous songs as he rides in pursuit of wild bush horses,
constraining us to listen and applaud by dint of his manly tones
and capital subjects . . . We turn to Mr. Paterson's roaring muse
with instantaneous gratitude."