Works

(After he has been extemporizing upon the musical instrument of his invention)


I.
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,...

LACON: For a kiss or two, confess,
What doth cause this pensiveness,
Thou most lovely neat-herdess?
Why so lonely on the hill?
Why thy pipe by thee so still,
That erewhile was heard so shrill?...

1. Come, blitheful neatherds, let us lay
A wager who the best shall play,
Of thee or I, the roundelay
That fits the business of the day.

Chor. And Lalage the judge shall be,...

"If I sit in the dust
For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
So sits the vine!"

Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins....

When Father Time swings round his scythe,
Intomb me 'neath the bounteous vine,
So that its juices, red and blithe,
May cheer these thirsty bones of mine.

"Elsewise with tears and bated breath...

"It is only just
To laud good wine:
If I sit in the dust,
So sits the vine."

Abu Midjan sang, as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape was the juice of his veins....

Underneath a tree at noontide
Abu Midjan sits distressed,
Fetters on his wrists and ancles,
And his chin upon his breast;

For the Emir's guard had taken,
As they passed from line to line,...

Roses ruddy and roses white,
What are the joys that my heart discloses?
Sitting alone in the fading light
Memories come to me here tonight
With the wonderful scent of the big red roses.
...

TO ---

You like the trifling triolet:
Well, here are three or four.
Unless your likings I forget,
You like the trifling triolet.
Against my conscience I abet
A taste which I deplore;...

To-day I had a burial of my dead.
There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed -
I only turned a picture to the wall.
...

The shore hath blent with the distant skies,
O'er the bend of the crested seas,
And the leaning ship in her pathway flies,
On the sweep of the freshened breeze.

Swift be its flight! for a dying guest...

Too many, Lord, abuse thy grace,
In this licentious day;
And while they boast they see thy face,
They turn their own away.


Thy book displays a gracious light
That can the blind restore;...

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
...

She's milking in the rain and dark,
As did her mother in the past.
The wretched shed of poles and bark,
Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.
She sees the 'home-roof' black and low,...

When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain,
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune...

You say we bushmen cannot love,
Our lives are too prosaic: hence
We lose or lack that finer sense
That raises some few men above
Their fellows, setting them apart
As vessels of a finer make,...

I'm traveling down the Castlereagh, and I'm a station-hand,
I'm handy with the ropin' pole, I'm handy with the brand,
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day,...

That night, that night,
That song, that song!
Will such again be evened quite
Through lifetimes long?

No mirth was shown
To outer seers,
But mood to match has not been known...

Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You 's enough to dribe me wile.
Want a sto'y; jes' hyeah dat!
Whah' 'll I git a sto'y at?
Di'n' I tell you th'ee las' night?
Go 'way, honey, you ain't right....

All the trees and bushes of the garden
Display their bright new green.

But above them all, still bare,
The great old acacia stands,
His solitary bent black branches stark...