Works

Swing high and swing low
While the breezes they blow -
It's off for a sailor thy father would go;
And it's here in the harbor, in sight of the sea,
He hath left his wee babe with my song and with me:...

Where Hornby, like a mighty fallen star,
Burns through the darkness with a splendid ring
Of tenfold light, and where the awful face
Of Sydney's northern headland stares all night...

'From that sky livid, bizarre
as your tortured destiny,
what thoughts fill your empty heart,
Freethinker, answer me.'

Insatiable and avid
for vague and obscure skies,...

"Thou whom I love, for whom I died,
Lovest thou Me, My bride?" -
Low on my knees I love Thee, Lord,
Believed in and adored.

"That I love thee the proof is plain:
How dost thou love again?" -...

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.

Roughest roads, we often find,
Lead us on to th' nicest places;
Kindest hearts oft hide behind
Some o'th' plainest-lukkin faces.

Flaars whose colors breetest are,
Oft delight awr wond'ring seet;...

Take hence the bowl;--tho' beaming
Brightly as bowl e'er shone,
Oh, it but sets me dreaming
Of happy days now gone.
There, in its clear reflection,
As in a wizard's glass,...

Take up the household burden,
No iron rule of kings,
But make your family understand
That you are running things,
Don't storm around and bluster,
And don't get mad and swear...

They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
`Oh! why did you come?, it was mad of you, Jack;
You know that the troopers are out on your track.'...

I.

Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear Teign head
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream...

Tell her, oh, tell her, the lute she left lying
Beneath the green arbor is still lying there;
And breezes like lovers around it are sighing,
But not a soft whisper replies to their prayer.
...

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
...

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weather proof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where thou, my chamber for to ward,...

A Tale of the Territory


The run of Billabong-go-dry
Is just beyond Lime Burner's Gap;
Its waterhole and tank supply
Is excellent, upon the map.
But lacking nature's liquid drench,...

They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes, and lift them high:
Thou cam'st a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.

O son of man, to right my lot
Nought but thy presence can avail;...

That kind heart you were jealous of, my nurse
Who sleeps her sleep beneath the humble turf,
I'd like to give her flowers, wouldn't you?
The dead, the poor dead, have their sorrows too,...

CLoud-Puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches....

(With Apologies To Riley.)


I.

As one who dreams at evening o'er the new hats that he's worn,
And muses on the better times that once to him were known,...

That such have died enables us
The tranquiller to die;
That such have lived, certificate
For immortality.

That wind I used to hear it swelling
With joy divinely deep
You might have seen my hot tears welling
But rapture made me weep

I used to love on winter nights
To lie and dream alone...