Works

In a far-away glen of the hills,
Where the bird of the night is at rest,
Shut in from the thunder that fills
The fog-hidden caves of the west
In a sound of the leaf, and the lute...

Turn from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name
She is fairer than flowers of the fire she is brighter than brightness of flame....

'All day a strong sun has been drinking
The ponds in the Wattletree Glen;
And now as they're puddles, I'm thinking
We were wise to head hitherwards, men!
The country is heavy to nor'ard,...

'A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.'

The priests and the Levites went forth, to feast at the courts of the Kings;...

Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams,
And wet hill-heads, and hollows weeping,
Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,
And hoarse with sounds of storms unsleeping.
...

Phantom streams were in the distance mocking lights of lake and pool
Ghosts of trees of soft green lustre groves of shadows deep and cool!
Yea, some devil ran before them changing skies of brass to blue,...

Too cold, O my brother, too cold for my wife
Is the Beauty you showed me this morning:
Nor yet have I found the sweet dream of my life,
And good-bye to the sneering and scorning....

Sing her a song of the sun:
Fill it with tones of the stream,
Echoes of waters that run
Glad with the gladdening gleam.
Let it be sweeter than rain,
Lit by a tropical moon:...

Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee, Coogee in the distance white,
With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light;
Haunt of gledes, and restless plovers of the melancholy wail...

Years fifty, and seven to boot, have smitten the children of men
Since sound of a voice or a foot came out of the head of that glen.
The brand of black devil is there an evil wind moaneth around...

A clamour by day and a whisper by night,
And the Summer comes with the shining noons,
With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light
Of the falling suns and the rising moons.
...

In the beams of a beautiful day,
Made soft by a breeze from the sea,
The horses were started away,
The fleet-footed thirty and three;
Where beauty, with shining attire,...

A strong sea-wind flies up and sings
Across the blown-wet border,
Whose stormy echo runs and rings
Like bells in wild disorder.

Fierce breath hath vexed the foreland's face,...

From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms,
Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms
From the home of bold echoes, whose voices of wonder...

Where the strength of dry thunder splits hill-rocks asunder,
And the shouts of the desert-wind break,
By the gullies of deepness and ridges of steepness,
Lo, the cattle track twists like a snake!...

Every happy expression in these stanzas may fairly be claimed by the Hon. W. B. Dalley (Author's note)


Deep under the spires of a hill, by the feet of the thunder-cloud trod,...

While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams,
And the water-pools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry
Down the ridges and gullies we go!...

Chaotic crags are huddled east and west
Dark, heavy crags, against a straitened sea
That cometh, like a troubled soul in quest
Of voiceless rest where never dwelleth rest,...

'There were but two, and we were forty! Yet,'
The Captain wrote, 'that dauntless couple throve,
And faced our wildering faces; and I said
'Lie to awhile!' I did not choose to let...

Where is the painter who shall paint for you,
My Austral brothers, with a pencil steeped
In hues of Truth, the weather-smitten crew
Who gazed on unknown shores a thoughtful few...