Works

Underneath the windy mountain walls
Forth we rode, an eager band,
By the surges and the verges and the gorges,
Till the night was on the land
On the hazy, mazy land!
Far away the bounding prey...

You may have heard of Proclus, sir,
If you have been a reader;
And you may know a bit of her
Who helped the Lycian leader.

I have my doubts the head you 'sport'
(Now mark me, don't get crusty)...

To-night a strong south wind in thunder sings
Across the city. Now by salt wet flats,
And ridges perished with the breath of drought,
Comes up a deep, sonorous, gulf-like voice...

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.
...

Take the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old...

I hear no footfall beating through the dark,
A lonely gust is loitering at the pane;
There is no sound within these forests stark
Beyond a splash or two of sullen rain;
...

Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.

The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed...

The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide;
And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride.
The gleaming clouds, above the brows of western steeps uphurled,...

The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,
The black clouds follow fast,
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,
And the ships go heaving past, past, past
The ships go heaving past!...

The harp we love hath a royal burst!
Its strings are mighty forest trees;
And branches, swaying to and fro,
Are fingers sounding symphonies.

The harp we love hath a solemn sound!...

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.

Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;...

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,...

Two years had the tiger, whose shape was that of a sinister man,
Been out since the night of escape two years under horror and ban.
In a time full of thunder and rain, when hurricanes hackled the tree,...

'Daughter,' said the ancient father, pausing by the evening sea,
'Turn thy face towards the sunset turn thy face and kneel with me!
Prayer and praise and holy fasting, lips of love and life of light,...

Encompassed by the psalm of hill and stream,
By hymns august with their majestic theme,
Here in the evening of exalted days
To Thee, our Friend, we bow with breath of praise.
...

They come from the highways of labour,
From labour and leisure they come;
But not to the sound of the tabor,
And not to the beating of drum.

By thousands the people assemble...

A grace that was lent for a very few hours,
By the bountiful Spirit above us;
She sleeps like a flower in the land of the flowers,
She went ere she knew how to love us....

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!...

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...

Like one who meets a staggering blow,
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?...