An Anthology of Australian Verse | Page 7

and A. B. Paterson -- became widely known. When published in book form, their verses met with phenomenal success; Paterson's "The Man from Snowy River" (1895) having already attained a circulation of over thirty thousand copies. It is the first of a long series of volumes, issued during the last ten years, whose character is far more distinctively Australian than that of their predecessors. Their number and success are evidences of the lively interest taken by the present generation here in its native literature.
Australia has now come of age, and is becoming conscious?of its strength and its possibilities. Its writers to-day are, as a rule, self-reliant and hopeful. They have faith in their own country; they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry in the grand manner, and that some of it is lacking in technical finish; but it is a vivid and faithful portrayal of Australia, and its ruggedness is in character. It is hoped that this selection from the verse that has been written up to the present time will be found a not unworthy contribution to the great literature of the English-speaking peoples.
William Charles Wentworth.
Australasia
Celestial poesy! whose genial sway?Earth's furthest habitable shores obey;?Whose inspirations shed their sacred light,?Far as the regions of the Arctic night,?And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam?Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam, --?Descend thou also on my native land,?And on some mountain-summit take thy stand;?Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen?Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene;?And there a richer, nobler fane arise,?Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes.?And tho', bright goddess, on the far blue hills,?That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills?Where Warragamba's rage has rent in twain?Opposing mountains, thundering to the plain,?No child of song has yet invoked thy aid?'Neath their primeval solitary shade, --?Still, gracious Pow'r, some kindling soul inspire,?To wake to life my country's unknown lyre,?That from creation's date has slumbering lain,?Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain;?And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song?Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along, --?An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page?To nature true may charm in ev'ry age; --?And that an Austral Pindar daring soar,?Where not the Theban eagle reach'd before.?And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride?Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide; --?Should thy tamed Lion -- spent his former might, --?No longer roar the terror of the fight; --?Should e'er arrive that dark disastrous hour,?When bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r; --?When thou, no longer freest of the free,?To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee; --?May all thy glories in another sphere?Relume, and shine more brightly still than here;?May this, thy last-born infant, then arise,?To glad thy heart and greet thy parent eyes;?And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,?A new Britannia in another world.
Charles Harpur.
Love
She loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips?The live confession came, like rich perfume?From crimson petals bursting into bloom!?And still my heart at the remembrance skips?Like a young lion, and my tongue, too, trips?As drunk with joy! while every object seen?In life's diurnal round wears in its mien?A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse.?And if the common things of nature now?Are like old faces flushed with new delight,?Much more the consciousness of that rich vow?Deepens the beauteous, and refines the bright,?While throned I seem on love's divinest height?'Mid all the glories glowing round its brow.
Words
Words are deeds. The words we hear?May revolutionize or rear?A mighty state. The words we read?May be a spiritual deed?Excelling any fleshly one,?As much as the celestial sun?Transcends a bonfire, made to throw?A light upon some raree-show.?A simple proverb tagged with rhyme?May colour half the course of time;?The pregnant saying of a sage?May influence every coming age;?A song in its effects may be?More glorious than Thermopylae,?And many a lay that schoolboys scan?A nobler feat than Inkerman.
A Coast View
High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet?Riseth in Babylonian mass above,?In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair?Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,?And gaze with a keen wondering happiness?Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend?That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain?It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream --?Into great spaces mapped by light and shade?In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds?The billows darken, or they shimmer bright?In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.?'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,?Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God!?What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled?In slumber, under that wide-shining face!?While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge?Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails?Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,?Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still?Comes rising with them from the void beyond,?Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep?And carried upward by