An Anthology of Australian Verse | Page 9

stand
beside the Living River,
This vital spark -- this loving soul,
Must
last for ever and for ever.
To choose what I must be is mine,
Mine in these few and fleeting
days,
I may be if I will, divine,
Standing before God's throne in
praise, --
Through all Eternity to shine
In yonder Heaven's sapphire
blaze.
Father, the soul that counts it gain
To love Thee and Thy law on earth,

Unchanged but free from mortal stain,
Increased in knowledge and
in worth,
And purified from this world's pain,
Shall find through
Thee a second birth.

A change! no surely not a change!
The change must be before we die;

Death may confer a wider range
From world to world, from sky to
sky,
It cannot make me new or strange
To mine own Personality!
Daniel Henry Deniehy.
Love in a Cottage
A cottage small be mine, with porch
Enwreathed with ivy green,

And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells,
'Mid brown old wattles
seen.
And one to wait at shut of eve,
With eyes as fountain clear,
And
braided hair, and simple dress,
My homeward step to hear.
On summer eves to sing old songs,
And talk o'er early vows,
While
stars look down like angels' eyes
Amid the leafy boughs.
When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells,
And bright-winged
parrots call,
In forest paths be ours to rove
Till purple evenings fall.
The curtains closed, by taper clear
To read some page divine,
On
winter nights, the hearth beside,
Her soft, warm hand in mine.
And so to glide through busy life,
Like some small brook alone,

That winds its way 'mid grassy knolls,
Its music all its own.
A Song for the Night
O the Night, the Night, the solemn Night,
When Earth is bound with
her silent zone,
And the spangled sky seems a temple wide,
Where
the star-tribes kneel at the Godhead's throne;
O the Night, the Night,
the wizard Night,
When the garish reign of day is o'er,
And the
myriad barques of the dream-elves come
In a brightsome fleet from
Slumber's shore!

O the Night for me,
When blithe and free,
Go the zephyr-hounds on
their airy chase;
When the moon is high
In the dewy sky,
And the air is sweet as a
bride's embrace!
O the Night, the Night, the charming Night!
From the fountain side in
the myrtle shade,
All softly creep on the slumbrous air
The waking
notes of the serenade;
While bright eyes shine 'mid the lattice-vines,

And white arms droop o'er the sculptured sills,
And accents fall to
the knights below,
Like the babblings soft of mountain rills.
Love in their eyes,
Love in their sighs,
Love in the heave of each
lily-bright bosom;
In words so clear,
Lest the listening ear
And the waiting heart may
lose them.
O the silent Night, when the student dreams
Of kneeling crowds
round a sage's tomb;
And the mother's eyes o'er the cradle rain

Tears for her baby's fading bloom;
O the peaceful Night, when stilled
and o'er
Is the charger's tramp on the battle plain,
And the bugle's
sound and the sabre's flash,
While the moon looks sad over heaps of
slain;
And tears bespeak
On the iron cheek
Of the sentinel lonely pacing,
Thoughts which roll
Through his fearless soul,
Day's sterner mood
replacing.
O the sacred Night, when memory comes
With an aspect mild and
sweet to me,
But her tones are sad as a ballad air
In childhood heard
on a nurse's knee;
And round her throng fair forms long fled,
With
brows of snow and hair of gold,
And eyes with the light of summer
skies,
And lips that speak of the days of old.

Wide is your flight,
O spirits of Night,
By strath, and stream, and
grove,
But most in the gloom
Of the Poet's room
Ye choose, fair ones, to
rove.
Richard Rowe.
Superstites Rosae
The grass is green upon her grave,
The west wind whispers low;

"The corn is changed, come forth, come forth,
Ere all the blossoms
go!"
In vain. Her laughing eyes are sealed,
And cold her sunny brow;

Last year she smiled upon the flowers --
They smile above her now!
Soul Ferry
High and dry upon the shingle lies the fisher's boat to-night; From his
roof-beam dankly drooping, raying phosphorescent light, Spectral in its
pale-blue splendour, hangs his heap of scaly nets, And the fisher, lapt
in slumber, surge and seine alike forgets.
Hark! there comes a sudden knocking, and the fisher starts from sleep,
As a hollow voice and ghostly bids him once more seek the deep;
Wearily across his shoulder flingeth he the ashen oar,
And upon the
beach descending finds a skiff beside the shore.
'Tis not his, but he must enter -- rocking on the waters dim, Awful in
their hidden presence, who are they that wait for him? Who are they
that sit so silent, as he pulleth from the land -- Nothing heard save
rumbling rowlock, wave soft-breaking on the sand?
Chill adown the tossing channel blows the wailing, wand'ring breeze,
Lonely in the murky midnight, mutt'ring mournful memories, --
Summer lands where once it brooded, wrecks that widows' hearts have

wrung -- Swift the dreary boat flies onwards, spray, like rain, around it
flung.
On a pebbled strand