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 it grateth, ghastly cliffs around it loom,
Thin and melancholy voices faintly murmur through the gloom;
Voices only, lipless voices, and the fisherman turns pale,
As the mother greets her children, sisters landing brothers hail.

Lightened of its unseen burden, cork-like rides the rocking bark,
Fast the fisherman flies homewards o'er the billows deep and dark;
THAT boat needs no mortal's mooring — sad at heart he seeks his bed,
For his life henceforth is clouded — he hath piloted the Dead!

Sir Henry Parkes.

The Buried Chief

(November 6th, 1886)

With speechless lips and solemn tread
 They brought the Lawyer-Statesman home:
They laid him with the gather'd dead,
 Where rich and poor like brothers come.

How bravely did the stripling climb,
 From step to step the rugged hill:
His gaze thro' that benighted time
 Fix'd on the far-off beacon still.

He faced the storm that o'er him burst,
 With pride to match the proudest born:
He bore unblench'd Detraction's worst, —
 Paid blow for blow, and scorn for scorn.

He scaled the summit while the sun
 Yet shone upon his conquer'd track:
Nor falter'd till the goal was won,
 Nor struggling upward, once look'd back.

But what avails the "pride of place",
 Or winged chariot rolling past?
He heeds not now who wins the race,
 Alike to him the first or last.

Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood').

Perdita

She is beautiful yet, with her wondrous hair
 And eyes that are stormy with fitful light,
The delicate hues of brow and cheek
 Are unmarred all, rose-clear and bright;
That matchless frame yet holds at bay
The crouching bloodhounds, Remorse, Decay.

There is no fear in her great dark eyes —
 No hope, no love, no care,
Stately and proud she looks around
 With a fierce, defiant stare;
Wild words deform her reckless speech,
Her laugh has a sadness tears never reach.

Whom should she fear on earth? Can Fate
 One direr torment lend
To her few little years of glitter and gloom
 With the sad old story to end
When the spectres of Loneliness, Want and Pain
Shall arise one night with Death in their train?

. . . . .

I see in a vision a woman like her
 Trip down an orchard slope,
With rosy prattlers that shout a name
 In tones of rapture and hope;
While the yeoman, gazing at children and wife,
Thanks God for the pride and joy of his life.

. . . . .

Whose conscience is heavy with this dark guilt?
 Who pays at the final day
For a wasted body, a murdered soul,
 And how shall he answer, I say,
For her outlawed years, her early doom,
And despair — despair — beyond the tomb?

Adam Lindsay Gordon.

A Dedication

They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
   Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
   And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
   And faint flocks and herds.

Where in dreariest days, when all dews end,
   And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large flood-gates are loosen'd,
   And floods, freed from storm,
From broken-up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion —
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion —
   Song shaped without form.

Whence gather'd? — The locust's glad chirrup
   May furnish a stave;
The ring of a rowel and stirrup,
   The wash of a wave;
The chaunt of the marsh frog in rushes,
That chimes through the pauses and hushes
Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes,
   The tempests that rave;

In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples
   The dusk of the sky,
With streaks like the redd'ning of apples,
   The ripening of rye.
To eastward, when cluster by cluster,
Dim stars and dull planets, that muster,
Wax wan in a world of white lustre
   That spreads far and high;

In the gathering of night gloom o'erhead, in
   The still silent change,
All fire-flush'd when forest trees redden
   On slopes of the range.
When the gnarl'd, knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seem carved, like weird columns Egyptian,
With curious device, quaint inscription,
   And hieroglyph strange;

In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
   'Twixt shadow and shine,
When each dew-laden air draught resembles
   A long draught of wine;
When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some song in all hearts hath existence, —
   Such songs have been mine.

Thora's Song

We severed in Autumn early,
 Ere the earth was torn by the plough;
The wheat and the oats and the barley
 Are ripe for the harvest now.
We sunder'd one misty morning
 Ere the hills were dimm'd by the rain;
Through the flowers those hills adorning —
 Thou comest not back again.