Kitabı oxu: «The Lonely Crossing And Other Poems»
Louisa Lawson
The Lonely Crossing And Other Poems
Published by Good Press, 2022
EAN 4066338083975
Table of Contents
Coming Home
Back Again
The Hour Is Come
A Friend In Need
Twilight
The Hill Of Death
The Reformers
The Digger’s Daughter
To A Libertine
The Song Of Bacchus
A Pound A Mile
Light In Darkness
Lines Written During A Night Spent In A Bush Inn
“Another For The Queen”
A Plea For Australia
Australia
The Winter Wind
An Australian Song
The Squatter’s Wife
God Give Me Gold
A Life’s Dream
Dream I
Dream II
Lines
The Message Of The Flowers
“So Many A Deed Of Wrong For Right Is Meant”
Renunciation
A Dream
Woman’s Love
Divided
The Petunia
A Reverie
Buried Love
Lines
A Dream
The City Bird
In Memoriam
A Grave
To My Sister
I Wonder?
In Memory Of R.E.H
In Memoriam
My Nettie
In Memoriam
A Child’s Question
A Mother’s Answer
All’s Well
To A Bird
To A Bird
A Reverie
Lines
Give Me Only Peace
Sunset
THE END
A man on foot came down to the river,
A silent man, on the road alone,
And dropped his swag with a chill-born shiver,
And sat to rest on a wind-worn stone.
He slid then down to the long grass, bending
His arms above as the resting do,
And watched a snow-white chariot trending
Its wind-made way o’er the wedgewood blue.
In it sat one of the fairest ladies
That mind could mould, in a crown of white,
But close beside came a fiend from Hades
In a chariot black as the heart of night.
The man, he sighed as the fiend would clasp her,
Then smiled as the wind by a wise decree
Her white steeds turned to the streets of Jaspar,
And Satan drave to a sin-black sea.
The wattles waved, and their sweet reflection
In crystal fathoms responses made;
The sunlight silted each soft inflection
And fretted with silver the short’ning shade.
A restless fish made the thin reeds shiver,
A waking wind made the willows moan,
But the resting man by the noon-bright river
Lay dreaming on, in the long grass prone.
* * * * *
The bell-bird called to its tardy lover,
The grebe clouds all to the west had sped,
But the river of death had a soul crossed over,
The man with the swag on the bank was dead.
Coming Home
Table of Contents
Going round the back street,
Through the twilight lane,
While the folk at church meet —
Coming home again.
Faded hat and creasy,
Long since it was new;
Tent-fly torn and greasy,
Bluey showing through.
Billy burnt and battered,
Boots all badly burst,
Lace and lace-holes shattered,
Trousers at their worst.
Blankets like a riddle,
With a streak of white
Down the threadbare middle
When against the light.
Young face lined and sunburnt,
Hair just turning grey;
Many a lesson unlearnt
Since he went away.
But he need not bother,
There’s a bite and sup;
And for all the other —
Mother’ll fix him up.
Back Again
Table of Contents
Oh, my boy, come in, do,
You are back at last;
Years since last we saw you —
How the time has passed!
Have a bath and shave first?
No? A cup of tea?
Think you want a rest worst?
Dear, oh deary me!
Look, dear, at your boots, too,
All cut with the rocks;
And you haven’t, have you,
Any mended socks?
They are always tearing?
Threw them all away?
Alberts you are wearing?
Goodness, what are they?
Felt that you were coming,
So I wrote to Bob;
He says things are humming,
And you’ll get a job.
Now, dear, don’t come near me,
You’re all over dust;
Can you smoke? Oh, dear me,
If you really must.
The Hour Is Come
Table of Contents
How did she fight? She fought well.
How did she light? Ah, she fell.
Why did she fall? God, who knows all,
Only can tell.
Those she was fighting for — they
Surely would go to her? Nay!
What of her pain! Their’s is the gain.
Ever the way.
Will they not help her to rise
If there is death in her eyes?
Can you not see? She made them free.
What if she dies ?
Can we not help her? Oh, no!
In her good fight it is so
That all who work never must shirk
Suff’ring and woe.
But she’ll not ever lie down —
On her head, in the dust, is a crown
Jewelled and bright, under whose light
She’ll rise alone.
A Friend In Need
Table of Contents
Friends will quickly leave you,
Slight you and deceive you,
Or will not believe you
If you have a wrong.
Those who hurt will hate you,
Enemies will slate you,
And as crank disrate you
If you have a wrong.
But if you are righted
Those who coolly slighted
Will be so delighted!
Said so all along!
But you then can show them
That you would forego them,
As too well you know them
Since you’ve had a wrong.
But your friends, God bless them!
Take their hands and press them,
You’ll not have to guess them
If you’ve had a wrong.
Twilight
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Though labour may claim and cover
The best of our waking hours,
Whatever we owe another
We feel that the dusk is ours.
’Tis then that the hard views taken
Of things in the day-glare seen,
Will soften, and tint, and waken,
And tone ’neath a twilight screen.
While the night-bird softly tenders
Sweet trebles in monotone,
And the king of day surrenders
To the queen of night his throne —
When the earth and the sky are lovers,
And present and past are wed,
And the satisfied soul discovers
How surely God hath led.
And then as the heart confesses
The sins of a selfish way,
The spirit of pardon blesses
And closes the gates of day.
The Hill Of Death
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No downward path to death we go,
Through no dark shades or valleys low,
But up and on, o’er rises bright,
Toward the dawn of endless light.
For not in lowlands can we see
The path that was, and that to be;
But on the height, just where the soul
Takes deeper breath to reach the goal.
There we can see the winding way
That we have journeyed all our day;
Then turn and view, with spirits still,
Our future home beyond the hill.
The Reformers
Table of Contents
We lead the way, we lead the way,
We rise alert to meet each day,
We start the fight, we head the fray,
We lead the way, we lead the way.
We turn the sod, we stir the pool,
We point the way to those who rule.
We cheek the rogue, we chide the fool,
We point the way to those who rule.
We bear reverse, we breast rebuff,
We force a way o’er passes rough,
We stand the kick, we take the cuff,
Till Death’s stern umpire calls “Enough.”
The Digger’s Daughter
Table of Contents
The waratah has stained her cheek,
Her lips are even brighter;
Like virgin quartz without a streak
Her teeth are, but far whiter.
Her eyes are large, and soft, and dark,
And clear as running water;
And straight as any stringy bark
Is Lil, the digger’s daughter.
She’ll wash a prospect quick and well,
And deftly use the ladle;
The weight of gold at sight she’ll tell,
And work with tub and cradle.
She was her father’s only mate,
And wound up wash and water;
She worked all day and studied late,
And all she knows he taught her.
She stood alone above the shaft —
A test for woman, rather —
When I sprang to the windlass haft
And helped her land her father.
She turned her pretty face to me
To thank me, and I thought her
The grandest girl of all her race —
Sweet Lil, the digger’s daughter.
And when my luck began to change
I grew a trifle bolder
And told my love, but thought it strange
She knew before I told her.
She said that she would be my wife;
Then home I proudly brought her,
To be my loving mate for life, —
But still the digger’s daughter.
To A Libertine
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There’s blood in the ink of her writing,
The paper is stiffened with tears,
And I with my conscience am fighting,
And striving to quiet my fears.
And these are the words she is saying:
“My life I no longer can bear,
For death I am constantly praying.
Oh, when will God answer my prayer?”
* * * * *
I met her when first the faint dawning
Of womanhood tinted her youth,
She then had no past, like the morning,
For she was all candour and truth.
She knelt at my feet in confession,
And asked me for leading and light;
To right, where was no retrogression,
To cleanse what was spotless and white.
She held me in deep veneration,
She looked on me almost as God,
And gave her sweet life’s conservation
Of love to the vilest that trod.
I taught her that love was the duty
And life of the angels of light,
Then spoiled her sweet spiritual beauty
And turned her away from the right.
I wooed her in delicate fashion,
Then sullied her soul with my lust;
I poisoned her life with my passion,
And murdered her beautiful trust.
And now her sweet spirit is flitting
To where other sweet spirits wait,
While I with soul-lepers am sitting
In torment at hell’s awful gate.
The Song Of Bacchus
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I laugh ha, ha! and I laugh ho, ho!
For I think it a goodly thing
To curse the high and to curse the low,
And to rule both Beggar and King.
The light will fly from the brightest eye,
And the bloom from the fairest cheek;
And mirth will die in a sob or sigh,
Where I reve and ramp and reek.
I fill with lust and I poison trust,
And I taint the lover’s caress;
I love to hate, I’m insatiate
In my hunger for lawlessness.
I take from its kind the brightest mind
And make it with idiots link;
And oft I fly on the gallows high
A grim effigy done by Drink.
I curse the lives of innocent wives
Who could never know ought of me;
But what care I for their blighted lives
Nor the terrible wrongs I see?
I bleach the hair and I line with care
Many faces with thoughts of me;
And flout the prayer that my hand would spare
The pride of the family tree.
I curse the land, and I curse the sea,
While the poets my praises sing;
And Satan is wrath; he envies me
All the souls of the saints I bring.
A Pound A Mile
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The tar-boy looked perplexed to see
Tom Dawson cut the skin,
And Sweeper Bill remarked that he
Had nothing in the bin.
His eyes for want of sleep were red,
And slow his shears did click,
And whispers went around the shed
That Dawson’s wife was sick.
Then kindly spoke old Daddy Tonk:
“Don’t look so glum, my lad;
Is she, your missus, very cronk?”
“Yes, mate,” said Tom, “she’s — bad.”
“Are there no women on the place ?
There should be two or three.”
“There are, but in my poor wife’s case
They say they’re ‘all at sea.’”
“Then bring a doctor,” Daddy said;
“Don’t let the woman die!”
But Tommy Dawson hung his head
And made him no reply.
“Get Pile to come out if you can,
He’ll pull the missus through.
Spend all you have to save her, man,
I would if I were you.”
Then Dawson looked up from the ground,
And white his features grew:
“Look, mate! If you had not a pound
Now tell me what you’d do?”
“What would it cost then, now, to send
And fetch out Dr. Pile?
Some of the men the cash would lend.”
Tom groaned, “A pound a mile.”
“That’s stiff, by God!” said Monty Styles,
“The doctor does it brown;
There’s sixty-five, I know, good miles
Between us and the town.”
“It is a ‘coo-ey’ with her now,”
Said Dawson, in despair.
I cannot save her anyhow —
I’m euchred everywhere.”
Then up sprang Maori, on the job —
“Here, look, see! There’s my quid.
And here, look, see! So help me bob!
There’s two from Dick and Syd.”
And in his hat the money fell
From willing hands and free.
“A quid a mile,” said Barney Bell;
“Here goes’ I’ll give yer three.”
The Boss said, “Put me down for ten,
And catch the blood mare, Ted —
And put her in the sulky then —
Don’t wait till she is fed.
“Now, wire the doctor, quick, to come,
And meet me mile for mile;
And, Tommy, man, hold up, old chum.”
(Poor Tommy tried to smile.)
The squatter lit his pipe with care
And drew his chin-strap in,
Then took his seat and touched the mare
And started for the spin.
Then slow the hours of night went by
To those around the shed,
For not a man had closed an eye
Not one had gone to bed.
“She’s sinking now,” the women said,
“She can’t much longer last;
Before an hour she will be dead,
Her strength is failing fast.”
“I’ll go and let the sliprails down,”
The black boy slowly said,
For far along the road to town
He heard a horse’s tread.
Then everyone sprang up and bent
A watchful eye and ear,
And soon the boss a “coo-ey” sent
To show that he was near.
Then in the middle of the night
The blood mare, limping, came
All tucked and blown, and wet and white,
And panting hard, but game.
The doctor quick and silently
Then with the women went,
And very soon a baby’s cry
Was heard in Dawson’s tent.
“Thank God,” he said, “My work is done,”
As Tommy’s hand he pressed;
“I’ve saved your wife and little son,
Let Nature do the rest.”
And then they went into the shed —
The men and Dr. Pile —
And drank his health in Queensland red,
And paid him — pound for mile.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
