  Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! Please take a look at the important information in this header. We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. **Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* An Anthology of Australian Verse Edited by Bertram Stevens February, 1998 [Etext #1199] This etext was prepared by Alan. R. Light (alight@vnet.net, formerly alight@mercury.interpath.net). To assure a high quality text, the original was (manually) entered twice and electronically compared. We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance of the official release dates, for time for better editing. We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. 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[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement. *END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* This etext was prepared by Alan. R. Light (alight@vnet.net, formerly alight@mercury.interpath.net). To assure a high quality text, the original was (manually) entered twice and electronically compared. [Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. An Anthology of Australian Verse Dedicated to Preface The Editor has endeavoured to make this selection representative of the best short poems written by Australians or inspired by Australian scenery and conditions of life, — "Australian" in this connection being used to include New Zealand. The arrangement is as nearly as possible chronological; and the appendix contains brief biographical particulars of the authors, together with notes which may be useful to readers outside Australia. The Editor thanks Messrs. H. H. Champion, Henry Gyles Turner, Contents Introduction William Charles Wentworth. Charles Harpur. William Forster. James Lionel Michael. Daniel Henry Deniehy. Richard Rowe. Sir Henry Parkes. Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood'). Adam Lindsay Gordon. Henry Kendall. Marcus Clarke. Patrick Moloney. Alfred Domett. James Brunton Stephens. Thomas Bracken. Ada Cambridge. Alexander Bathgate. Philip Joseph Holdsworth. Mary Hannay Foott. Henry Lea Twisleton. Mrs. James Glenny Wilson. Edward Booth Loughran. John Liddell Kelly. Robert Richardson. James Lister Cuthbertson. John Farrell. Arthur Patchett Martin. Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen. Victor James Daley. Alice Werner. Ethel Castilla. Francis William Lauderdale Adams. Thomas William Heney. Patrick Edward Quinn. John Sandes. Inez K. Hyland. George Essex Evans. Mary Colborne-Veel. John Bernard O'Hara. M. A. Sinclair. Sydney Jephcott. Andrew Barton Paterson (`Banjo'). Jessie Mackay. Henry Lawson. Arthur Albert Dawson Bayldon. Jennings Carmichael. Agnes L. Storrie. Martha M. Simpson. William Gay. Edward Dyson. Dowell O'Reilly. David MacDonald Ross. Mary Gilmore. Bernard O'Dowd. Edwin James Brady. Will. H. Ogilvie. Roderic Quinn. David McKee Wright. Christopher John Brennan. John Le Gay Brereton. Arthur H. Adams. Ethel Turner. Johannes Carl Andersen. Dora Wilcox. Ernest Currie. George Charles Whitney. James Lister Cuthbertson. [reprise] Notes on the Poems Biographical Notes ————————————————— Introduction As the literature of a country is, in certain respects, a reflex of its character, it may be advisable to introduce this Anthology with some account of the main circumstances which have affected the production of Australian poetry. Australia was first settled by the British a little more than a century ago, so that we are still a young community. The present population, including that of New Zealand, is a little under five millions, or about the same as that of London; it is chiefly scattered along the coast and the few permanent waterways, and a vast central region is but sparsely inhabited as yet. All climates, from tropical to frigid, are included within the continent, but the want of satisfactory watersheds renders it peculiarly liable to long droughts and sudden floods. The absence of those broad, outward signs of the changing seasons which mark the pageant of the year in the old world is probably a greater disadvantage than we are apt to suspect. Here, too, have existed hardly any of the conditions which obtained in older communities where great literature arose. There is no glamour of old Romance about our early history, no shading off from the actual into a dim region of myth and fable; our beginnings are clearly defined and of an eminently prosaic character. The early settlers were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with nature, and in the establishment of the primitive industries. Their strenuous pioneering days were followed by the feverish excitement of the gold period and a consequent rapid expansion of all industries. Business and politics have afforded ready roads to success, and have absorbed the energies of the best intellects. There has been no leisured class of cultured people to provide the atmosphere in which literature is best developed as an art; and, until recently, we have been content to look to the mother country for our artistic standards and supplies. The principal literary productions of our first century came from writers who had been born elsewhere, and naturally brought with them the traditions and sentiments of their home country. We have not yet had time to settle down and form any decided racial characteristics; nor has any great crisis occurred to fuse our common sympathies and create a national sentiment. Australia has produced no great poet, nor has any remarkable innovation in verse forms been successfully attempted. But the old forms have been so coloured by the strange conditions of a new country, and so charged with the thoughts and feelings of a vigorous, restless democracy now just out of its adolescence, that they have an interest and a value beyond that of perhaps technically better minor poetry produced under English skies. The first verses actually written and published in Australia seem to have been the Royal Birthday Odes of Michael Robinson, which were printed as broadsides from 1810 to 1821. Their publication in book form was announced in `The Hobart Town Gazette' of 23rd March, 1822, but no copy of such a volume is at present known to exist. The famous "Prologue", said to have been recited at the first dramatic performance in Australia, on January 16th, 1796 (when Dr. Young's tragedy "The Revenge" and "The Hotel" were played in a temporary theatre at Sydney), was for a long time attributed to the notorious George Barrington, and ranked as the first verse produced in Australia. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim. The lines first appeared in a volume called "Original Poems and Translations" chiefly by Susannah Watts, published in London in 1802, a few months before the appearance of the "History of New South Wales" (1803) — known as George Barrington's — which also, in all probability, was not written by Barrington. In Susannah Watts' book the Prologue is stated to be written by "A Gentleman", but there is no clue to the name of the author. Mr. Barron Field, Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, printed in Sydney in 1819 his "First Fruits of Australian Poetry", for private circulation. Field was a friend of Charles Lamb, who addressed to him the letter printed in "The Essays of Elia" under the title of "Distant Correspondents". Lamb reviewed the "First Fruits" in `The Examiner', and one wishes for his sake that the verses were more worthy. The first poem of any importance by an Australian is William Charles Wentworth's "Australasia", written in 1823 at Cambridge University in competition for the Chancellor's medal. There were twenty-seven competitors, and the prize was awarded to W. Mackworth Praed, Wentworth being second on the list. Wentworth's poem was printed in London in the same year, and shortly afterwards in `The Sydney Gazette', the first Australian newspaper. In 1826 there was printed at the Albion Press, Sydney, "Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel" by Charles Tompson, Junior, the first verse of an Australian-born writer published in this country. There was also published in Sydney in 1826 a book of verses by Dr. John Dunmore Lang, called "Aurora Australis". Both Lang and Wentworth afterwards conducted newspapers and wrote histories of New South Wales, but their names are more famous in the political than in the literary annals of the country. At Hobart Town in 1827 appeared "The Van Diemen's Land Warriors, or the Heroes of Cornwall" by "Pindar Juvenal", the first book of verse published in Tasmania. During the next ten years various poetical effusions were printed in the colonies, which are of bibliographical interest but of hardly any intrinsic value. Newspapers had been established at an early date, but until the end of this period they were little better than news-sheets or official gazettes, giving no opportunities for literature. The proportion of well-educated persons was small, the majority of the free settlers being members of the working classes, as very few representatives of British culture came willingly to this country until after the discovery of gold. It was not until 1845 that the first genuine, though crude, Australian poetry appeared, in the form of a small volume of sonnets by Charles Harpur, who was born at Windsor, N.S.W., in 1817. He passed his best years in the lonely bush, and wrote largely under the influence of Wordsworth and Shelley. He had some imagination and poetic faculty of the contemplative order, but the disadvantages of his life were many. Harpur's best work is in his longer poems, from which extracts cannot conveniently be given here. The year 1842 had seen the publication of Henry Parkes' "Stolen Moments", the first of a number of volumes of verse which that statesman bravely issued, the last being published just before his eightieth year. The career of Parkes is coincident with a long and important period of our history, in which he is the most striking figure. Not the least interesting aspect of his character, which contained much of rugged greatness, was his love of poetry and his unfailing kindness to the struggling writers of the colony. Others who deserve remembrance for their services at this time are Nicol D. Stenhouse and Dr. Woolley. Among the writers of the period D. H. Deniehy, Henry Halloran, J. Sheridan Moore and Richard Rowe contributed fairly good verse to the newspapers, the principal of which were `The Atlas' (1845-9), `The Empire' (1850-8), and two papers still in existence — `The Freeman's Journal' (1850) and `The Sydney Morning Herald', which began as `The Sydney Herald' in 1831. None of their writings, however, reflected to any appreciable extent the scenery or life of the new country. With the discovery of gold a new era began for Australia. That event induced the flow of a large stream of immigration, and gave an enormous impetus to the development of the colonies. Among the ardent spirits attracted here were J. Lionel Michael, Robert Sealy, R. H. Horne, the Howitts, Henry Kingsley and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Michael was a friend of Millais, and an early champion of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Soon after his arrival in Sydney he abandoned the idea of digging for gold, and began to practise again as a solicitor. Later on he removed to Grafton on the Clarence River; there in 1857 Henry Kendall, a boy of 16, found work in his office, and Michael, discerning his promise, encouraged him to write. Most of the boy's earliest verses were sent from Michael's office to Parkes, who printed them in his paper `The Empire'. When Kendall left Grafton, Michael gave him a letter of introduction to Stenhouse, which brought him in touch with the small literary group in Sydney; and his first volume, "Poems and Songs", was published in Sydney in 1862. It was not long before he recognised the extreme weakness of most of its contents, and did what he could to suppress the book. He sent specimens of his best work to the London `Athenaeum', and wrote a pathetic letter to the Editor, which was printed in the issue of 27th September, 1862, together with some of the poems and a most kindly comment. Kendall soon wrote again, sending more poems, and received encouraging notices in `The Athenaeum' on 19th September, 1863, 27th February, 1864, and 17th February, 1866. These form the first favourable pronouncement upon Australian poetry by an English critical journal of importance. Their stimulating effect upon Kendall was very great. From the indifference of the many and the carping criticisms of some of the magnates here, he had appealed to one of the highest literary authorities in England, and received praise beyond his wildest expectations. Meanwhile the colony of Victoria, which began its independent career in 1851, had been advancing even more rapidly than New South Wales. `The Argus' newspaper had been in existence since 1846, and other periodicals sprang up in Melbourne which gave further scope to letters. `The Australasian' was established in 1854, and soon became the most important literary journal in Australia. Adam Lindsay Gordon, who had landed in Adelaide in the same year as Henry Kingsley — 1853 — published a little book of verse in 1864 at Mt. Gambier, S.A., and began to contribute verses to a Melbourne sporting paper in 1866. These were printed anonymously, and attracted some attention; but a collection of his ballads — "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" — brought very little praise and no profit. Marcus Clarke came to Melbourne in 1864, and soon afterwards began to write for `The Argus' and other papers. About the same time the presence of R. H. Horne, the distinguished author of "Orion", in Melbourne lent a lustre to that city, which was for the time the literary centre of Australia. Horne corresponded with Kendall, and contributed to a paper edited by Deniehy in Sydney — `The Southern Cross' (1859-60). He was the presiding genius of the literary gatherings at Dwight's book-shop in Melbourne, and no doubt exercised a beneficial influence upon the writers around him. In 1870, after a series of crushing disappointments, Gordon committed suicide. His dramatic end awakened sympathy and gave an additional interest to his writings. It was soon found that in the city and the bush many of his spirited racing ballads were well known. The virile, athletic tone of his verse, which taught "How a man should uphold the sports of his land and the practical philosophy, summed up in the well-known quatrain — "Life is mostly froth and bubble, appeal strongly to Australians. Gordon's work cannot be considered as peculiarly Australian in character; but much of it is concerned with the horse, and all of it is a-throb with the manly, reckless personality of the writer. Horses and horse-racing are especially interesting to Australians, the Swinburnian rush of Gordon's ballads charms their ear, and in many respects he embodies their ideal of a man. There are few Australians who do not know some of his poems, even if they know no others, and his influence upon subsequent writers has been very great. Brunton Stephens, who came to Queensland in 1866, wrote there a long poem called "Convict Once" which, when published in London in 1871, gained high praise from competent critics, and gave the author an academic reputation. A little book of humorous verses issued in Melbourne in 1873 almost immediately became popular, and a later volume of "Miscellaneous Poems" (1880), containing some fine patriotic utterances as well as many in lighter vein, established him as one of our chief singers. The first important poem from New Zealand — Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" — was published in London in 1872. Domett spent thirty years in New Zealand. He wrote a good deal of verse before leaving England and after his return, but "Ranolf and Amohia" is the only poem showing traces of Australian influence. It is a miscellany in verse rather than an epic, and contains some fine descriptions of New Zealand scenery. The death of Kendall in Sydney in 1882 closed what may be regarded as the second literary period. He had published his finest work in "Songs from the Mountains" (1880), and had the satisfaction of knowing that it was a success, financially and otherwise. Kendall's audience is not so large as Gordon's, but it is a steadily growing one; and many readers who have been affected by his musical verse hold the ill-fated singer in more tender regard than any other. He lived at a time when Australians had not learned to think it possible that any good thing in art could come out of Australia, and were too fully occupied with things of the market-place to concern themselves much about literature. Several attempts have been made to maintain magazines and reviews in Sydney and Melbourne, but none of them could compete successfully with the imported English periodicals. `The Colonial Monthly', `The Melbourne Review', `The Sydney Quarterly', and `The Centennial Magazine' were the most important of these. They cost more to produce than their English models, and the fact that their contents were Australian was not sufficient in itself to obtain for them adequate support. Newspapers have played a far more important part in our literary world. `The Australasian', `Sydney Mail' and `Queenslander' have done a good deal to encourage local writers, but the most powerful influence has been that of `The Bulletin', started in Sydney in 1880. Its racy, irreverent tone and its humour are characteristically Australian, and through its columns the first realistic Australian verse of any importance — the writings of Henry Lawson 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 Charles Harpur. Love She loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips Words Words are deeds. The words we hear A Coast View High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet William Forster. `The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping' The love in her eyes lay sleeping, James Lionel Michael. `Through Pleasant Paths' Through pleasant paths, through dainty ways, I throw myself among the ferns The wind that whispers in the night, The ways of life are hard and cold Personality "Death is to us change, not consummation." A change! no, surely, not a change, For what am I? — this mortal flesh, THIS is not I — within such coil Whatever Time may make of me When all the worlds have ceased to roll, To choose what I must be is mine, Father, the soul that counts it gain A change! no surely not a change! Daniel Henry Deniehy. Love in a Cottage A cottage small be mine, with porch And one to wait at shut of eve, On summer eves to sing old songs, When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells, The curtains closed, by taper clear And so to glide through busy life, A Song for the Night O the Night, the Night, the solemn Night, O the Night, the Night, the charming Night! O the silent Night, when the student dreams O the sacred Night, when memory comes Richard Rowe. Superstites Rosae The grass is green upon her grave, In vain. Her laughing eyes are sealed, Soul Ferry High and dry upon the shingle lies the fisher's boat to-night; Hark! there comes a sudden knocking, and the fisher starts from sleep, 'Tis not his, but he must enter — rocking on the waters dim, Chill adown the tossing channel blows the wailing, wand'ring breeze, On a pebbled strand it grateth, ghastly cliffs around it loom, Lightened of its unseen burden, cork-like rides the rocking bark, Sir Henry Parkes. The Buried Chief (November 6th, 1886) With speechless lips and solemn tread How bravely did the stripling climb, He faced the storm that o'er him burst, He scaled the summit while the sun But what avails the "pride of place", Thomas Alexander Browne (`Rolf Boldrewood'). Perdita She is beautiful yet, with her wondrous hair There is no fear in her great dark eyes — Whom should she fear on earth? Can Fate . . . . . I see in a vision a woman like her . . . . . Whose conscience is heavy with this dark guilt? Adam Lindsay Gordon. A Dedication They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less Where in dreariest days, when all dews end, Whence gather'd? — The locust's glad chirrup In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples In the gathering of night gloom o'erhead, in In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles Thora's Song We severed in Autumn early, My heart is heavy and weary The warm sun riseth and setteth, Thy voice in my ear still mingles Waiting and watching ever, The Sick Stock-rider Hold hard, Ned! Lift me down once more, and lay me in the shade. In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young Ah! those days and nights we squandered at the Logans' in the glen — I've had my share of pastime, and I've done my share of toil, The deep blue skies wax dusky, and the tall green trees grow dim, I don't suppose I shall though, for I feel like sleeping sound, Henry Kendall. Prefatory Sonnets I.I purposed once to take my pen and write, II. |
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