(A Prize Poem published with the kind permission of the Proprietors of the ``Sydney Morning Herald'')NOW, while Orion, flaming south, doth set A shining foot on hills of wind and wet -Far haughty hills beyond the fountains cold And dells of glimmering greenness manifold -While August sings the advent of the Spring, And in the calm is heard September's wing, The lordly voice of song I ask of thee, High, deathless radiance - crowned Calliope!
What though we never hear the great god's lays Which made all music the Hellenic days -What though the face of thy fair heaven beams Still only on the crystal Grecian streams -What though a sky of new, strange beauty shines Where no white Dryad sings within the pines:
Here is a land whose large, imperial grace Must tempt thee, goddess, in thine holy place!
Here are the dells of peace and plenilune, The hills of morning and the slopes of noon;Here are the waters dear to days of blue, And dark-green hollows of the noontide dew;Here lies the harp, by fragrant wood-winds fanned, That waits the coming of thy quickening hand!
And shall Australia, framed and set in sea, August with glory, wait in vain for thee?
Shall more than Tempe's beauty be unsung Because its shine is strange - its colours young?
No! by the full, live light which puts to shame The far, fair splendours of Thessalian flame -By yonder forest psalm which sinks and swells Like that of Phocis, grave with oracles -By deep prophetic winds that come and go Where whispering springs of pondering mountains flow -By lute-like leaves and many-languaged caves, Where sounds the strong hosanna of the waves, This great new majesty shall not remain Unhonoured by the high immortal strain!
Soon, soon, the music of the southern lyre Shall start and blossom with a speech like fire!
Soon, soon, shall flower and flow in flame divine Thy songs, Apollo, and Euterpe, thine!
Strong, shining sons of Delphicus shall rise With all their father's glory in their eyes;And then shall beam on yonder slopes and springs The light that swims upon the light of things.
And therefore, lingering in a land of lawn, I, standing here, a singer of the dawn, With gaze upturned to where wan summits lie Against the morning flowing up the sky -Whose eyes in dreams of many colours see A glittering vision of the years to be -Do ask of thee, Calliope, one hour Of life pre-eminent with perfect power, That I may leave a song whose lonely rays May shine hereafter from these songless days.
For now there breaks across the faint grey range The rose-red dawning of a radiant change.
A soft, sweet voice is in the valleys deep, Where darkness droops and sings itself to sleep.
The grave, mute woods, that yet the silence hold Of dim, dead ages, gleam with hints of gold.
Yon eastern cape that meets the straitened wave -A twofold tower above the whistling cave -Whose strength in thunder shields the gentle lea, And makes a white wrath of a league of sea, Now wears the face of peace; and in the bay The weak, spent voice of Winter dies away.
In every dell there is a whispering wing, On every lawn a glimmer of the Spring;By every hill are growths of tender green -On every slope a fair, new life is seen;
And lo! beneath the morning's blossoming fires, The shining city of a hundred spires, In mists of gold, by countless havens furled, And glad with all the flags of all the world!
These are the shores, where, in a dream of fear, Cathay saw darkness dwelling half the year!
Note:According to that eminent authority, Mr.R.H.Major, and others, the Great Southern Land is referred to in old Chinese records as a polar continent, subject to the long polar nights.
These are the coasts that old fallacious tales Chained down with ice and ringed with sleepless gales!
This is the land that, in the hour of awe, From Indian peaks the rapt Venetian saw!
Note:Marco Polo mentions a large land called by the Malays Lochac.
The northern coast was supposed to be in latitude 10[degree]S. (Vide Bennett, and others.
Here is the long grey line of strange sea wall That checked the prow of the audacious Gaul, What time he steered towards the southern snow, From zone to zone, four hundred years ago!
Note:Mr. R.H.Major has discovered a map of Terra Australis dated A.D. 1542, and bearing the name of Le Testu, a French pilot. Le Testu must have visited these coasts some years before the date of the chart.
By yonder gulf, whose marching waters meet The wine-dark currents from the isles of heat, Strong sons of Europe, in a far dim year, Faced ghastly foes, and felt the alien spear!
There, in a later dawn, by shipless waves, The tender grasses found forgotten graves.
Note:The sailors of the Duyfhen, a Dutch vessel which entered Carpentaria, in A.D.1605, were attacked by the natives. In the fray, some of the whites were killed.
No doubt, these unlucky adventurers were the first Europeans buried in Australia. (Vide Woods, and others.)Far in the west, beyond those hills sublime, Dirk Hartog anchored in the olden time;There, by a wild-faced bay, and in a cleft, His shining name the fair-haired Northman left;Note:Dirk Hartog left a tin plate, bearing his name, in Shark's Bay, Western Australia. It was last seen in A.D.1803.
And, on those broad imperial waters, far Beneath the lordly occidental star, Sailed Tasman down a great and glowing space Whose softer lights were like his lady's face.
In dreams of her he roved from zone to zone, And gave her lovely name to coasts unknown;And saw, in streaming sunset everywhere, The curious beauty of her golden hair.
Note:Abel Tasman's love for Maria Van Dieman is well known.
Tasmania, and many of the islands and points on the N.W. coasts of Australia were named after her.
By flaming tracts of tropic afternoon, Where in low heavens hangs a fourfold moon.
Here, on the tides of a resplendent year, By capes of jasper, came the buccaneer.
Note:Dampier.
