He,catching there at some phantasmic help,Sat upright on the bolster with a cry Of "Where is Jesus?It is bitter cold!''
And then,because the thundercalls outside Were mixed for him with slanders of the Past,He called his weeping wife by name,and said,"Come closer,darling!We shall speed away Across the seas,and seek some mountain home,Shut in from liars,and the wicked words That track us day and night and night and day.''
So waned the sad refrain.And those poor lips,Whose latest phrases were for peace,grew mute,And into everlasting silence passed.
As fares a swimmer who hath lost his breath In 'wildering seas afar from any help -Who,fronting Death,can never realise The dreadful Presence,but is prone to clutch At every weed upon the weltering wave;So fared the watcher,poring o'er the last Of him she loved,with dazed and stupid stare;Half conscious of the sudden loss and lack Of all that bound her life,but yet without The power to take her mighty sorrow in.
Then came a patch or two of starry sky;
And through a reef of cloven thunder-cloud The soft moon looked:a patient face beyond The fierce impatient shadows of the slopes,And the harsh voices of the broken hills!
A patient face,and one which came and wrought A lovely silence,like a silver mist,Across the rainy relics of the storm.
For in the breaks and pauses of her light The gale died out in gusts:yet,evermore About the roof-tree on the dripping eaves,The damp wind loitered;and a fitful drift Sloped through the silent curtains,and athwart The dead.
There,when the glare had dropped behind A mighty ridge of gloom,the woman turned And sat in darkness,face to face with God,And said,"I know,''she said,"that Thou art wise;That when we build and hope,and hope and build,And see our best things fall,it comes to pass For evermore that we must turn to Thee!
And therefore,now,because I cannot find The faintest token of Divinity In this my latest sorrow,let Thy light Inform mine eyes,so I may learn to look On something past the sight which shuts,and blinds And seems to drive me wholly,Lord,from Thee.''
Now waned the moon beyond complaining depths;And as the dawn looked forth from showery woods (Whereon had dropped a hint of red and gold),There went about the crooked cavern-eaves Low flute-like echoes,with a noise of wings,And waters flying down far-hidden fells.
Then might be seen the solitary owl,Perched in the clefts,scared at the coming light,And staring outward (like a sea-shelled thing Chased to his cover by some bright,fierce foe),As at a monster in the middle waste.
At last the great kingfisher came,and called Across the hollows,loud with early whips,And lighted,laughing,on the shepherd's hut,And roused the widow from a swoon like death.
This day,and after it was noised abroad,By blacks,and straggling horsemen on the roads,That he was dead "who had been sick so long'',There flocked a troop from far-surrounding runs,To see their neighbour,and to bury him.
And men who had forgotten how to cry (Rough,flinty fellows of the native bush)Now learned the bitter way,beholding there The wasted shadow of an iron frame Brought down so low by years of fearful pain,And marking,too,the woman's gentle face,And all the pathos in her moaned reply Of "Masters,we have lived in better days.''
One stooped -a stockman from the nearer hills -To loose his wallet-strings,from whence he took A bag of tea,and laid it on her lap;Then sobbing,"God will help you,missus,yet,''
He sought his horse,with most bewildered eyes,And,spurring swiftly,galloped down the glen.
Where black Orara nightly chafes his brink,Midway between lamenting lines of oak And Warra's Gap,the shepherd's grave was built.
And there the wild dog pauses,in the midst Of moonless watches,howling through the gloom At hopeless shadows flitting to and fro,What time the East Wind hums his darkest hymn,And rains beat heavy on the ruined leaf.
There,while the Autumn in the cedar trees Sat cooped about by cloudy evergreens,The widow sojourned on the silent road,And mutely faced the barren mound,and plucked A straggling shrub from thence,and passed away,Heart-broken on to Sydney,where she took Her passage in an English vessel bound To London,for her home of other years.
At rest!Not near,with Sorrow on his grave,And roses quickened into beauty -wrapt In all the pathos of perennial bloom;
But far from these,beneath the fretful clay Of lands within the lone perpetual cry Of hermit plovers and the night-like oaks,All moaning for the peace which never comes.
At rest!And she who sits and waits behind Is in the shadows;but her faith is sure,And one fine promise of the coming days Is breaking,like a blessed morning,far On hills that "slope through darkness up to God.''
