The Bush Girl

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1. The Barberry Bush The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit, Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red, Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit, And thou may’st find e’en there a homely bread. Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide, Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring; And straggling e’en upon the […]...
2. Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight When I spread out my hand here today, I catch no more than a ray To feel of between thumb and fingers; No lasting effect of it lingers. There was one time and only the one When dust really took in the sun; And from that one intake of fire All creatures still warmly suspire. […]...
3. In Defence of the Bush So you’re back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went, And you’re cursing all the business in a bitter discontent; Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear That it wasn’t cool and shady and there wasn’t whips of beer, And the looney bullock snorted when you first […]...
4. How a Little Girl Danced DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES (Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.) Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer, Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain. I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With […]...
5. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
6. On The Night Train Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by? Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry; Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky? Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold: “I’m the Mother-Bush […]...
7. A Bush Christening On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, And men of religion are scanty, On a road never cross’d ‘cept by folk that are lost, One Michael Magee had a shanty. Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad, Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned; He was strong as the best, […]...
8. The Wander-Light And they heard the tent-poles clatter, And the fly in twain was torn – ‘Tis the soiled rag of a tatter Of the tent where I was born. And what matters it, I wonder? Brick or stone or calico? – Or a bush you were born under, When it happened long ago? And my beds […]...
9. Dream Girl YOU will come one day in a waver of love, Tender as dew, impetuous as rain, The tan of the sun will be on your skin, The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech, You will pose with a hill-flower grace. You will come, with your slim, expressive arms, A poise of the head […]...
10. Ode To The Only Girl I’ve seen you many times in many places Theater, bus, train, or on the street; Smiling in spring rain, in winter sleet, Eyes of any hue in myriad faces; Midnight black, all shades of brown your hair, Long, short, bronze or honey-fair. Instantly have I loved, have never spoken; Slowly a truck passed, a light […]...
11. The Sliprails And The Spur The colours of the setting sun Withdrew across the Western land- He raised the sliprails, one by one, And shot them home with trembling hand; Her brown hands clung-her face grew pale- Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!- One quick, fierce kiss across the rail, And, ‘Good-bye, Mary!’ ‘Good-bye, Jim!’ Oh, he rides hard […]...
12. Santa Claus in the Bush It chanced out back at the Christmas time, When the wheat was ripe and tall, A stranger rode to the farmer’s gate A sturdy man and a small. “Rin doon, rin doon, my little son Jack, And bid the stranger stay; And we’ll hae a crack for Auld Lang Syne, For the morn is Christmas […]...
13. The Negro Girl I. Dark was the dawn, and o’er the deep The boist’rous whirlwinds blew; The Sea-bird wheel’d its circling sweep, And all was drear to view When on the beach that binds the western shore The love-lorn ZELMA stood, list’ning the tempest’s roar. II. Her eager Eyes beheld the main, While on her DRACO dear She […]...
14. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
15. A Girl The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast – Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child – so high – you are, And all this is folly […]...
16. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
17. Old Man Old Man, or Lads-Love, – in the name there’s nothing To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings […]...
18. Music In The Bush O’er the dark pines she sees the silver moon, And in the west, all tremulous, a star; And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar. Quite listless, for her daily stent is done, She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door, And sends her love eternal with the […]...
19. My Little March Girl Come to the pane, draw the curtain apart, There she is passing, the girl of my heart; See where she walks like a queen in the street, Weather-defying, calm, placid and sweet. Tripping along with impetuous grace, Joy of her life beaming out of her face, Tresses all truant-like, curl upon curl, Wind-blown and rosy, […]...
20. After All The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town; My spirit revives in the morning breeze, Though it died when the sun went down; The river is high and the stream is strong, And the grass is green and tall, And I fain would think that this world of ours is […]...
21. A Bush Lawyer When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony’s lagoon The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; The ripple of the rivulets, […]...
22. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
23. 32. Song-Green Grow the Rashes Chor.-Green grow the rashes, O; Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O. THERE’S nought but care on ev’ry han’, In ev’ry hour that passes, O: What signifies the life o’ man, An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. Green grow, &c. The war’ly race […]...
24. Summer Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast; She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, And […]...
25. Francis Makemie (Presbyter of Christ in Americas 1683-1708) To thee, plain hero of a rugged race, We bring the meed of praise too long delayed! Thy fearless word and faithful work have made For God’s Republic firmer path and place In this New World: thou hast proclaimed the grace And power of Christ in many a forest […]...
26. Only Dreams A maiden sat in teh sunset glow Of the shadowy, beautiful Long Ago, That we see through a mist of tears. She sat and dreamed, with lips apart, With thoughtful eyes and a beating heart, Of the mystical future years; And brighter far than the sunset skies Was the vision seen by the maiden’s eyes. […]...
27. To A Young Girl My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so; Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot, Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes....
28. The Song of the Darling River The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere And all that is left of the last year’s flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud; The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver, And this is the dirge of the Darling River: ‘I rise in the drought from the […]...
29. When All My Five And Country Senses See When all my five and country senses see, The fingers will forget green thumbs and mark How, through the halfmoon’s vegetable eye, Husk of young stars and handfull zodiac, Love in the frost is pared and wintered by, The whispering ears will watch love drummed away Down breeze and shell to a discordant beach, And, […]...
30. An Indian Summer Day on the Prarie (IN THE BEGINNING) THE sun is a huntress young, The sun is a red, red joy, The sun is an indian girl, Of the tribe of the Illinois. (MID-MORNING) The sun is a smouldering fire, That creeps through the high gray plain, And leaves not a bush of cloud To blossom with flowers of rain. […]...
31. A Greek Girl I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead. A weary, weary weight of tears unshed Through the long day in my sad heart I bear; The horrid sun with all unpitying glare Shines down into the dreary weaving-room, Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom, And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave The fine-wrought […]...
32. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
33. Australian Bards And Bush Reviewers While you use your best endeavour to immortalise in verse The gambling and the drink which are your country’s greatest curse, While you glorify the bully and take the spieler’s part You’re a clever southern writer, scarce inferior to Bret Harte. If you sing of waving grasses when the plains are dry as bricks, And […]...
34. The Great Grey Plain Out West, where the stars are brightest, Where the scorching north wind blows, And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, And the sun on a desert glows Yet within the selfish kingdom Where man starves man for gain, Where white men tramp for existence Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. No break in its […]...
35. Chapter Headings Plane Tales From the Hills Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these You bid me please? The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. Lispeth. When the earth […]...
36. A Grey Day Grey drizzling mists the moorlands drape, Rain whitens the dead sea, From headland dim to sullen cape Grey sails creep wearily. I know not how that merchantman Has found the heart; but ’tis her plan Seaward her endless course to shape. Unreal as insects that appall A drunkard’s peevish brain, O’er the grey deep the […]...
37. Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes That they behold and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is, take the worst to be. If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks, Be anchored in the bay where all men ride, Why of […]...
38. Sonnet CXXXVII Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold, and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is take the worst to be. If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks Be anchor’d in the bay where all men ride, Why of […]...
39. The Weakest Thing Which is the weakest thing of all Mine heart can ponder? The sun, a little cloud can pall With darkness yonder? The cloud, a little wind can move Where’er it listeth? The wind, a little leaf above, Though sere, resisteth? What time that yellow leaf was green, My days were gladder; But now, whatever Spring […]...
40. The Blind Girl Kind Christians, pray list to me, And I’ll relate a sad story, Concerning a little blind girl, only nine years of age, Who lived with her father in a lonely cottage. Poor girl, she had never seen the blessed light of day, Nor the beautiful fields of corn and hay, Nor the sparrows, that lifted […]...