Loneliness

O month when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,
To sun themselves once more before they die.

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

A troth, and a grief, and a blessing,
Disguised them and came this way,
And one was a promise, and one was a doubt,
And one was a rainy day.

And they met betimes with this maiden,
And the promise it spake and lied,
And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself,
And the rainy day - she died.

What! you don't like him; well, maybe, we all have our fancies, of course:
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse;
Sired by a son of old Panic, look at his ears and his head,
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he?, well, that's how the Panics are bred.
Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tipcart to ride,
Yet if you offered a sovereign apiece for the hairs on his hide
That wouldn't buy him, nor twice that; while I've a pound to the good,
This here old stager stays by me and lives like a thoroughbred should;
Hunt him away from his bedding, and sit yourself down by the wall,
Till you hear how the old fellow saved me from Gilbert, O'Meally and Hall.

* * * * * * *

Gilbert and Hall and O'Meally, back in the bushranging days,
Made themselves kings...

Would you know the kind of maid
Sets my heart a flame-a?
Eyes must be downcast and staid,
Cheeks must flush for shame-a!
She may neither dance nor sing,
But, demure in everything,
Hang her head in modest way,
With pouting lips that seem to say
"Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,
Though I die of shame-a."
Please you, that's the kind of maid
Sets my heart a flame-a!

When a maid is bold and gay,
With a tongue goes clang-a,
Flaunting it in brave array,
Maiden may go hang-a!
Sunflower gay and hollyhock
Never shall my garden stock;
Mine the blushing rose of May,
With pouting lips that seem to say,
"Oh, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,
Though I die for shame-a!"
Please you, that's the kind of maid
Sets my heart a flame-a!

    Out of the misty North
        A stealthy foeman stole;
        Far from the haunted Pole
    On the wide sea went he forth,

    And he met a giant ship
        As he scoured the sea for toll
        It cannot reach its goal
    Crushed in his icy grip.

    "Of every four just three"
        This was his deadly dole.
        Unseen he called the roll
    Ah! a cold grave is the Sea.

    Yet the Sea is not the end,
        And Life is not the whole.
        Over each heroic soul
    Shall Eternity extend.

Born of a thoroughbred English race,
Well proportioned and closely knit,
Neat, slim figure and handsome face,
Always ready and always fit,
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew,
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew.

One of the sons of the good old land,
Many a year since his like was known;
Never a game but he took command,
Never a sport but he held his own;
Gained at his college a triple blue,
Good as they make them was Jim Carew.
Came to grief, was it card or horse?
Nobody asked and nobody cared;
Ship him away to the bush of course,
Ne'er-do-well fellows are easily spared;
Only of women a sorrowing few
Wept at parting from Jim Carew.

Gentleman Jim on the cattle-camp,
Sitting his horse with an easy grace;
But the reckless living has ...

Though grandfather has long been blind,
And his few locks are gray,
He loves to hear the summer wind
Round his pale temples play.

We'll lead him to some quiet place,
Some unfrequented nook,
Where winds breathe soft, and wild-flowers grace
The borders of the brook.

There he shall sit, as in a dream,
Though nought can he behold,
Till the brook's murmuring flow shall seem
The voice of friends of old.

Think no more of them, aged man,
For here thou hast no friend;
Think, since this life is but a span,
Of joys that have no end.

Up on their brooms the Witches stream,
Crooked and black in the crescent's gleam;
One foot high, and one foot low,
Bearded, cloaked, and cowled, they go.
'Neath Charlie's Wane they twitter and tweet,
And away they swarm 'neath the Dragon's feet.
With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway,
And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way.
Betwixt the legs of the glittering Chair
They hover and squeak in the empty air.
Then round they swoop past the glimmering Lion
To where Sirius barks behind huge Orion;
Up, then, and over to wheel amain,
Under the silver, and home again.

Who, railing, drives the lazar from his door,
Instead of alms, sets dogs upon the poor.

’Twas in the felon’s dock he stood, his eyes were black and blue;
His voice with grief was broken, and his nose was broken, too;
He muttered, as that broken nose he wiped upon his cap,
‘It’s orfal when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap.

‘I am a honest workin’ cove, as any bloke can see,
‘It’s just because the p’leece has got a derry, sir, on me;
‘Oh, yes, the legal gents can grin, I say it ain’t no joke,
‘It’s cruel when the p’leece has got a derry on a bloke.’

‘Why don’t you go to work?’ he said (he muttered, ‘Why don’t you?’).
‘Yer honer knows as well as me there ain’t no work to do.
‘And when I try to find a job I’m shaddered by a trap,
‘It’s awful when the p’leece has got a derry on a chap.’

I sigh’d and shed a tearlet for that noble nature marred,
...

Their wise little heads with scorning
    They laid the covers between:
"Do they think we stay here till morning?"
    Said Rory and Aileen.

When out their bright eyes came peeping
    The room was no longer there,
And they fled from the dark world creeping
    Up a twilight cave of air.

They wore each one a gay dress,
    In sleep, if you understand,
When earth puts off its grey dress
    To robe it in faeryland.

Then loud o'erhead was a humming
    As clear as the wood wind rings;
And here were the air-boats coming
    And here the airy kings.

The magic barks were gleaming
    And swift as the feathered throng:
With wonder-lights out-streaming
    They blew themselves along.

And up on the night-wind swimming,...

It was a Bishop bold,
And London was his see,
He was short and stout and round about,
And zealous as could be.

It also was a Jew,
Who drove a Putney bus
For flesh of swine however fine
He did not care a cuss.

His name was Hash Baz Ben,
And Jedediah too,
And Solomon and Zabulon
This bus-directing Jew.

The Bishop said, said he,
"I'll see what I can do
To Christianize and make you wise,
You poor benighted Jew."

So every blessed day
That bus he rode outside,
From Fulham town, both up and down,
And loudly thus he cried:

"His name is Hash Baz Ben,
And Jedediah too,
And Solomon and Zabulon
This bus-directing Jew."

At first the busman smiled,
And rather liked the fun
He merely smiled...

These springs were maidens once that loved,
But lost to that they most approved:
My story tells, by Love they were
Turn'd to these springs which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tells ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing changed but in their name.

(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL)

Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies,
Here last September was he laid,
Poppies these that were his eyes,
Of fish-bones were these bluebells made.
His fins of gold that to and fro
Waved and waved so long ago,
Still as petals wave and wave
To and fro above his grave.
Hearken too! for so his knell
Tolls all day each tiny bell.

Paul, he began ill, but he ended well;
Judas began well, but he foully fell:
In godliness not the beginnings so
Much as the ends are to be look'd unto.

WEEP, maiden, weep here o'er the tomb of Love;

He died of nothing by mere chance was slain.
But is he really dead? oh, that I cannot prove:

A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again.

It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep,
For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep,,
They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path;
But their linen's rather scanty, an' there isn't any bath,
Stowed away like ewes and wethers that is shore 'n' marked 'n' draft.
But the shearers of the shearers always seem to travel aft;
In the cushioned cabins, aft,
With saloons 'n' smoke-rooms, aft,
There is sheets 'n' best of tucker for the first-salooners, aft.

Our beef is just like scrapin's from the inside of a hide,
And the spuds were pulled too early, for they're mostly green inside;
But from somewhere back amidships there's a smell o' cookin' waft,
An' I'd give my earthly prospects for a real good tuck-out aft,