Henry Kendall

“ No more he sees the affluence Which makes the heart of Nature glad; For he has lost the fine, first sense Of Beauty that he had. The old delight God's happy breeze Was wont to give, to Grief has grown; And therefore, Niobe of trees, His song is like thine own! But I, who am that perished soul, Have wasted so these powers of mine, That I can never write that whole, Pure, perfect speech of thine. Some lord of words august, supreme, The grave, grand melody demands; The dark translation of thy theme I leave to other hands. ”

“ Her voice in the distance is lofty and loud Through the echoing gorges; She hath hidden her eyes in a mantle of cloud, And her feet in the surges. On the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones— Chief temples of thunder— The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans, Gliding over and under. The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain, Leapeth wild at the forelands; And the plover, whose cry is like passion with pain, Complains in the moorlands. Oh, season of changes—of shadow and shine— September the splendid! My song hath no music to mingle with thine, And its burden is ended ”

“ For that glad season which will pass to-day With light and music like a psalm away, The gathered nations with a grand accord, In sight of Thy high heaven, thank Thee, Lord! All praise is Thine—all love that we can give Is also Thine, in whose large grace we live, In whom we find the One long-suffering Friend, Whose immemorial mercy has no end.
Basil Moss Sing, mountain-wind, thy strong, superior song— Thy haughty alpine anthem, over tracts Whose passes and whose swift, rock-straitened streams Catch mighty life and voice from thee, and make A lordly harmony on sea-chafed heights. ”

“ For away from din and sorrow and sin, Where troubles but rarely come, We jog along, like a merry song, In the shingle-splitter's home. What though our work be heavy, we shirk From nothing beneath the sun; And toil is sweet to those who can eat And rest when the day is done. In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime, No sound of the Sunday bells; But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles, And God in the woodland dwells. We listen to notes from the million throats Of chorister birds on high, Our psalm is the breeze in the lordly trees, And our dome is the broad blue sky. ”

“ Our portion is trouble, our joy is a bubble, And the gladdest is never too glad. From the pale tracts of peril, past mountain heads sterile, To a sweet river shadowed with reeds, Where Summer steps lightly, and Winter beams brightly, The hoof-rutted cattle track leads. There soft is the moonlight, and tender the noon-light; There fiery things falter and fall; And there may be seen, now, the gold and the green, now, And the wings of a peace over all. Hush, bittern and plover! Go, wind, to thy cover Away by the snow-smitten Pole! The rotten leaf falleth, the forest rain calleth ”

“ As a song that strikes swift to the heart with the beat of the blood of the South, And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth. Her eyes are as splendours that break in the rain at the set of the sun, But turn from the steps of Campaspe—a Woman to look at and shun! Dost thou know of the cunning of Beauty? Take heed to thyself and beware Of the trap in the droop in the raiment—the snare in the folds of the hair! She is fulgent in flashes of pearl, the breeze with her breathing is sweet, But fly from the face of the girl—there is death in the fall of her feet! ”

“ Did I not, amongst these thickets, weave my thoughts and passions into rhyme, Trusting that the words were golden, hoping for the praise of after-time? Where have all those fancies fled to? Can the fond delusion linger still, When the Evening withers o'er me, and the night is creeping up the hill? If the years of strength have left me, and my life begins to fail and fade, Who will learn my simple ballads; who will stay to sing the songs I've made? Bells, beyond the forest ringing, lo, I hasten to the world again; For the sun has smote the empty windows, and the day is on the wane! ”

“ Euterpe Child of Light, the bright, the bird-like! wilt thou float and float to me, Facing winds and sleets and waters, flying glimpses of the sea? Down amongst the hills of tempest, where the elves of tumult roam— Blown wet shadows of the summits, dim sonorous sprites of foam? Here and here my days are wasted, shorn of leaf and stript of fruit: Vexed because of speech half spoken, maiden with the marvellous lute! Vexed because of songs half-shapen, smit with fire and mixed with pain: Part of thee, and part of Sorrow, like a sunset pale with rain. Child of Light, the bright, the bird-like! ”

“ Stood where Mooni's water crosses Shining tracts of green-haired mosses, Like a soul with radiant wings; Then the psalm the wind rehearses— Then the song the stream disperses Lent a beauty to his verses, Who to-night of Mooni sings. Ah, the theme—the sad, grey theme! Certain days are not above me, Certain hearts have ceased to love me, Certain fancies fail to move me Like the affluent morning dream. Head whereon the white is stealing, Heart whose hurts are past all healing, Where is now the first pure feeling? Ah, the theme—the sad, grey theme! Sin and shame have left their trace! ”

“ In the bitter, wild fall of a sorrowful year, We buried our bird by the river. But the gold of the grass, and the green of the vine, And the music of wind and of water, And the torrent of song and superlative shine, Are close to our dear little daughter. The months of the year are all gracious to her, A winter breath visits her never; She sleeps like a bird in a cradle of myrrh, By the banks of the beautiful river.
Song of the Shingle-Splitters In dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods And the dingoes nightly yell— Where the curlew's cry goes floating by, We splitters of shingles dwell. ”

“ The voice of straitened streams is harsh By windy mountain walls; There is no gleam upon the hills Of last October's wings; The shining lady of the rills Is with forgotten things. Now where the land's worn face is grey And storm is on the wave, What flower is left to bear away To Edward Butler's grave? What tender rose of song is here That I may pluck and send Across the hills and seas austere To my lamented friend? There is no blossom left at all; But this white winter leaf, Whose glad green life is past recall, Is token of my grief. ”

“ Some men grow strong with trouble, But all my strength is past, And tired and full of sorrow, I long to sleep at last. By force of chance and changes Man's life is hard at best; And, seeing rest is voiceless, The dearest thing is rest. Beyond the sea—behold it, The home I wish to seek The refuge of the weary, The solace of the weak! Sweet angel fingers beckon, Sweet angel voices ask My soul to cross the waters; And yet I dread the task. God help the man whose trials Are tares that he must reap; He cannot face the future— His only hope is sleep. ”

“ Just think of him—beneath the ban, And steeped in sorrow to the neck, Without a friend—a feeble man, In failing health—a human wreck. With all his sense and scholarship, How could he face his fading wife? The devil never lifted whip With thongs like those that scourged his life. But He in whom the dying thief Upon the Cross did place his trust, Forgets the sin and feels the grief, And lifts the sufferer from the dust. And now, because I have a dream, The man and woman found the light; A glory burns upon the stream, With gold and green the woods are bright. ”

“ No child of man shall ever track, Through filthy dust, the singer's feet— A fierce old memory drags me back; I hate its name—I dread that street. Upon the lap of green, sweet lands, Whose months are like your English Mays, I try to hide in Lethe's sands The bitter, old Bohemian days. But sorrow speaks in singing leaf, And trouble talketh in the tide; The skirts of a stupendous grief Are trailing ever at my side. I will not say who suffered there, 'Tis best the name aloof to keep, Because the world is very fair— Its light should sing the dark to sleep. ”

“ The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon And beats on the beaches, Is filled with a tender and tremulous tune That touches and teaches; The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time, And the death of Devotion, Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme In the waves of the ocean. We, having a secret to others unknown, In the cool mountain-mosses, May whisper together, September, alone Of our loves and our losses! One word for her beauty, and one for the grace She gave to the hours; And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face To sleep with the flowers. ”

“ Yea, where the bright, quick woodland torrents run, A music trembles under rain and sun. The lips that breathe it are the lips of her At whose dear touch the wan world's pulses stir— The nymph who sets the bow of promise high And fills with warm life-light the bleak grey sky. She is the fair-haired August. Ere she leaves She brings the woodbine blossom round the eaves; And where the bitter barbs of frost have been She makes a beauty with her gold and green; And, while a sea-song floats from bay and beach, She sheds a mist of blossoms on the peach. ”

“ Song of the Cattle-Hunters While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams, And the water-pools flash in its glow, Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry— Down the ridges and gullies we go! And the cattle we hunt—they are racing in front, With a roar like the thunder of waves, As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet Start the echoes away from their caves! As the beat and the beat Of our swift horses' feet Start the echoes away from their caves! Like a wintry shore that the waters ride o'er, All the lowlands are filling with sound ”

“ The passionate lights—the intense, the ineffable beauty of sound— Go straight to the heart through the sense, as a song would of seraphim crowned. And lo! by these altars august, the life that is highest we live, And are filled with the infinite trust and the peace that the world cannot give. They have passed, have the elders of time— they have gone; but the work of their hands, Pre-eminent, peerless, sublime, like a type of eternity stands! They are mute, are the fathers who made this church in the century dim; But the dome with their beauty arrayed remains, a perpetual hymn. ”

“ Lilith Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing Falters because of the vision it sees; Voice that is not of the living is ringing Down in the depths where the darkness is clinging, Even when Noon is the lord of the leas, Fast, like a curse, to the ghosts of the trees! Here in a mist that is parted in sunder, Half with the darkness and half with the day; Face of a woman, but face of a wonder, Vivid and wild as a flame of the thunder, Flashes and fades, and the wail of the grey Water is loud on the straits of the bay! ”

“ Ah, brook above the upper bend, I often long to stand Where you in soft, cool shades descend From the untrodden land! Ah, folded woods, that hide the grace Of moss and torrents strong, I often wish to know the face Of that which sings your song! But I may linger, long, and look Till night is over all: My eyes will never see the brook, Or sweet, strange waterfall. The world is round me with its heat, And toil, and cares that tire; I cannot with my feeble feet Climb after my desire. But, on the lap of lands unseen, Within a secret zone, There shine diviner gold and green Than man has ever known. ”

“ The Wild Kangaroo The rain-clouds have gone to the deep— The East like a furnace doth glow; And the day-spring is flooding the steep, And sheening the landscape below. Oh, ye who are gifted with souls That delight in the music of birds, Come forth where the scattered mist rolls, And listen to eloquent words! Oh, ye who are fond of the sport, And would travel yon wilderness through, Gather—each to his place—for a life-stirring chase, In the wake of the wild Kangaroo! Gather—each to his place— For a life-stirring chase In the wake of the wild Kangaroo! ”

“ They do not walk by street or stream, Or tread by grove or shore, But, in the nation's highest dream, They shine for evermore. V By lawny slope and lucent strand Are singing flags of every land; On streams of splendour—bays impearled— The keels are here of all the world. With lutes of light and cymbals clear We waft goodwill to every sphere. The links of love to-day are thrown From sea to sea—from zone to zone; And, lo! we greet, in glory drest, The lords that come from east and west, And march like noble children forth To meet our fathers from the North! ”