AUSTRALIA.

Arakoon, the Mountain.

ARAKOON.

O, in storms, the triple-headed

Lo,

Hill, whose dreaded

Bases battle with the seas,

Looms across fierce widths of fleeting

Waters beating

Evermore on roaring leas!

Arakoon, the black, the lonely!
Housed with only

Cloud and rain-wind, mist and damp:
Round whose foam-drenched feet, and nether

Depths, together

Sullen sprites of thunder tramp!

There the East hums loud and surly,

Late and early,

Through the chasms and the caves;
And across the naked verges

Leap the surges !

White and wailing waifs of waves.

Day by day, the sea-fogs gathered -
Tempest-fathered -

Pitch their tents on yonder peak!
Yellow drifts and fragments, lying
Where the flying

Torrents chafe the cloven creek!

*

*

Ever girt about with noises,

Stormy voices,

*

And the salt breath of the strait,
Stands the steadfast Mountain Giant,

Grim, reliant,

Dark as Death, and firm as Fate!

Henry Kendall.

Araluen, the River.

ARALUEN.

DIVER, myrtle-rimmed, and set
Deep amongst unfooted dells,

Daughter of gray hills of wet,

Born by mossed and yellow wells,

Now that soft September lays

Tender hands on thee and thine,

Let me think of blue-eyed days,

Star-like flowers, and leaves of shine!

Cities soil the life with rust:

Water-banks are cool and sweet:

River, tired of noise and dust

Here I come to rest my feet.

Now the month from shade to sun
Fleets and sings supremest songs,
Now the wilful woodwinds run

Through the tangled cedar throngs.

Here are cushioned tufts and turns
Where the sumptuous noontide lies.
Here are seen by flags and ferns
Summer's large luxurious eyes.

On this spot wan Winter casts
Eyes of ruth, and spares its green
From his bitter sea-nursed blasts,
Spears of rain and hailstones keen.

Rather here abideth Spring,
Lady of a lovely land,

Dear to leaf and fluttering wing,
Deep, in blooms, by breezes fanned.

Faithful friend beyond the main,

Friend that Time nor Change makes cold, —

Now, like ghosts, return again

Pallid perished days of old.

Ah, the days, the old, old theme
Never stale, but never new,
Floating, like a pleasant dream,
Back to me and back to you.

Since we rested on these slopes,

Seasons fierce have beaten down
Ardent loves and blossoming hopes,
Loves that lift, and hopes that crown.

But, believe me, still mine eyes
Often fill with light that springs
From divinity, which lies

Ever at the heart of things.

Solace do I sometimes find

Where you used to hear with me Songs of stream and forest-wind, Tones of wave and harp-like tree.

Araluen! home of dreams!

Fairer for its flowerful glade
Than the face of Persian streams
Or the slopes of Syrian shade.

Why should I still love it so?
Friend and brother far away,
Ask the winds that come and go,
What hath brought me here to-day.

Evermore of you I think,

When the leaves begin to fall, Where our river breaks its brink, And a rest is over all.

Evermore in quiet lands,

Friend of mine beyond the sea, Memory comes with cunning hands, Stays, and paints your face for me.

Henry Kendall.

A

Arrawatta, the Glen.

ARRAWATTA.

SKY of wind! And while these fitful gusts
Are beating round the windows in the cold,
With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape
A settler's story of the wild old times:
One told by camp-fires when the station-drays
Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;
While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,
And crowded round the friendly-gleaming flame
That lured the dingo howling from his caves
And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.

A tale of love and death. And shall I say
A tale of love in death; for all the patient eyes
That gathered darkness, watching for a son
And brother, never dreaming of the fate-
The fearful fate he met alone, unknown,
Within the ruthless Australasian wastes ?
For, in a far-off sultry summer rimmed
With thunder-cloud and red with forest-fires,
All day, by ways uncouth and ledges rude,
The wild men held upon a stranger's trail
Which ran against the rivers and athwart
The gorges of the deep blue western hills.

And when a cloudy sunset, like the flame
In windy evenings on the Plains of Thirst