Kitabı oku: «The Lonely Crossing And Other Poems»
Louisa Lawson
The Lonely Crossing And Other Poems
Published by Good Press, 2022
EAN 4066338083975
Table of Contents
Coming Home
Back Again
The Hour Is Come
A Friend In Need
Twilight
The Hill Of Death
The Reformers
The Digger’s Daughter
To A Libertine
The Song Of Bacchus
A Pound A Mile
Light In Darkness
Lines Written During A Night Spent In A Bush Inn
“Another For The Queen”
A Plea For Australia
Australia
The Winter Wind
An Australian Song
The Squatter’s Wife
God Give Me Gold
A Life’s Dream
Dream I
Dream II
Lines
The Message Of The Flowers
“So Many A Deed Of Wrong For Right Is Meant”
Renunciation
A Dream
Woman’s Love
Divided
The Petunia
A Reverie
Buried Love
Lines
A Dream
The City Bird
In Memoriam
A Grave
To My Sister
I Wonder?
In Memory Of R.E.H
In Memoriam
My Nettie
In Memoriam
A Child’s Question
A Mother’s Answer
All’s Well
To A Bird
To A Bird
A Reverie
Lines
Give Me Only Peace
Sunset
THE END
A man on foot came down to the river,
A silent man, on the road alone,
And dropped his swag with a chill-born shiver,
And sat to rest on a wind-worn stone.
He slid then down to the long grass, bending
His arms above as the resting do,
And watched a snow-white chariot trending
Its wind-made way o’er the wedgewood blue.
In it sat one of the fairest ladies
That mind could mould, in a crown of white,
But close beside came a fiend from Hades
In a chariot black as the heart of night.
The man, he sighed as the fiend would clasp her,
Then smiled as the wind by a wise decree
Her white steeds turned to the streets of Jaspar,
And Satan drave to a sin-black sea.
The wattles waved, and their sweet reflection
In crystal fathoms responses made;
The sunlight silted each soft inflection
And fretted with silver the short’ning shade.
A restless fish made the thin reeds shiver,
A waking wind made the willows moan,
But the resting man by the noon-bright river
Lay dreaming on, in the long grass prone.
* * * * *
The bell-bird called to its tardy lover,
The grebe clouds all to the west had sped,
But the river of death had a soul crossed over,
The man with the swag on the bank was dead.
Coming Home
Table of Contents
Going round the back street,
Through the twilight lane,
While the folk at church meet —
Coming home again.
Faded hat and creasy,
Long since it was new;
Tent-fly torn and greasy,
Bluey showing through.
Billy burnt and battered,
Boots all badly burst,
Lace and lace-holes shattered,
Trousers at their worst.
Blankets like a riddle,
With a streak of white
Down the threadbare middle
When against the light.
Young face lined and sunburnt,
Hair just turning grey;
Many a lesson unlearnt
Since he went away.
But he need not bother,
There’s a bite and sup;
And for all the other —
Mother’ll fix him up.
Back Again
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Oh, my boy, come in, do,
You are back at last;
Years since last we saw you —
How the time has passed!
Have a bath and shave first?
No? A cup of tea?
Think you want a rest worst?
Dear, oh deary me!
Look, dear, at your boots, too,
All cut with the rocks;
And you haven’t, have you,
Any mended socks?
They are always tearing?
Threw them all away?
Alberts you are wearing?
Goodness, what are they?
Felt that you were coming,
So I wrote to Bob;
He says things are humming,
And you’ll get a job.
Now, dear, don’t come near me,
You’re all over dust;
Can you smoke? Oh, dear me,
If you really must.
The Hour Is Come
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How did she fight? She fought well.
How did she light? Ah, she fell.
Why did she fall? God, who knows all,
Only can tell.
Those she was fighting for — they
Surely would go to her? Nay!
What of her pain! Their’s is the gain.
Ever the way.
Will they not help her to rise
If there is death in her eyes?
Can you not see? She made them free.
What if she dies ?
Can we not help her? Oh, no!
In her good fight it is so
That all who work never must shirk
Suff’ring and woe.
But she’ll not ever lie down —
On her head, in the dust, is a crown
Jewelled and bright, under whose light
She’ll rise alone.
A Friend In Need
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Friends will quickly leave you,
Slight you and deceive you,
Or will not believe you
If you have a wrong.
Those who hurt will hate you,
Enemies will slate you,
And as crank disrate you
If you have a wrong.
But if you are righted
Those who coolly slighted
Will be so delighted!
Said so all along!
But you then can show them
That you would forego them,
As too well you know them
Since you’ve had a wrong.
But your friends, God bless them!
Take their hands and press them,
You’ll not have to guess them
If you’ve had a wrong.
Twilight
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Though labour may claim and cover
The best of our waking hours,
Whatever we owe another
We feel that the dusk is ours.
’Tis then that the hard views taken
Of things in the day-glare seen,
Will soften, and tint, and waken,
And tone ’neath a twilight screen.
While the night-bird softly tenders
Sweet trebles in monotone,
And the king of day surrenders
To the queen of night his throne —
When the earth and the sky are lovers,
And present and past are wed,
And the satisfied soul discovers
How surely God hath led.
And then as the heart confesses
The sins of a selfish way,
The spirit of pardon blesses
And closes the gates of day.
