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Dowell O'Reilly. The Sea-Maiden Periodical

David MacDonald Ross. Love's Treasure House The Sea to the Shell The Silent Tide The Watch on Deck Autumn "The After Glow"

Mary Gilmore. A Little Ghost Periodical Good-Night Periodical

Bernard O'Dowd. Love's Substitute Our Duty Manuscript

Edwin James Brady. The Wardens of the Seas Manuscript

Will. H. Ogilvie. Queensland Opal Periodical Wind o' the Autumn Periodical Daffodils Periodical A Queen of Yore Periodical Drought Periodical The Shadow on the Blind Periodical

Roderic Quinn. The House of the Commonwealth Periodical The Lotus-Flower Manuscript

David McKee Wright. An Old Colonist's Reverie "Station Ballads, and other Verses"

John Le Gay Brereton. The Sea Maid "Oithona" Home "Sea and Sky" Wilfred Periodical

Arthur H. Adams. Bayswater, W. Manuscript Bond Street Periodical

Ethel Turner. A Trembling Star `Oh, if that Rainbow up there!' "Gum Leaves"

Johannes Carl Andersen. Soft, Low and Sweet "Songs Unsung" Maui Victor Periodical

Dora Wilcox. In London "Verses from Maoriland"

Ernest Currie. Laudabunt Alii Periodical

George Charles Whitney. Sunset Manuscript

James Lister Cuthbertson. Ode to Apollo Periodical

Notes on the Poems

Biographical Notes

Introduction

As the literature of a country is, in certain respects, a reflex of its character, it may be advisable to introduce this Anthology with some account of the main circumstances which have affected the production of Australian poetry.

Australia was first settled by the British a little more than a century ago, so that we are still a young community. The present population, including that of New Zealand, is a little under five millions, or about the same as that of London; it is chiefly scattered along the coast and the few permanent waterways, and a vast central region is but sparsely inhabited as yet. All climates, from tropical to frigid, are included within the continent, but the want of satisfactory watersheds renders it peculiarly liable to long droughts and sudden floods. The absence of those broad, outward signs of the changing seasons which mark the pageant of the year in the old world is probably a greater disadvantage than we are apt to suspect. Here, too, have existed hardly any of the conditions which obtained in older communities where great literature arose. There is no glamour of old Romance about our early history, no shading off from the actual into a dim region of myth and fable; our beginnings are clearly defined and of an eminently prosaic character. The early settlers were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with nature, and in the establishment of the primitive industries. Their strenuous pioneering days were followed by the feverish excitement of the gold period and a consequent rapid expansion of all industries. Business and politics have afforded ready roads to success, and have absorbed the energies of the best intellects. There has been no leisured class of cultured people to provide the atmosphere in which literature is best developed as an art; and, until recently, we have been content to look to the mother country for our artistic standards and supplies. The principal literary productions of our first century came from writers who had been born elsewhere, and naturally brought with them the traditions and sentiments of their home country.

We have not yet had time to settle down and form any decided racial characteristics; nor has any great crisis occurred to fuse our common sympathies and create a national sentiment. Australia has produced no great poet, nor has any remarkable innovation in verse forms been successfully attempted. But the old forms have been so coloured by the strange conditions of a new country, and so charged with the thoughts and feelings of a vigorous, restless democracy now just out of its adolescence, that they have an interest and a value beyond that of perhaps technically better minor poetry produced under English skies.

The first verses actually written and published in Australia seem to have been the Royal Birthday Odes of Michael Robinson, which were printed as broadsides from 1810 to 1821. Their publication in book form was announced in `The Hobart Town Gazette' of 23rd March, 1822, but no copy of such a volume is at present known to exist. The famous "Prologue", said to have been recited at the first dramatic performance in Australia, on January 16th, 1796 , was for a long time attributed to the notorious George Barrington, and ranked as the first verse produced in Australia. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim. The lines first appeared in a volume called "Original Poems and Translations" chiefly by Susannah Watts, published in London in 1802, a few months before the appearance of the "History of New South Wales" -- known as George Barrington's -- which also, in all probability, was not written by Barrington. In Susannah Watts' book the Prologue is stated to be written by "A Gentleman", but there is no clue to the name of the author. Mr. Barron Field, Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, printed in Sydney in 1819 his "First Fruits of Australian Poetry", for private circulation. Field was a friend of Charles Lamb, who addressed to him the letter printed in "The Essays of Elia" under the title of "Distant Correspondents". Lamb reviewed the "First Fruits" in `The Examiner', and one wishes for his sake that the verses were more worthy.

The first poem of any importance by an Australian is William Charles Wentworth's "Australasia", written in 1823 at Cambridge University in competition for the Chancellor's medal. There were twenty-seven competitors, and the prize was awarded to W. Mackworth Praed, Wentworth being second on the list. Wentworth's poem was printed in London in the same year, and shortly afterwards in `The Sydney Gazette', the first Australian newspaper. In 1826 there was printed at the Albion Press, Sydney, "Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel" by Charles Tompson, Junior, the first verse of an Australian-born writer published in this country. There was also published in Sydney in 1826 a book of verses by Dr. John Dunmore Lang, called "Aurora Australis". Both Lang and Wentworth afterwards conducted newspapers and wrote histories of New South Wales, but their names are more famous in the political than in the literary annals of the country. At Hobart Town in 1827 appeared "The Van Diemen's Land Warriors, or the Heroes of Cornwall" by "Pindar Juvenal", the first book of verse published in Tasmania. During the next ten years various poetical effusions were printed in the colonies, which are of bibliographical interest but of hardly any intrinsic value. Newspapers had been established at an early date, but until the end of this period they were little better than news-sheets or official gazettes, giving no opportunities for literature. The proportion of well-educated persons was small, the majority of the free settlers being members of the working classes, as very few representatives of British culture came willingly to this country until after the discovery of gold.

It was not until 1845 that the first genuine, though crude, Australian poetry appeared, in the form of a small volume of sonnets by Charles Harpur, who was born at Windsor, N.S.W., in 1817. He passed his best years in the lonely bush, and wrote largely under the influence of Wordsworth and Shelley. He had some imagination and poetic faculty of the contemplative order, but the disadvantages of his life were many. Harpur's best work is in his longer poems, from which extracts cannot conveniently be given here. The year 1842 had seen the publication of Henry Parkes' "Stolen Moments", the first of a number of volumes of verse which that statesman bravely issued, the last being published just before his eightieth year. The career of Parkes is coincident with a long and important period of our history, in which he is the most striking figure. Not the least interesting aspect of his character, which contained much of rugged greatness, was his love of poetry and his unfailing kindness to the struggling writers of the colony. Others who deserve remembrance for their services at this time are Nicol D. Stenhouse and Dr. Woolley. Among the writers of the period D. H. Deniehy, Henry Halloran, J. Sheridan Moore and Richard Rowe contributed fairly good verse to the newspapers, the principal of which were `The Atlas' , `The Empire' , and two papers still in existence -- `The Freeman's Journal' and `The Sydney Morning Herald', which began as `The Sydney Herald' in 1831. None of their writings, however, reflected to any appreciable extent the scenery or life of the new country.

With the discovery of gold a new era began for Australia. That event induced the flow of a large stream of immigration, and gave an enormous impetus to the development of the colonies. Among the ardent spirits attracted here were J. Lionel Michael, Robert Sealy, R. H. Horne, the Howitts, Henry Kingsley and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Michael was a friend of Millais, and an early champion of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Soon after his arrival in Sydney he abandoned the idea of digging for gold, and began to practise again as a solicitor. Later on he removed to Grafton on the Clarence River; there in 1857 Henry Kendall, a boy of 16, found work in his office, and Michael, discerning his promise, encouraged him to write. Most of the boy's earliest verses were sent from Michael's office to Parkes, who printed them in his paper `The Empire'. When Kendall left Grafton, Michael gave him a letter of introduction to Stenhouse, which brought him in touch with the small literary group in Sydney; and his first volume, "Poems and Songs", was published in Sydney in 1862. It was not long before he recognised the extreme weakness of most of its contents, and did what he could to suppress the book. He sent specimens of his best work to the London `Athenaeum', and wrote a pathetic letter to the Editor, which was printed in the issue of 27th September, 1862, together with some of the poems and a most kindly comment. Kendall soon wrote again, sending more poems, and received encouraging notices in `The Athenaeum' on 19th September, 1863, 27th February, 1864, and 17th February, 1866. These form the first favourable pronouncement upon Australian poetry by an English critical journal of importance. Their stimulating effect upon Kendall was very great. From the indifference of the many and the carping criticisms of some of the magnates here, he had appealed to one of the highest literary authorities in England, and received praise beyond his wildest expectations.

In 1870, after a series of crushing disappointments, Gordon committed suicide. His dramatic end awakened sympathy and gave an additional interest to his writings. It was soon found that in the city and the bush many of his spirited racing ballads were well known. The virile, athletic tone of his verse, which taught

"How a man should uphold the sports of his land And strike his best with a strong right hand And take his strokes in return" --

and the practical philosophy, summed up in the well-known quatrain --

"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone; Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own" --

appeal strongly to Australians. Gordon's work cannot be considered as peculiarly Australian in character; but much of it is concerned with the horse, and all of it is a-throb with the manly, reckless personality of the writer. Horses and horse-racing are especially interesting to Australians, the Swinburnian rush of Gordon's ballads charms their ear, and in many respects he embodies their ideal of a man. There are few Australians who do not know some of his poems, even if they know no others, and his influence upon subsequent writers has been very great.

Brunton Stephens, who came to Queensland in 1866, wrote there a long poem called "Convict Once" which, when published in London in 1871, gained high praise from competent critics, and gave the author an academic reputation. A little book of humorous verses issued in Melbourne in 1873 almost immediately became popular, and a later volume of "Miscellaneous Poems" , containing some fine patriotic utterances as well as many in lighter vein, established him as one of our chief singers.

The first important poem from New Zealand -- Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" -- was published in London in 1872. Domett spent thirty years in New Zealand. He wrote a good deal of verse before leaving England and after his return, but "Ranolf and Amohia" is the only poem showing traces of Australian influence. It is a miscellany in verse rather than an epic, and contains some fine descriptions of New Zealand scenery.

The death of Kendall in Sydney in 1882 closed what may be regarded as the second literary period. He had published his finest work in "Songs from the Mountains" , and had the satisfaction of knowing that it was a success, financially and otherwise. Kendall's audience is not so large as Gordon's, but it is a steadily growing one; and many readers who have been affected by his musical verse hold the ill-fated singer in more tender regard than any other. He lived at a time when Australians had not learned to think it possible that any good thing in art could come out of Australia, and were too fully occupied with things of the market-place to concern themselves much about literature.

Several attempts have been made to maintain magazines and reviews in Sydney and Melbourne, but none of them could compete successfully with the imported English periodicals. `The Colonial Monthly', `The Melbourne Review', `The Sydney Quarterly', and `The Centennial Magazine' were the most important of these. They cost more to produce than their English models, and the fact that their contents were Australian was not sufficient in itself to obtain for them adequate support. Newspapers have played a far more important part in our literary world. `The Australasian', `Sydney Mail' and `Queenslander' have done a good deal to encourage local writers, but the most powerful influence has been that of `The Bulletin', started in Sydney in 1880. Its racy, irreverent tone and its humour are characteristically Australian, and through its columns the first realistic Australian verse of any importance -- the writings of Henry Lawson and A. B. Paterson -- became widely known. When published in book form, their verses met with phenomenal success; Paterson's "The Man from Snowy River" having already attained a circulation of over thirty thousand copies. It is the first of a long series of volumes, issued during the last ten years, whose character is far more distinctively Australian than that of their predecessors. Their number and success are evidences of the lively interest taken by the present generation here in its native literature.

Australia has now come of age, and is becoming conscious of its strength and its possibilities. Its writers to-day are, as a rule, self-reliant and hopeful. They have faith in their own country; they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry in the grand manner, and that some of it is lacking in technical finish; but it is a vivid and faithful portrayal of Australia, and its ruggedness is in character. It is hoped that this selection from the verse that has been written up to the present time will be found a not unworthy contribution to the great literature of the English-speaking peoples.

William Charles Wentworth.

Australasia

Celestial poesy! whose genial sway Earth's furthest habitable shores obey; Whose inspirations shed their sacred light, Far as the regions of the Arctic night, And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam, -- Descend thou also on my native land, And on some mountain-summit take thy stand; Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene; And there a richer, nobler fane arise, Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes. And tho', bright goddess, on the far blue hills, That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills Where Warragamba's rage has rent in twain Opposing mountains, thundering to the plain, No child of song has yet invoked thy aid 'Neath their primeval solitary shade, -- Still, gracious Pow'r, some kindling soul inspire, To wake to life my country's unknown lyre, That from creation's date has slumbering lain, Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain; And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along, -- An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page To nature true may charm in ev'ry age; -- And that an Austral Pindar daring soar, Where not the Theban eagle reach'd before. And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide; -- Should thy tamed Lion -- spent his former might, -- No longer roar the terror of the fight; -- Should e'er arrive that dark disastrous hour, When bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r; -- When thou, no longer freest of the free, To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee; -- May all thy glories in another sphere Relume, and shine more brightly still than here; May this, thy last-born infant, then arise, To glad thy heart and greet thy parent eyes; And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, A new Britannia in another world.

Charles Harpur.

Love

She loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips The live confession came, like rich perfume From crimson petals bursting into bloom! And still my heart at the remembrance skips Like a young lion, and my tongue, too, trips As drunk with joy! while every object seen In life's diurnal round wears in its mien A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse. And if the common things of nature now Are like old faces flushed with new delight, Much more the consciousness of that rich vow Deepens the beauteous, and refines the bright, While throned I seem on love's divinest height 'Mid all the glories glowing round its brow.

Words

Words are deeds. The words we hear May revolutionize or rear A mighty state. The words we read May be a spiritual deed Excelling any fleshly one, As much as the celestial sun Transcends a bonfire, made to throw A light upon some raree-show. A simple proverb tagged with rhyme May colour half the course of time; The pregnant saying of a sage May influence every coming age; A song in its effects may be More glorious than Thermopylae, And many a lay that schoolboys scan A nobler feat than Inkerman.

A Coast View

High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet Riseth in Babylonian mass above, In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone, And gaze with a keen wondering happiness Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream -- Into great spaces mapped by light and shade In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds The billows darken, or they shimmer bright In sunny scopes of measureless expanse. 'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour, Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God! What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled In slumber, under that wide-shining face! While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen, Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still Comes rising with them from the void beyond, Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep And carried upward by ethereal hands.

William Forster.

`The Love in her Eyes lay Sleeping'

The love in her eyes lay sleeping, As stars that unconscious shine, Till, under the pink lids peeping, I wakened it up with mine; And we pledged our troth to a brimming oath In a bumper of blood-red wine. Alas! too well I know That it happened long ago; Those memories yet remain, And sting, like throbs of pain, And I'm alone below, But still the red wine warms, and the rosy goblets glow; If love be the heart's enslaver, 'Tis wine that subdues the head. But which has the fairest flavour, And whose is the soonest shed? Wine waxes in power in that desolate hour When the glory of love is dead. Love lives on beauty's ray, But night comes after day, And when the exhausted sun His high career has run, The stars behind him stay, And then the light that lasts consoles our darkening way. When beauty and love are over, And passion has spent its rage, And the spectres of memory hover, And glare on life's lonely stage, 'Tis wine that remains to kindle the veins And strengthen the steps of age. Love takes the taint of years, And beauty disappears, But wine in worth matures The longer it endures, And more divinely cheers, And ripens with the suns and mellows with the spheres.

James Lionel Michael.

`Through Pleasant Paths'

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