John Bernard O'Hara
Happy Creek
The little creek goes winding
Thro' gums of white and blue,
A silver arm
Around the farm
It flings, a lover true;
And softly, where the rushes lean,
It sings (O sweet and low)
A lover's song,
And winds along,
How happy — lovers know!
The little creek goes singing
By maidenhair and moss,
Along its banks
In rosy ranks
The wild flowers wave and toss;
And ever where the ferns dip down
It sings (O sweet and low)
A lover's song,
And winds along,
How happy — lovers know!
The little creek takes colour,
From summer skies above;
Now blue, now gold,
Its waters fold
The clouds in closest love;
But loudly when the thunders roll
It sings (nor sweet, nor low)
No lover's song,
But sweeps along,
How angry — lovers know!
The little creek for ever
Goes winding, winding down,
Away, away,
By night, by day,
Where dark the ranges frown;
But ever as it glides it sings,
It sings (O sweet and low)
A lover's song,
And winds along,
How happy — lovers know!
A Country Village
Among the folding hills
It lies, a quiet nook,
Where dreaming nature fills
Sweet pages of her book,
While through the meadow flowers
She sings in summer hours,
Or weds the woodland rills
Low-laughing to the brook.
The graveyard whitely gleams
Across the soundless vale,
So sad, so sweet, yet seems
A watcher cold and pale
That waits through many springs
The tribute old Time brings,
And knows, though life be loud,
The reaper may not fail.
Here come not feet of change
From year to fading year;
Ringed by the rolling range
No world-wide notes men hear.
The wheels of time may stand
Here in a lonely land,
Age after age may pass
Untouched of change or cheer;
As still the farmer keeps
The same dull round of things;
He reaps and sows and reaps,
And clings, as ivy clings,
To old-time trust, nor cares
What science does or dares,
What lever moves the world,
What progress spreads its wings.
Yet here, of woman born,
Are lives that know not rest,
With fierce desires that scorn
The quiet life as best;
That see in wider ways
Life's richer splendours blaze,
And feel ambition's fire
Burn in their ardent breast.
Yea, some that fain would know
Life's purpose strange and vast,
How wide is human woe,
What wailing of the past
Still strikes the present dumb,
What phantoms go and come
Of wrongs that cry aloud,
"At last, O God! at last!"
Here, too, are dreams that wing
Rich regions of Romance;
Love waking when the Spring
Begins its first wild dance,
Love redder than the rose,
Love paler than the snows,
Love frail as corn that tilts
With morning winds a lance.
For never land so lone
That love could find not wings
In every wind that's blown
By lips of jewelled springs,
For love is life's sweet pain,
And when sweet life is slain
It finds a radiant rest
Beyond the change of things.
Beyond the shocks that jar,
The chance of changing fate,
Where fraud and violence are,
And heedless lust and hate;
Yet still where faith is clear,
And honour held most dear,
And hope that seeks the dawn
Looks up with heart elate.
Flinders
He left his island home
For leagues of sleepless foam,
For stress of alien seas,
Where wild winds ever blow;
For England's sake he sought
Fresh fields of fame, and fought
A stormy world for these
A hundred years ago.
And where the Austral shore
Heard southward far the roar
Of rising tides that came
From lands of ice and snow,
Beneath a gracious sky
To fadeless memory
He left a deathless name
A hundred years ago.
Yea, left a name sublime
From that wild dawn of Time,
Whose light he haply saw
In supreme sunrise flow,
And from the shadows vast,
That filled the dim dead past,
A brighter glory draw,
A hundred years ago.
Perchance, he saw in dreams
Beside our sunlit streams
In some majestic hour
Old England's banners blow;
Mayhap, the radiant morn
Of this great nation born,
August with perfect power,
A hundred years ago.
We know not, — yet for thee
Far may the season be,
Whose harp in shameful sleep
Is soundless lying low!
Far be the noteless hour
That holds of fame no flower
For those who dared our deep
A hundred years ago.