To eastward, when cluster by cluster,
Dim stars and dull planets that muster,
Wax wan in a world of white lustre
That spreads far and high.

In the gathering of night gloom o'erhead, in
The still silent change,

All fire-flushed when forest trees redden
On slopes of the range;

When the gnarl'd, knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seem carved, like weird columns Egyptian,
With curious device-quaint inscription,
And hieroglyph strange.

In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
'Twixt shadow and shine,

When each dew-laden air-draught resembles
A long draught of wine;

When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some song in all hearts hath existence,—
Such songs have been mine.

Adam Lindsay Gordon.

The Sick Stockrider

WAS merry in the glowing morn, among the gleaming grass,

To wander as we've wandered many a mile, And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass,

Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while.

'Twas merry 'mid the blackwoods, when we spied the station roofs,

To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard,

With a running fire of stockwhips and a fiery run of hoofs;

Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard.

I've had my share of pastime, and I've done my share of toil,

And life is short-the longest life a span;

I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil,
Or for the wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
For good undone and gifts misspent and resolutions

vain,

'Tis somewhat late to trouble. This I know

I should live the same life over, if I had to live again; And the chances are I go where most men go.

The deep blue skies wax dusky, and the tall green trees grow dim,

The sward beneath me seems to heave and fall;

And sickly, smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight swim,

And on the very sun's face weave their pall.

Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms

wave,

With never stone or rail to fence my bed;

Should the sturdy station children pull the bush flowers

on my grave,

I may chance to hear them romping overhead.

Adam Lindsay Gordon.

Drought

Y road is fenced with the bleached, white bones
And strewn with the blind, white sand,

M

Beside me a suffering, dumb world moans
On the breast of a lonely land.

On the rim of the world the lightnings play,
The heat-waves quiver and dance,

And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay
And the sunbeams each a lance.

I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread,
I have whitened the sapless trees,

I have driven the faint-heart rains ahead

To hide in their soft green seas.

I have bound the plains with an iron band,
I have stricken the slow streams dumb!

To the charge of my vanguards who shall stand?
Who stay when my cohorts come?

The dust-storms follow and wrap me round;
The hot winds ride as a guard;
Before me the fret of the swamps is bound
And the way of the wild-fowl barred.

I drop the whips on the loose-flanked steers;
I burn their necks with the bow;
And the green-hide rips and the iron sears
Where the staggering, lean beasts go.

I lure the swagman out of the road

To the gleam of a phantom lake;

I have laid him down, I have taken his load,
And he sleeps till the dead men wake.

My hurrying hoofs in the night go by,

And the great flocks bleat their fear

And follow the curve of the creeks burnt dry
And the plains scorched brown and sere.

The worn men start from their sleepless rest
With faces haggard and drawn;

They cursed the red Sun into the west
And they curse him out of the dawn.

They have carried their outposts far, far out,
But-blade of my sword for a sign!—
I am the Master, the dread King Drought,
And the great West Land is mine!

W. H. Ogilvie.

The Women of the West

HEY left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,

The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,

The pleasures of the city, and the friends

they cherished best:

For love they faced the wilderness-the Women of the

West.

4

The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away, And the old-time joys and faces-they were gone for many a day;

In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock chains,

O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.

In the slab-built, zinc-roofed homestead of some lately

taken run,

In the tent beside the bankment of a railway just begun, In the huts on new selections, in the camps of man's

unrest,

On the frontiers of the Nation, live the Women of the West.

The red sun robs their beauty, and, in weariness and pain, The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again;

And there are hours men cannot soothe, and words men cannot say

The nearest woman's face may be a hundred miles away.

The wide bush holds the secrets of their longing and desires,

When the white stars in reverence light their holy altar fires,

And silence, like the touch of God, sinks deep into the breast

Perchance He hears and understands the Women of the West.

For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet plies his

arts

They only hear the beating of their gallant, loving hearts. But they have sung with silent lives the song all songs

above

The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.

G. E. Evans.