Classic and Contemporary Poetry
BY AN AUSTRAL RIVER: AUSTRALIA'S PROPHECY; AN ANGLER'S REVERIE, by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL Poet's Biography First Line: The line whirs inward on the reel Last Line: "has ""something worth!"" to show." Alternate Author Name(s): Gage, Gervais Subject(s): Fish & Fishing; New Zealand; Rivers; Sea; Ocean | ||||||||
(By the Oréti, at the junction of "The Five Rivers," Southland, N.Z.) I THE line whirs inward on the reel, The swift net dips, andsoh! Flash of brave trout within the creel, With silvern fire aglow! Two-pounder?"Yes, and 'neath it lies A 'three,' a 'two,' a 'four'; None such 'neath Erin's wistful skies, By Scottish stream or shore! "None such where Welsh or English burn Purls to the plain below!" Ah, fool!to measure thus or spurn That great, lost Long-ago When hope was Heaven within the soul, Life sphered in fairer sky Than e'er was writ on Poet scroll Or limned to Painter's eye: When there were dancings of the heart, By morn or evening shade, Beyond all witchery of Art Or grace of elfin glade! We did not question of the years, Nor flinch for thought of pain; We dared the crags, nor paused for fears, And deemed the woundings gain. II Look, all around strange hills are tost, Proud range-peaks, soaring high, Point to their kindred dimmed and lost In a far alien sky! I cast me on the shingle hard Our trysting nook is here Piled floodwise,boulder, flax-root, shard, From uplands far and near: The strength of mountains wrecked and worn, Gneiss, granite, porphyry, The grace of glad vales all uptorn, The moraine's wild débris. The river hurries in and out Where, last year, bloomed the mead; Where white sheep browsed the silvery trout His glittering path doth speed. The swaying tui flits, and sips The nectar's secret hold, Where the korari floodward dips Its flame of crimsoning gold. And past me, in his joy elate, Nerved by his alpine snows, Unheeding Man's too transient fate, The swift Oréti flows. Above me, in the heavens the lark Thrills with his song the blue; And o'er the tree-tops hark, O, hark The hum of bees I knew! O, the sweet murmurous hum they made, All round my boyhood's door, O'erhead in the green opulent shade Of beech and sycamore! On new strange flowers they now can flit With the same drowsy voice; No pang of memory, exquisite, Haunts them as they rejoice. The triumph of the lark's glad throat Is jubilant and clear As when it mocked the thrush's note In my young raptured ear. III Where shall you seek, o'er all the Earth, A land more fair of face, Featured with lines of sovran birth And regnancy of grace? Ho, glaciers scooped the alpine steeps Where now the great lakes lie, Unmoved in all their sullen deeps Even when the storms go by! Far Northward, fronting Day's surprise, O'er fiord and western sea Lifts her fair challenge to pure skies Beauty's white majesty. Great Earnslaw on his gleaming throne His giant vigil keeps; Weird Wakatipu, stern and lone, Locked in grim silence sleeps. IV O Waiau,'mid whose billowy pride The lithe trout, fierce and fleet, Sprang sea-ward where the cresting tide Broke foaming round our feet, How oft in thy clear hastening wave Man's nerve and craft and might Were challenged in the conflict brave, That wild and rapturous fight! And singing reel and river's chaunt And sounding of the sea Blent into mystic tones which haunt All shores of Memory! Deep in thy crystal wayward stream, Methought, I oft could trace The witching smile, the radiant gleam Of Manapouri's face. And through thy waters' tireless sweep There seemed again to start, Impatient, the strong throb and leap Of great Te Anau's heart! V Ah, have you seen Aoranghi rise, His white cloud-robes unrolled, And lift his prayer to sapphire skies Gleamed through with pearl and gold, And Tasman's river, strong and fleet, Through timeless nights and days, Chaunting for ever at his feet The thunder of his praise? Oh, in the splendour and the light, The strength, the grace, the gleam, Heaven's gate seems lifting clear in sight, And God's face not a dream! In that white world without a stain I saw the new Day break, And then gaze, spell-bound, once again On peak and sleeping lake. I heard the avalanche crashing by; And, while my heart stood still, The glad wild tumult of reply Pulsed back from fiord and hill. Then, in the still voice Silence brings When storms cease, soft and low I heard God's secret whisperings Fall round me on the snow. And never more, by eve or morn Where Beauty is arrayed, Shall you count Dom and Matterhorn The fairest God has made! VI Oh, I am proud of these young lands And of their nascent hope, Their thews with sun-smit Southern sands And wind-swept seas that cope, Sending to Homelands o'er the main The battle-spoils of Peace, From grassy range and wide-spaced plain The wealth of food and fleece, And sift from out the boulder-waste The subtly-gleaming gold, With finer chivalry than graced Those armoured knights of old! VII And I am proud with gladdest pride Of that Isle-continent Whose flag,whatever may betide, New-wove, six-starred, is blent With mystic shades and shimmering lights Of Time's new prophecy, Of splendid days and darksome nights And vaster things to be: Clean soul, frank face, bold brotherhood, Free-born to social health, Nerved to high aims of Common good, One large-browed Commonwealth! Sunned by the Tropics' rich desire, Braced by the stringent South, Unbaffled by all hells of fire, Unspent by withering drouth: Piercing the deep rock's central core Where subtlest quartz-veins hide, Or fusing to unsullied ore The shimmering telluride. O, brave young brothers, falter not Norheart and handforget The first bold comers' toilful lot, The road-marks they have set, Through tangled wood, down gully-bank, And up the weird defile, O'er blistered sand-waste dumb and blank, The endless mile on mile! Some fell outwearied by the way, Some perished on the track; But never one, by night or day, Was daunted or turned back! Their signals yet, pathetic clear, Point onthe upward road Where knee might halt, or heart might fear To shoulder Duty's load: The old mine's broken shafts and sherds, The graves where pioneers sleep, The lowing now of countless herds, The bleat of white-fleeced sheep: The plod of winding oxen-team, The laden ore and bale, The horse-hoof's gallopglance and gleam Through mountain-range and vale. Sleep, Nation-builders, in the dell At grateful set o' sun! Your bairns the task shall finish well So gallantly begun. VIII Brothers, O, 'tis a spacious land! The seas all round are wide, By skies of wondrous beauty spanned: Win forward, and abide, (Not recking what despairs may hap, Who flounder or succeed; So faced your sires Life's danger-gap, So fares their younger breed) Through purple ranges,isles adrift In tremulous tides of light, Wide deeps of blue that melt and lift To strange star-depths by night, Finding new paths of fruitful toil For procreant industry; The farmer on his own free soil, The trader on the sea: The rain, God's father-gift to Earth, Sent vein-like here and there; A worthier worship than, in dearth, The plaint of slothful prayer! The hum of keen-lipped "harvester" Through the ripe yellow corn, While, overhead, the lark doth stir To praise the ripening morn: The stock-whip's resonant swing and snap, The rush of man and steed That steadies down the mountain-gap The cattle's wild stampede: The ring of axe on forest height, The pause, thenfar and wide The shuddering crash of messmate's might Rocking the mountain-side: The straight road trending north and north Till far ridge blends with sky, The steel rails pushing forth and forth Drawing lone hamlets nigh. IX Break ye the grip the greedy few Fix on the broadening lands! Plant there the Peoplethrift and thew, A Nation's hearts and hands! By creek and dell, where wild things roam, By range and mountain jut, The kindly reek of hearth and home, Or lone Selector's hut: The thrift of mine and loom and mart, The prize to him that can, Wise Nature testing limb and heart In wrestling-grip with Man: The enginery of Nations bent No more to rend and slay: Man's force with Man's sweet reason blent In Love's diviner day. X O, spare the wooded breadths that break The withering North wind's breath! A land of dwindling brook and lake Were but a land of Death. Vain all your prate of host and fleet And wide seas' girdling ring Without the song of streamlet sweet And chaunt of mountain spring! XI O lustrous poppet-heads, more brave Than Creçy's bow and sword, O dauntless shaft the toilers drave To Mammon's rock-ribbed hoard! Man grappling with Titanic powers, Comrade for comrade's life, The toil through long, slow, hideous hours, Man's thews with Doom at strife! O Love, that does not quail or tire 'Mid Peril's supreme cry, Through the dread rush of flood and fire Man still can strive and die: To build a Nation strong and clean By wide-wayed Southern seas, And fling our new Flag's starry sheen To every tradeward breeze: Undaunted by what dooms may fall, Unscared by boding Fate, But hearing one clear rallying-call, One Folk, one blood, one State! One Folk of Shakspere's sovran speech, Of Erin's mystic art, Of Newton's ken through worlds to reach, Of Burns's red-ripe heart! One Folk, with Hampden's dauntless "No!" Flung free 'gainst tyrant's might, One trust in Heaven for Man below, Unlost through mirkest night: Proud of the great dear Motherland, Her flag on every sea; But claiming our own destined stand, Self-poised, unhindered, free! XII Yet in these wide Pacific seas We fare not forth alone; Young Freedom, nursed on Britain's knees, To radiant stature grown, Dips now her wave-lined shimmering flag And hails us from afar; And there gleams back from wharf and crag Our answering Cross-and-Star. Glad common memories we will trace Of deeds by field and flood, Of kinship writ in soul and face White face and red heart's blood: Two lands indissolubly bound In bonds of Love and fate, While Traffic sweeps the wide seas round Through Panama's sea-gate. XIII So I am proud of this young land And of her strength and grace, As the swift stream o'er goldened sand Speeds past in heedless race. Mine eye doth catch the light and shade Glint on yon "Middle Dome": O, how I thrilled to watch Knocklayd Gleam from my father's home! Above it floated the soft cloud Borne in from wistful seas, The radiant beauty flushed and bowed Clasped by the lingering breeze: I see the fillet on its brow Gleam clear in morning light, Wondrous in boyhood's dream and vow Its bulk and soaring height! "How tall was it?"Ah, you will smile, Or fling back words of scorn, When you have measured, perch and mile, Mount Cook and Matterhorn, Or seen lone Shasta soaring white Through Autumn's golden glow, Or fair Tacoma's bannered light Blaze o'er the bastioned snow! But Shakspere answered long ago, When Jaques' quaint wit and art Would question true Love's stature so, "As high just as my heart!" Ay, measure, chain and link, its height! O, you have never seen Its glow by morn and evening light Through Memory's glamour-sheen! O, never with rapt ear and face, By toiler's bench or desk, Have you heard singing at its base The swift clear-waved Glenshesk: Nor have your young feet ever danced Down sweet Glen Errigle; Your vision never watched entranced The beauty of its dell! XIV Yet I am proud of these young lands, Sphered in their own fair sky: Look how yon maiden eager stands, The love-light in her eye! List to her song now rippling sweet, Timed to the rippling stream! For her too, while the young days fleet, Abides the old Day-dream. And, yonder, stout-limbed Austral bairns Shout joyous at their play: Round that rude hut each young thought yearns, New memories cling and stay. But, O, the heart's a kittle thing, And Tory, to the last, Of tones that sound and lips that sing Out of the lyric Past! The grasping of a brother's hand, A sister's eyes of light, A now dead father's mute command, A mother's fond "Good-night!" And something dearer far than all The names I breathe to men, The lips in Memory call and call But do not come again. You cannot build such mystic towers With all your heaped-up gold, Nor find such wondrous starry flowers In garden now or wold. No river over all the Earth Can sing through weal or woe Such music as, in dole and mirth, Sang my sweet Aghavoe. It ran beside my father's meads, It leapt from wood to dell, It danced through sheen of pulsing reeds With rapture none can tell. No hooked trout made such gallant fight, Such skill and craft could show, As the brave trout that leapt to light In that clear Aghavoe. "Of what weight was that wondrous trout?" Ah, sceptic, who can tell? Heart-measure scorns all finding out By scale and inch and ell. For Life was then in golden lands Where heart and hope were young, And harps thrilled song, from unseen hands, Such as no bards have sung: And Beauty raced her sister Joy By wood and winding stream, And Hope made Earth, for girl and boy, A deathless quest and dream! XV I would not have the Past brought back, The young days come again, The footings upward on Life's track, The blunders, stumblings, pain. Good God, the conquest of the years, The long grim war with Fate, Heart-haunts too arid far for tears, Home-fields too desolate! To wander round the banks and hear No sound to answer me, Save the bird's carol glad and clear And hum of stream and bee. O bird and brook, ye cannot guess Else ye would hush your voice My aching heart's dull loneliness That moans while ye rejoice! The grisly deeps of Hell laid bare, The Faith on wild seas tost, The black fell midnights of Despair, The light of Heaven lost, The gropings upward from dark pits Where Trust had tumbled in; For Friendship's treachery stabs and slits Faith, worse than Passion's sin! XVI But I would sit and dream a while, Unwatched by mortal eye While the strange river's dance and smile, Unheeding, pass me by And lone, save for the loves that reach Across the waste of years, Voices that beckon and beseech, Dear eyes wherein are tears, And hands that touch all tenderly These trembling hands again: "O love," their silence seems to say, "The love was worth the pain!" So let me dream by this lone land, Unwatched by mortal eye, Unvext by touch of mortal hand, Or footfall passing by My hands left emptygone the gleams Skies graygone out the star The comrades mute, that played by streams In other lands afar! XVII But look!the creel stands palpable There by the river's flow! Some joys true Memory still can spell From that lost Long-ago: Some quickened pulse to breast the steep In working-time or play, Some health of heart that starts from sleep When Life makes holiday: Some keenness still within the eye, Some deftness in the wrist, Some call in streamlet's song or sigh And hills by beauty kissed: Some hopes that do not age or tire, Visions that yet abound When, heart-wise, at the rude camp-fire The quip and tale go round: Some rapture at the reel's glad risp When brave trout springs at play, Large sense of Life when breezes crisp Blow at the dawn of day: Some leaping still within the soul At comrade's calling voice, Some writing on the mystic scroll Which bids true hearts rejoice Where'er the mountains round us rise, Where'er the rivers run, Where'er dear Nature, strong and wise, Speaks clear to Man, her son! XVIII But now the voice from down the dell Comes shouting "Lunch!"and, lo, Life still, the creel to-day can tell, Has "something worth!" to show. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HALL OF OCEAN LIFE by JOHN HOLLANDER JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS BOATS IN A FOG by ROBINSON JEFFERS CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE FIGUREHEAD by LEONIE ADAMS A MEMORY by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL A MITHER'S CRY (WRITTEN ON A SISTER'S GRAVE) by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL |
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