Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BY AN AUSTRAL RIVER: AUSTRALIA'S PROPHECY; AN ANGLER'S REVERIE, by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BY AN AUSTRAL RIVER: AUSTRALIA'S PROPHECY; AN ANGLER'S REVERIE, by                     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, and—soh!—
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
Nor—heart and hand—forget
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 on—the 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 gallop—glance 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, then—far 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 People—thrift 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 empty—gone the gleams—
Skies gray—gone 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.





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