New Zealand Verse/Written in Australia
XIV.
Written in Australia.
The wide sun stares without a cloud: Whipped by his glances truculent,The earth lies quivering and cowed! My heart is hot with discontent— I hate this haggard continent.
But over the loping leagues of sea A lone land calls to her children free; My own land holding her arms to me Over the loping leagues of sea.
The old grey city is dumb with heat; No breeze comes leaping, naked, rude,Adown the narrow, high- walled street; Upon the night thick perfumes brood: The evening oozes lassitude.
But o’er the edges of my town, Swept in a tide that ne’er abates,The riotous breezes tumble down; My heart looks home, looks home, where waits The Windy City of the Straits!
The land lies desolate and stripped; Across its waste has thinly strayedA tattered host of eucalypt, From whose gaunt uniform is made A ragged penury of shade.
But o’er my isles the forest drew A mantle thick—save where a peakShows his grim teeth a-snarl—and through The filtered coolness creek and creek Tangled in ferns, in whispers speak.
And there the placid great lakes are, And brimming rivers proudly forceTheir ice-cold tides. Here, like a scar, Dry-lipped, a withered watercourse Crawls from a long-forgotten source.
My glance, home-gazing, scarce discerns This listless girl, in whose dark hairA starry-red hibiscus burns; Her pallid cheeks are like a pair Of nuns—they are so fragile-fair;
And like a sin her warm lips flame In her wan face; swift passions brimIn her brown eyes, and ebb with shame; Her form is sinuous and slim— That lyric line of breast and limb!
But one there waits whose brown face glows, Whose cheeks with Winter’s kisses smart—The flushing petals of a rose! Of earth and sun she is a part; Her brow is Greek and Greek her heart.
At love she laughs a faint disdain; Her heart no weakly one to charm;Robust and fragrant as the rain, The dark bush soothed her with his balm, The mountains gave her of their calm.
Her fresh young figure, lithe and tall, Her twilight eyes, her brow benign,She is the peerless queen of all— The maid, the country, that I shrine In this far banished heart of mine!
But over the loping leagues of green A lone land wails with a hope serene— My own land calls like a prisoner queen— But oh! the long loping leagues between!