Classic Poem

In the gracious light of sunset, by the margin of the seas,
Where the mournful autumn voices sigh amongst the lordly trees,
Thoughts come crowding — crowding on me, with the force of catapult!
I've been reading Brunton Stephens — this, of course, is the result.
Ah! beyond those mighty mountains looming in the distance dim,
In the dear dead days of boyhood, oft I heard the wild bird's hymn.
Still out there are beak and feather — still the lonely plovers sob —
I was once before a beak, sir, and the fine was fifteen bob.

Since I first beheld the Morning breaking into flowers of light
Where the waves this eve are singing, many years have taken flight!
I have sinned, and I have suffered — suffered deeply for my sins —
Darling wife has just presented me another batch of twins.

In that slow sad sound when Twilight lingers like a grey faint ghost
By the great majestic waters, on the stately wall of coast,
Comes a tone that once I loved so — voice of river in the hill;
And I hear the butcher saying, " What about my little bill? "
Softly falls the dreamy moonshine every night on yonder grange,
When the day's reluctant phantom loiters on the royal range!
Then the scenes of half a lifetime into one mute moment crowd,
And I use my cotton kerchief, and the babies cry aloud.

Wonderful indeed is Nature! I have worshipped thirty years
In her vast sublime cathedrals, dazzled by her shining seers!
I have watched, with Robert Browning, all her " silver lights and darks " ;
Still I somehow cannot " cotton " to the policy of Parkes!

Ah! before the first fine feelings of my youth were worn away,
With the boy's large sense of beauty, here and there I used to stray;
But that sense which made a Dream-land of this world has somewhat thinned
Since the Wallsend fellows voted for a certain bag of wind.

Then with Shelley, then with Wordsworth, by the banks of glittering beach
Wandered I at morn, at even, with the thoughts too high for speech!
And I wore Byronic collars, scowling like a man of sins;
But my collars now are paper, and I fix them on with pins.

'Twixt the daytime and the night-time is a quiet spectral space
When the great sea seems to ponder, with a sadness on its face;
Then the loves that were , that are not, touch me with their graces missed
While my wife is dancing round me with a broomstick in her fist.

Yea, in sweet autumnal moments when, with tresses blown by breeze,
Evening comes with moon and music over dells and dewy leas,
Oft I muse and watch the vessels — vessels walking in their sleep;
And I sigh and swig " colonial " till I tumble in a heap.

Twenty years amongst these forests have I wandered up and down
Since my eyes were full of lustre, since my hair was golden-brown;
Ah, the days — the days that have been! will they ever come again? —
There's a " bobby " in the kitchen spooning with our Mary Jane.

All the glory and the grandeur of these temples of the wild,
Fanes august, have filled and thrilled me ever since I was a child!
And the haughty storm has awed me, thundering over stately peak;
And our little bill for washing comes to thirteen bob a week.

There are nooks within these valleys, by the fall of silver streams,
Where the beauty is the beauty shining through our fairest dreams!
Two these were that used to love them — one alas! has passed away,
And the pockmarked mangle-woman charges so much by the day.

In these nooks are dewy mosses, glimmering in a sunlight green,
Filtered through a cool soft leafage where the heat has never been.
There is seen the water myrtle, there the waterlillies weep —
Now that wife has brought her mother, I have eight in all to keep.

Touching are the lovely blossoms, gleaming in those shady vales,
Never entered by the thunder — never trampled by the gales!
Quiet pools are in this Elf-land — each a deep bright crystal cup —
Feeding eight is rather ticklish now that beef and flour are up.

Now the moon rides high in heaven — now is hushed the life of wings,
And a large imperial silence settles on the face of things;
Only now is heard the moaning of the restless harbour bar;
And a certain mournful poet means to do a mild cigar.