Afar Off
1.
Is it a will o' the wisp, or is dawn breaking,
That our horizon wears so strange a hue?
Is it but one more dream, or are we waking
To find at last that dreams are coming true?
2.
Far off and faint, a golden line is streaking
The cloudy night that shrouds the life of man;
It is the sun that dim eyes have been seeking,
Through all blind pathways, since the world began.
3.
The sign to weary heart and waiting nation
That day will come to bring them their release
That, late or soon, through storm and tribulation,
Or with slow change, the earth shall rest in peace.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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Midnight
1.
The night is clear and still. The moon rides high.
The green leaves whisper where the soft winds blow.
Above, the stars shine in a sapphire sky —
The city sleeps below.
2.
Sleeps? Nay. The million- fibred heart is wrung
With wild desire and ceaseless pain and fear.
Could its dumb anguish find a fitting tongue,
The very dead would hear.
3.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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Mates
It boots not to retrace the path
To ages dim and hoar,
When Man, at the domestic hearth,
First learned the art of war,
And - since in battle one must fall -
Held his defeated spouse in thrall,
That she should fight no more;
And thereby doomed to sleep and sloth
Strength that in action strengthened both.
It boots not when the better day
First showed a glint of morn,
Nor whose the eye that, in its ray,
Saw Woman's chains outworn;
Nor which was first and which was last
When savage rivalry was past
And chivalry was born;
Enough for us that, free or pent,
Her primal treasure was misspent.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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By the Camp Fire
Ah, 'twas but now I saw the sun flush pink on yonder placid tide;
The purple hill-tops, one by one, were strangely lit and glorified;
And yet how sweet the night has grown, with palest starlights dimly sown!
Those mountain ranges, far and near, enclasp me,— sharply pencilled there,
Like blackest sea-waves,—outlined here, like phantoms in the luminous air,
Between that cold and quiet sky, and the calm river running by.
The gum-trees whisper overhead, and, delicately dark and fine,
Their lovely shadow-patterns shed across the paths of white moonshine.
The golden wattles glimmer bright, scenting this cool, transparent night.
What spirits wake when earth is still? I hear wild wood-notes softly swell.
There's the strange clamour, hoarse and shrill, that drowns the bull-frogs' hollow
bell;
And there's the plaintive rise and fall of the lone mopoke's cuckoo-call.
And nearer, an opossum flits above the firelight, pauses, peers—
I see a round ball where he sits, with pendant tail and pointed ears;
And two are gruffly snarling now in hollows of yon upper bough.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Night
II
Watchman, what of the night?
See you a streak of light?
Whither, O Captain of the quest,
The course we steer for Port of Rest?
How shall he answer - he
Who never put to sea?
Within his tabernacle wall
He cannot even hear us call.
Behind the jealous door
That he must pass no more,
And whence he scarcely dares to look,
He keeps his eyes upon his book.
The little candles, lit
Where the disciples sit,
Light their small refuge round about,
But show no gleam to those without -
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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Dead
“ON board the Petrel, in St. Lucia's bay,
Of yellow fever—agèd twenty-nine.”
“Who did you say, my lady?” drawled the Earl.
“The duke—what duke?”
“I did not speak of dukes,”
Replied the Countess slowly, white and grim,
Pressing the rustling sheet between her palms,
The while her diamonds heaved upon her breast,
And sank and heaved, and glitter'd like her eyes—
Hungry, pathetic eyes,—“'Tis only Dick,
Only a sailor-lad I used to know.”
“Humph! A West Indian friend?” he softly sneer'd,
And bow'd and gave his arm. “The carriage waits—
My lady loses time.”
Then pass'd they out,
Through silky servants,—he, the great Earl, stark
In plume and crest and linked mediaeval steel,
The Countess en bergère, in white and red,
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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By a Norfolk Broad
One hour ago the crimson sun, that seemed so long a-drowning, sank.
The summer day is all but done. Our boat is moored beneath the bank.
I bask in peace, content, replete — my faithful comrade at my feet.
The water-violet shuts its eye; the water-lily petals close;
So in the evening light we lie and dream in undisturbed repose.
How far all petty cares have flown! How calm the fretful world has grown!
We only hear the gentle breeze, in tender sighs and whispers, pass
Through osier beds and alder trees, and rustling flags and bending grass;
The song of blackbird in the hedge, the quack of wild-duck in the sedge.
The distant bark of farmhouse dogs, the piping of a clear-voiced thrush,
The murmurous babble of the frogs, of rippling stream in reed and rush;
The splash of pike and bream that rise to flitting moths and dragon-files.
Far from the haunts of striving men, the toil and moil, the dust and din,
At home, at peace, in this lone fen, with these our dumb and gentler kin;
In Mother Nature's arms at rest, we drink the nectar of her breast.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Watchman
I
Through jewelled windows in the walls
The tender daylight smiles;
Majestic music swells and falls
Adown the stately aisles;
Shadows of carven roof and rood,
Of stony saints and angels, brood
Above the altar-glow;
They cannot dim the shining face
Of one conspicuous in his place
Amid the forms below.
He that was once my little boy,
With merry voice and look,
My babe, that quarrelled with his toy
And tore his hated book;
But yesterday a laughing lad,
In his dear worldly garments clad,
Talking of college wins,
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Midnight Mass
An incident of the French Revolution.
The light lay trembling in a silver bar
Along the western borders of the sky;
From out the shadowy dome a little star
Stole forth to keep its patient watch on high;
And night came down, with solemn, soft embrace,
On storied Brittany.
Another night lay over all the land—
The dark of hell, and lurid with its fire.
She heard the roar of fiends; she saw the brand
Flung red and hissing over roof and spire;
She saw her golden spurs and reaping-hooks
Tossed on the funeral pyre.
She stood in calm defiance, while the flood
Swept over her;—while everywhere was seen
Her dim, majestic cities drenched in blood;
Ashes and smoke where temple-walls had been;
And high on woodland knoll and market-place,
The ghastly guillotine.
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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On Australian Hills
Earth, outward tuning on her path in space
This pensive southern face,
Swathing its smile and shine
In that soft veil that day and darkness twine,
The silver-threaded twilight thin and fine,
With April dews impearled,
Looms like another and diviner world.
Here April brings her garnered harvest-sheaf,
Her withered autumn leaf,
Tintings of bronze and brass;
Her full-plumed reeds, her mushroom in the grass,
Her furrowed fields, where plough and sower pass,
Her laden apple bough.
All are transfigured and transmuted now.
The eastward ranges, so unearthly blue,
Bloom with their richest hue;
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poem by Ada Cambridge
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