A Poet's Home
HERE in this lonely rill-engirdled spot,
The world forgetting, by the world forgot,
With one vowed to me with beloved lips
How sweet to draw, as hiddenly from time,
As from its rocks yon shaded fountain slips,
My yet remaining prime.
Here early rising from a sinless bed
How sweet it were to view Aurora shed
Her first white glances o’er the dusky wood,
When powdered as with pearls the sprays all gleam
Through the grey dawn, like prophecies of good
Or like some fairy dream.
And while the clouds imbibed a golden hue,
And purple streaks grained yon ethereal blue,
By the glad voice of every early bird
(As some full lake by breezes in their glee
Is rippled into smiles) how sweetly stirred
My spirit then should be!
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Bush Fire
“’TIS nine o’clock:—to bed!” cried Egremont,
Who with his youthful household (for ’tis now
Long since) inhabited a lonely home
In the Australian wilderness, that then
As with an unshorn fleece of gloomy wood
Robed the vast bulk of all the mighty Isle.
But ere retiring finally, he went
Forth as his wont was, to survey the night.
’Twas clear and silent: and the stirless woods
Seemed dreaming in the witch-light of the moon
As like a boat of stained pearl, she hung
Amid the ridges of a wavy cloud—
The only cloud in heaven. While Egremont
Looked thus abroad observingly, he marked
All around him, listing the horizon’s verge,
A broad unusual upward glaring gleam,
Such a drear radiance as the setting sun
Effuses when the atmosphere is stormy.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Burns
MY OWN WILD BURNS! these rude-wrought rhymes of thine
In golden worth are like the unshapely coin
Of some new realm, yet pure as from the mine—
And Art may well be spared with such alloy
As dims the bullion to improve the die!
I love the truths of Art but more indeed
The simplest truths of Nature; and I read
To find her visibly enthroned on all
His muse hath builded like a fiery wall
Round national faith and patriotic pride
And Love and Valour both at Beauty’s side.
Yea, more his outward rudeness, doth impress
Upon me still his innate strengthiness 1
Even as imperfect features oft enhance
Th’ intrinsic power of some fine countenance.
How various too the spirit of his lyre—
How many-hued his soul’s poetic fire!
In his one Muse such qualities we find
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Ned Connor
’TWAS night—and where a watery sound
Came moaning up the Flat,
Six rude and bearded stockmen round
Their blazing hut-fire sat,
And laughed as on some starting hound
The cracking fuel spat.
And merrier still the log-fire cracks
As night the darker falls,
While not a noisy tongue there lacks
To tell of drunken brawls,
But most of battle with the Blacks
Some bloody tale appals.
Amongst them then Ned Connor spoke,
And up his form he drew:—
What is there in an open stroke
To boast of? You but slew
Those who’d have done, each hell-black one,
The same or worse to you.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Storm in the Mountains
A lonely boy, far venturing from home
Out on the half-wild herd’s faint tracks I roam;
Mid rock-browned mountains, which with stony frown
Glare into haggard chasms deep adown;
A rude and craggy world, the prospect lies
Bounded in circuit by the bending skies.
Now at some clear pool scooped out by the shocks
Of rain-floods plunging from the upper rocks
Whose liquid disc in its undimpled rest
Glows like a mighty gem brooching the mountain’s breast,
I drink and must, or mark the wide-spread herd,
Or list the thinking of the dingle-bird;
And now towards some wild-hanging shade I stray,
To shun the bright oppression of the day;
For round each crag, and o’er each bosky swell,
The fierce refracted heat flares visible,
Lambently restless, like the dazzling hem
Of some else viewless veil held trembling over them.
Why congregate the swallows in the air,
And northward then in rapid flight repair?
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Monodies
I.
I stand in thought beside my father’s grave:
The grave of one who, in his old age, died
Too late perhaps, since he endured so much
Of corporal anguish, sweating bloody sweat;
But not an hour too soon—no, not an hour!
Even if through all his many years, he ne’er
Had known another ailment than decay,
Or felt one bodily pang. For his bruised heart
And wounded goodwill, wounded through its once
Samsonian vigour and too credulous trust
In that great Delilah, the harlot world,
Had done with fortune;—nay, his very tastes,
Even the lowliest, had by blast on blast
Of sorrow and mischance, been blown like leaves
Deciduous, when the year is withering out,
From every living hold on what we here
Call nature; he but followed in their wake.
Nor was there in the lives of those he loved,
Even had he been susceptible of cheer,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Love Sonnets
I.
HOW beautiful doth the morning rise
O’er the hills, as from her bower a bride
Comes brightened—blushing with the shame-faced pride
Of love that now consummated supplies
All her full heart can wish, and to the eyes
Dear are the flowers then, in their green haunts spied,
Glist ning with dew: pleasant at noon the side
Of shadowy mountains ridging to the skies:
At eve ’tis sweet to hear the breeze advance
Through the responding forest dense and tall;
And sweeter in the moonlight is the dance
And natural music of the waterfall:
And yet we feel not the full charm of all,
Till love be near us with his magic glance.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Creek of the Four Graves [Late Version]
A settler in the olden times went forth
With four of his most bold and trusted men
Into the wilderness—went forth to seek
New streams and wider pastures for his fast
Increasing flocks and herds. O’er mountain routes
And over wild wolds clouded up with brush,
And cut with marshes perilously deep,—
So went they forth at dawn; at eve the sun,
That rose behind them as they journeyed out,
Was firing with his nether rim a range
Of unknown mountains, that like ramparts towered
Full in their front. and his last glances fell
Into the gloomy forest’s eastern glades
In golden gleams, like to the Angel’s sword,
And flashed upon the windings of a creek
That noiseless ran betwixt the pioneers
And those new Apennines—ran, shaded o’er
With boughs of the wild willow, hanging mixed
From either-bank, or duskily befringed
With upward tapering feathery swamp-oaks,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Fragments from 'Genius Lost
Prelude
I SEE the boy-bard neath life’s morning skies,
While hope’s bright cohorts guess not of defeat,
And ardour lightens from his earnest eyes,
And faith’s cherubic wings around his being beat.
Loudly the echo of his soul repeats
Those deathless strains that witched the world of old;
While to the deeds, his high heart proudly beats,
Of names within them, treasured like heroic gold.
To love he lights the ode of vocal fire,
And yearns in song o’er freedom’s sacred throes,
Or pours a pious incense from his lyre,
Wherever o’er the grave a martyre-glory glows.
Or as he wanders waking dreams arise,
And paint new Edens on the future’s scroll,
While on the wings of rapture he outflies
The faltering mood that warns in his prophetic soul.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Creek of the Four Graves
I
I verse a Settler's tale of olden times
One told me by our sage friend, Egremont;
Who then went forth, meetly equipt, with four
Of his most trusty and adventrous men
Into the wilderness - went forth to seek
New streams and wider pastures for his fast
Augmenting flocks and herds. On foot were all
For horses then were beast of too great price
To be much ventured on mountain routes,
And over wild wolds clouded up with brush,
And cut with marshes, perilously deep.
So went they forth at dawn: and now the sun
That rose behind them as they journeyed out,
Was firing with his nether rim a range
Of unknown mountains that, like ramparts, towered
Full in their front, and his last glances fell
Into the gloomy forest's eastern glades
In golden massses, transiently, or flashed
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!