No lions or tigers we here dread to meet,
Our innocent quadrupeds hop on two feet;
No tithes and no taxes we now have to pay,
And our geese are all swans, as some witty folks say.
Then we live without trouble or stealth, Sirs,
Our currency’s all sterling wealth, Sirs,
So here’s to our Governor’s health, Sirs,
And Western Australia for me.
‘A’ (n.d.)
Mount Eliza
On Mount Eliza’s gently-swelling height
Musing of late I sat, and strained my sight
To catch within its orbs the full expanse
Of all the beauties which the scene enhance.
On such a spot as this, how sweet to feel
The charms of Nature o’er the senses steal;
When peace, reflected from its sunny spots,
Soothes the sad mind, and drowns all memr’y’s blots;
And as its genial influence leads us on,
We feel as calm as all we look upon.
Long ere by stern necessity’s command,
The emigrant had sought this distant land,
This lovely spot was mark’d by many a grace,
And all those hues which Nature loves to trace.
But then this beauty was of sombre hue,
And Nature’s wildness only met the view.
No fabric raised, whose bright looks catch the eyes,
And make us think of Home and all we prize.
What though the ‘Swan’ in graceful turnings glide,
No cheerful boat had ever stemm’d its tide,
Or merry barks, with white sails deck’d its face,
Or skimm’d its surface with their magic pace.
No sound disturb’d its silent, peaceful strand,
Save when the native savage, spear in hand
Came from his pathless woods to try his skill,
By hunger led, the finny prey to kill.
From fancied scenes like these I turn with pride
To view the works of man on every side.
To thee, fair Perth, where, peeping through the trees,
Thine houses glitter, and full well must please
The eyes of one who fondly loves to mark
Those fairy visions springing from the dark.
When first our hardy colonists, with zeal
Commenced their hopeful task with trusty steel
Not in their dreams, by fancy colour’d high,
E’er matur’d all that here is gay reality.
Thick clustering dwellings now uprear their heads,
In pleasing contrast to their leafy beds;
And verdant gardens, ranging side by side,
Skirting the river’s bank, are spreading wide.
How much we love the forms we’ve help’d to rear;
What deep and earnest thoughts of hope and fear
Do mark their fitful progress; if the things
Be pets of Art, or Poets’ wild imaginings,
Say then what thoughts shall fill the exile’s mind
When cast on foreign wilds a home to find;
Who daily strives his anxious cares to cheer,
And form around him all he holds most dear.
Then, if success he should at length attain,
He loves it more for all its toil and pain;
With pride surveys the scenes he’d help’ d to trace
On what was once a drear and desert place.
With feelings such as these I love the sight
Which greets the eye from off this wood-crown’d height,
And oft-times wander to this shady place,
With fondly-curious eye, intent to trace
Some new raised structure, or some pleasing green
That lends fresh beauty to the changeful scene;
Or watch beneath my view some freighted boat
In silence pass, and onwards gaily float
O’er Melville Water, dancing on its flight,
Its white sails lessening, tho’ it still looks bright;
Fleet messenger of Trade, that daily finds
A sure assistance from alternate winds.
The country round from this exalted place
Looks like a chart, on which you trace
The varied outlines of the pleasing scene,
Where waters glitter, and where woods look green.
Here Belches’ Point, whose stretching sides extend
And form, at length, the banks by which descend
Fair Canning’s stream, that flows with gentle force;
Or Swan’s blue flood, that comes from distant source.
There Headland juts, with base round-spreading, wide.
That forms a mimic bay on either side;
And, distant far, the lofty hills are seen
Raising their blue tops o’er the woods’ dark-green.
Oft as these scenes I view, new hopes will spring
Of future greatness which each year must bring;
And in my mind’s-eye fondly view each grace
Which fancy loves to form on many a place.
No dark’ning clouds, I trust, will ever rise
To blight the hopes I now so fondly prize.
Land of my adoption, onward is thy way,
In spite of all that prejudice can say.
Detraction’s tongue shall now no more have weight;
She’s done her worst, and sent forth all her hate.
No aid we need to make a prosperous land
But Councils wise, and Industry’s strong hand.
In these secure, let each one do his best;
Our sunny clime will work out all the rest.
First published 26 December 1835.
Anonymous (n.d.)
A New Song
Adapted from ‘Sam Sly’s African journal.’
Tune: ‘The Campbells are Coming’.
The Convicts are coming — oho! oho!
What a curse to the Swan! What a terrible blow!
‘No — devil a bit — don’t fear, my old bricks,
How much may we learn, if they’ll teach us their tricks.’
The Convicts are coming! oh dear, oh dear!
Don’t button your pockets — there’s nothing to fear,
For surely no Exile would venture to thieve,
When away from the prison, on a Ticket of leave.
The Convicts are coming! Hurrah! hurrah!
How it gladdens the heart of each anxious papa,
For how quickly his children may now learn a trade,
From that best of preceptors — a thief ready-made.
The Convicts are coming! Huzza! huzza!
If we want to pick locks, they will tell us the way,
Do we think to cut throats, or to blow out men’s brains,
They’ll show us the mode, if we’ll only take pains.
The Convicts are coming — what capital sport!
The road to the gallows made easy and short,
And long will the Swanites remember the day,
When the Convicts were sent to their shores by Earl Grey.
The Convicts are coming! the Orient’s in sight!
Then throw up your hats boys, illumine tonight!
Yes, throw up your hats, be as merry as grigs,
For I warrant they’ll soon put us up to their rigs.
The Convicts are coming! Huzza! huzza!
Three cheers for the Convicts, and three for Earl Grey!
Three cheers for the Swanites, and nine for each man,
Who devised and perfected this glorious plan.
First published 16 November 1849.
Delta (n.d.)
The Song of the Ticket of Leave Man
I am free! I am free! my heart leaps in my breast,
And each feeling, each thought with grief late opprest,
Now thrills through my frame, as if a new life
Were given in mercy to meet the world’s stri
fe,
I am free, I am free!
For the sins of my youth I have suffered the pain —
I have felt the world’s enmity, coldness, disdain —
The good have passed by me, ’twas torture, ’twas madness
To see them avoid me in pitying sadness
But now I am free!
I am free, I am free! what rapture is mine —
How I bless, how adore that mercy Divine,
Which hath broken my bonds, which hath lightn’d my breast,
For my chains given liberty — peace for unrest!
Hurrah! I am free!
And ye among whom now my lot must be cast,
Ye never will bring back the thoughts of the past,
By rendering my heart with the talk of my sin,
Ye will judge what I am, not what I have been,
For now I am free!
Oh, receive me as one who wishes to show
That repentance has come from chains and from woe,
By the path he will lead in honesty here,
While serving you truly as year succeeds year,
For now I am free!
Ye will not, ye cannot point finger of scorn
At one now forsaken, alone and forlorn;
One far from the land of all he holds dear;
You never will make a marked stranger here,
For now I am free!
I feel you will not — Hurrah, I am free —
Free from bondage, from chains, from sin’s misery;
Free from feelings, from thoughts, that once led me to shame
but chained to the hope to regain my good name
I am free! I am free!
First published 3 September 1851.
Elizabeth Deborah Brockman (b.1833 d.1915)
On Receiving From England a Bunch of Dried Wild Flowers
Pale Ghosts! of fragrant things that grew among
The woods and valleys of my native land,
Phantoms of flowers I played with long ago:
Here are the scented violets I sought
In their cool nooks of verdure, and the bells
That fringed the mountain crag with loveliest blue;
Here are the flushing clusters of the May,
The dainty primrose on its slender stem;
And the forget-me-not — all faint and pale
As those dim memories of home that haunt
The exile’s wistful heart in banishment.
I look around and see
A thousand gayer tints; the wilderness
Is bright with gorgeous rainbow colouring
Of flowers that have no dear familiar names.
I see them closing ere the dews of night
Have touched their waxen leaflets: close they fold
Their tender blossoms through the darkened hours,
And will not open, though the fractious winds
Should wrestle with their roots and strain their stems.
They waken not until the softer airs,
Breathed from the rosy lips of early morn,
Come whispering, ‘lo! the lordly sun is nigh.’
But in my hand these frail memorials
Lie closely pressed; a slight electric link,
By which thought over-passes time and space,
To other hands that plucked them: other hands
That never more to any touch of mine
Shall thrill responsive. Blessed be those hands
With prosperous labours, fruitful through long years,
Of all life’s truest, tenderest charities.
Sonnet
Cool wind coming from the southern sea,
Filling white sails that homeward turn again,
And flit away like pale clouds o’er the main,
We hail you as you pass so fresh and free.
Warming or chilling ever as you flee,
Speed on soft breeze above the liquid plain,
Blow sweetest, freshest, blythest, when you gain
Fair England’s generous soil of Liberty.
Bear greetings from her children far away,
Who bless her in the new homes where they stay,
Turning with true hearts to the land they love.
Come with the song of birds, the breath of flowers,
Dance with the shadows under hazel bowers,
And fill with whispered music every grove.
The Cedars
They stand secure upon the mountain side,
Where, close behind, the crest of Lebanon
Towers bleak and bald above a thousand hills.
How solitary is thy mountain throne,
Dark remnant of tall woods that spread afar,
By mount and moraine in the days gone by.
They were the glory of a royal race,
Fallen like thy kindred from their majesty
And vanished from the place where they have been.
There are soft sounds upon the hushed mid-air,
The tender cooing of a hidden dove,
That keeps his watch beside his brooding mate;
The crush of crisp leaves to the wild goat’s tread
The hum of laden bees that heap their stores,
Within the hollows of the creviced rock:
The chime of rivulets that flow unseen,
The voice of wild birds in the native grove,
Stirring the air with sudden flights of song.
The everlasting hills are here: the sea
Washes their strong foundations: time and change
Have wrought their will elsewhere and passed these.
The snow is still on Lebanon, the sea
Hath still her fitful moods that come and go,
Making variety where there is no change.
The hills keep watch upon that restless tide,
And see! a lonely sail, where once the waves,
Gleamed to the measured dash of Syrian oars.
The ships of Tarshish come and go no more,
Bearing rich merchandise: rude fishers spread
Their nets where stood of old the ocean’s queen.
So moves the world: its kingdom and its powers
Change hands — and names and rival races press
Each other slowly from their vantage ground.
Requiescat in Pace
‘Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.’
Since all that is mere dust in me shall die,
And this immortal soul must be undressed,
Leaving the form it hath so long possessed,
Laid as a cast-off garment folded by;
Give it kind earth upon thy breast a space,
Where with its kindred it may find a place,
Till the awaking voice shall echo through the sky.
O! let the silent heart and nerveless head,
Sleep where the lowly lie in hallowed graves,
Where through dark boughs the night breeze sobs and raves,
In fitful requiems o’er th’ unconscious dead;
Where in the stillness of the Sabbath day,
The thronging worshippers go up to pray,
And little children to Our Father’s house are led.
There, from the full-voiced choir the hymn shall rise,
And float and fall, and echoing hills repeat
From side to side reverberations sweet,
Till in the hollow glen it softly dies
From earth — but ever to the fount of light,
Speeds onward through th’ illimitable height,
To blend its faltering tones with psalms of Paradise.
The flowers I have loved shall bloom and fade,
Through many a winter’s gloom and summer’s glow,
And rushing from the hills the streams I know,
Shall make sweet music in the forest shade,
While I — afar upon another shore,
Where the eternal light shines evermore —
Bide peacefully till tim
e’s revolving course is stayed.
John Boyle O’Reilly (b.1844 d.1890)
The Dukite Snake
A West Australian Bushman’s Story
Well, mate, you’ve asked about a fellow
You met to-day, in a black-and-yellow
Chain-gang suit, with a peddler’s pack,
Or with some such burden, strapped to his back.
Did you meet him square? No, passed you by?
Well, if you had, and had looked in his eye,
You’d have felt for your irons then and there;
For the light in his eye is a madman’s glare.
Ay, mad, poor fellow! I know him well,
And if you’re not sleepy just yet, I’ll tell
His story, — a strange one as ever you heard
Or read; but I’ll vouch for it, every word.
You just wait a minute, mate: I must see
How that damper’s doing, and make some tea.
You smoke? That’s good; for there’s plenty of weed
In that wallaby skin. Does your horse feed
In the hobbles? Well, he’s got good feed here,
And my own old bush mare won’t interfere.
Done with that meat? Throw it there to the dogs,
And fling on a couple of banksia logs.
And now for the story. That man who goes
Through the bush with the pack and the convict’s clothes
Has been mad for years; but he does no harm,
And our lonely settlers feel no alarm
When they see or meet him. Poor Dave Sloane
Was a settler once, and a friend of my own.
Some eight years back, in the spring of the year,
Dave came from Scotland, and settled here.
A splendid young fellow he was just then,
And one of the bravest and truest men
That I ever met: he was kind as a woman
To all who needed a friend, and no man —
Not even a convict — met with his scorn,
For David Sloane was a gentleman born.
Ay, friend, a gentleman, though it sounds queer:
There’s plenty of blue blood flowing out here,
And some younger sons of your ‘upper ten’
Can be met with here, first-rate bushmen.
Why, friend, I — Bah! curse that dog! you see
This talking so much has affected me.
Well, Sloane came here with an axe and a gun;
He bought four miles of a sandal-wood run.
This bush at that time was a lonesome place,
So lonesome the sight of a white man’s face
The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry Page 5
