Poems by George Essex Evans

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Women Of The West

They left the vine-wreathed cottage and the mansion on the hill,

The houses in the busy streets where life is never still,

The pleasures of the city, and the friends they cherished best:

For love they faced the wilderness -the Women of the West.

The roar, and rush, and fever of the city died away,

And the old-time joys and faces-they were gone for many a day;

In their place the lurching coach-wheel, or the creaking bullock-chains,

O'er the everlasting sameness of the never-ending plains.

174

by George Essex Evans

The Dream Star

Whisper, O wings of the wind! Sing me your song, O sea!

Grey is the weary world, and grey is the heart of me!

Into my shadowy heart pierce like the star of old,

Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!

Sing me the hope made sure, sing me the heart made strong!

Give me the battle-fire, give me the bugle-song

Onward ever and on, O swift, green bird of the sun;

Ever a vaster goal for the goal that thy wings have won.

121

by George Essex Evans

An Australian Symphony

Not as the songs of other lands

Her song shall be,

Where dim her purple shore-line stands

Above the sea!

As erst she stood, she stands alone;

Her inspiration is her own.

From sunlit plains to mangrove strands

Not as the songs of other lands

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by George Essex Evans

A Pastoral

Nature feels the touch of noon;

Not a rustle stirs the grass;

Not a shadow flecks the sky,

Save the brown hawk hovering nigh;

Not a ripple dims the glass

Of the wide lagoon.

Darkly, like an armed host

Seen afar against the blue,

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by George Essex Evans

A Drought Idyll

It was the middle of the drought; the ground was hot and bare,

You might search for grass with a microscope, but nary grass was there;

The hay was done, the cornstalks gone, the trees were dying fast,

The sun o'erhead was a curse in read and the wind was a furnace blast;

The waterholes were sun-baked mud, the drays stood thick as bees

Around the well, a mile away, amid the ringbarked trees.

McGinty left his pumpkin-pie and gazed upon the scene:

His cows stood propped 'gainst tree and fence wherever they could lean;

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by George Essex Evans

Cymru

Dim in the mist of ages, seeking a resting-place,

Broke on the shores of Britain the wave of an Aryan race.

Clear thro’ the mist of ages, ere ever the White Christ came,

Songs of the Cymric singers have chanted the Brython fame.

Dark with the fate of nations, and swift as a broadspear hurled,

The breath of the God of Battles swept o’er the western world.

Where are the old-time peoples, men of the war-like front,

From the surge of the wild Atlantic to the shores of the Hellespont?

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by George Essex Evans

A Nocturne

Like weary sea-birds spent with flight

And faltering,

The slow hours beat across the night

On leaden wing.

The wild bird knows where rest shall be

Soe'er he roam.

Heart of my heart! apart from thee

I have no home.

137

by George Essex Evans

A Grave By The Sea

No white cloud sails the lonely sky,

Thro’ the gaunt trees no breezes sigh,

Thro’ the lush grass no fall of feet;

No song of bird in all the land,

But, floating faintly, dreamily,

The distant dirge of waves that beat

In discontent upon the sand.

Here, where all Nature seems aswoon,

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by George Essex Evans

To The Irish Dead

’TIS a green isle set in a silver water,

A fairy isle where the shamrock grows.

Land of Legend, the Dream-Queen’s daughter—

Out of the Fairies’ hands She rose.

They touched Her harp with a tender sighing,

A spirit-song from a world afar,

They touched Her heart with a fire undying

To fight and follow Her battle-star.

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by George Essex Evans

Auri Sacra Fames

Now that the gods are dead—where shall we find us a god?

Myths of the Greek Olympus have sunk in the surge of Time;

And Jehovah, the God of Wrath, who stayed the sun at His nod;

And Jesus, the Nazarene, preaching a dream sublime.

Worship and form may live, practice and faith have fled.

Where shall we find us a god—now that the gods are dead?

What of the Old exists but feels the touch of the New?

Thousands of voices shout: where is the voice that leads?

151

by George Essex Evans

Adrift: A Brisbane River Reverie

An amphitheatre of purple hills

And emerald slopes where nestling villas gleam,

Flooded with golden light that crowns and fills

Height, vale, and stream.

The clouds float motionless like isles of snow

Set in the sapphire of the summer sky,

The river, like a ribbon, far below

Winds rippling by;

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by George Essex Evans

Altiora Peto

O for a vision of the perfect light

To shame the splendour of the morning star!

O for a breath from out the Infinite

Where the great heart of Being throbs afar!

O for that sound, too fine for mortal ears,

The music of the silence of the spheres!

The Masters fathomed not that song sublime,

Tho’ oft on straining ear and brain o’erwrought,

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by George Essex Evans