The Secret Key and Other Verses/An Australian Symphony
AN AUSTRALIAN SYMPHONY
Not as the songs of other lands Her song shall beWhere 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 strandsNot as the songs of other lands Her song shall be.
O Southern Singers! Rich and sweet, Like chimes of bells,The cadence swings with rhythmic beat The music swells; But undertones, weird, mournful, strong,Sweep like swift currents thro' the song.In deepest chords, with passion fraught,In softest notes of sweetest thought, This sadness dwells.
Is this her song, so weirdly strange, So mixed with pain,That whereso'er her poets range Is heard the strain?Broods there no spell upon the airBut desolation and despair?No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrudeUpon her mountain solitude Or sun-kissed plain?
The silence and the sunshine creep With soft caressO'er billowy plain and mountain steep And wilderness —A velvet touch, a subtle breath,As sweet as love, as calm as death,On earth, on air, so soft, so fine,Till all the soul a spell divine O'ershadoweth.
The gray gums by the lonely creek, The star-crowned height,The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak, The cold white light,The solitude spread near and farAround the camp-fire's tiny star,The horse-bell's melody remote,The curlew's melancholy note Across the night.
These have their message; yet from these Our songs have thrownO'er all our Austral hills and leas One sombre tone.Whence doth the mournful keynote start?From the pure depths of Nature's heart?Or from the heart of him who singsAnd deems his hand upon the strings Is Nature's own?
Could tints be deeper, skies less dim, More soft and fair,Dappled with milk-white clouds that swim In faintest air? The soft moss sleeps upon the stone,Green scrub-vine traceries enthroneThe dead gray trunks, and boulders red,Roofed by the pine and carpeted With maidenhair.
But far and near, o'er each, o'er all, Above, below,Hangs the great silence like a pall Softer than snow.Not sorrow is the spell it brings,But thoughts of calmer, purer things,Like the sweet touch of hands we love,A woman's tenderness above A fevered brow.
These purple hills, these yellow leas, These forests lone,These mangrove shores, these shimmering seas, This summer zone—Shall they inspire no nobler strainThan songs of bitterness and pain?Strike her wild harp with firmer hand,And send her music thro' the land, With loftier tone!
....
Her song is silence; unto her Its mystery clings.Silence is the interpreter Of deeper things.O for sonorous voice and strongTo change that silence into song!To give that melody releaseWhich sleeps in the deep heart of peace With folded wings!