Old Melbourne Memories/Ballaarat in 1851
BALLAARAT
A VISION OF GOLD
I see a lone stream, rolling down
Through valleys green, by ranges brown
Of hills that bear no name,
The dawn's full blush in crimson flakes
Is traced on palest blue, as breaks
The morn in Orient flame.
I see—whence comes that eager gaze?
Why rein the steed, in wild amaze?
The water's hue is gold!
Golden its wavelets foam and glide,
Through tenderest green to ocean-tide
The fairy streamlet rolled.
"Forward, 'Hope!' forward! truest steed,
Of tireless hoof and desert speed,
Up the weird water bound,
Till, echoing far and sounding deep,
I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweep
O'er this enchanted ground?"
The sea!—wild fancy! Many a mile
Of changeful Nature's frown and smile
Ere stand we on the shore.
And, yet! that murmur, hoarse and deep,
None save the ocean-surges keep?
It is—"the cradles' roar!"
Onward! we pass the grassy hill,
Around the base the waters still
Shimmer in golden foam;
O wanderer of the voiceless wild,
Of this far southern land the child,
How changed thy quiet home!
For, close as bees in countless hive,
Like emmet hosts that earnest strive,
Swarmed, toiled, a vast, strange crowd:
Haggard each worker's features seem,
Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam,
Nor cry, nor accent loud.
But each man dug, or rocked, or bore,
As if salvation with the ore
Of the mine-monarch lay.
Gold strung each arm to giant might,
Gold flashed before each aching sight,
Gold turned the night to day.
Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom,
And, in his halls of endless doom
Lost souls for ever roam,
They wander (says the Eastern tale),
Nor ever startles moan or wail
Despair's eternal home.
Less silent scarce than that pale host
These toiled, as if each moment lost
Were the red life-drop spilt;
While, heavy, rough, and darkly bright,
In every shape, rolled to the light
Man's hope, and pride, and guilt.
All ranks, all ages! Every land
Had sent its conscripts forth, to stand
In the gold-seekers' rank:
The stalwart bushman's sinewy limb,
The pale-faced son of trade—e'en him
Who knew the fetters' clank......
'Tis night: her jewelled mantle fills
The busy valley, the dun hills,
'Tis a battle host's repose!
A thousand watch-fires redly gleam,
While ceaseless fusillades would seem
To warn approaching foes.
The night is older. On the sward
Stretched, I behold the heavens broad,
When—a Shape rises dim,
Then, clearer, fuller, I descry,
By the swart brow, the star-bright eye,
The Gnome-king's presence grim!
He stands upon a time-worn block;
His dark form shades the snowy rock
As cypress marble tomb:
Nor fierce yet wild and sad his mien,
His cloud-black tresses wave and stream,
His deep tones break the gloom.
"Son of a tribe accursed, of those
Whose greed has broken our repose
Of the long ages dead,
Think ye, for nought our ancient race
Leaves olden haunts, the sacred place
Of toils for ever fled?
"List while I tell of days to come,
When men shall wish the hammers dumb
That ring so ceaseless now;
That every arm were palsy-tied,
Nor ever wet on grey hillside
Was the gold-seeker's brow.
"I see the old world's human tide
Set southward on the ocean wide.
I see a wood of masts,
While crime or want, disease or death,
With each sigh of the north-wind's breath,
He on this fair shore casts.
"I see the murderer's barrel gleam,
I hear the victim's hopeless scream
Ring through these crimeless wastes;
While each base son of elder lands
Each witless dastard, in vast bands
To the gold-city hastes.
"Disease shall claim her ready toll,
Flushed vice and brutal crime the dole
Of life shall ne'er deny;
Danger and death shall stalk your streets,
While staggering idiocy greets
The horror-stricken eye!
"All men shall roll in the gold mire—
The height, the depth of man's desire—
Till come the famine years;
Then all the land shall curse the day
When first they rifled the dull clay,
With deep remorseful tears.
"Fell want shall wake to fearful life
The fettered demons. Civil strife
Rears high a gory hand!
I see a blood-splashed barricade,
While dimly lights the twilight glade
The soldier's flashing brand.
"But thou, son of the forest free!
Thou art not, wert not foe to me,
Frank tamer of the wild!
Thou hast not sought the sunless home
Where darkly delves the toiling Gnome,
The mid-earth's swarthy child.
"Then, be thou ever, as of yore,
A dweller in the woods, and o'er
Fresh plains thy herds shall roam.
Join not the vain and reckless crowd
Who swell the city's pageant proud,
But prize thy forest home."
He said: and, with an eldritch scream,
The Gnome-king vanished—and my dream:
Dawn's waking hour returned;
Yet still the wild tones echoed clear,
For many a day in reason's ear,
And my heart inly burned.