Poems (Forrest)/In the ashes

by Mabel Forrest

IN THE ASHES

I found the cold grey ashes of a fire,
 Which these two lit, whom Vengeance followed fast,
 Although the dragging lawyer-vines were cast
To stay the following footsteps—Hate's desire,
 Thirsty to fill with blood its brazen cup,
 And drink the toast of "righteous murder" up!

I found the ashes that such memories keep:
 Tall ironbarks were round them, scored of trunk,
 And here and there a wan bush-flower, drunk
With sun and dew, and falling into sleep,
 Yet murmuring nothing of the vows it heard,
 Though its pale heart was redder by a word.

And overhead a bronzewing in the boughs
 Rippled swift pinions, and a pink galah
 Strutted in seeding grass, yet kept afar
From that grey ring that wed to Life's carouse
 Pursuing Death. The blue smoke o'er the trees
 Betrays no more the rendezvous of these.

With stirless leaves the ironbarks look down,
 Yet they must know that never human tongue
 Can tell of how those lovers kissed and clung,
And how grey eyes struck flame from eyes of brown;
 At least they did not live to see Love pass
 Into a sear of ashes on the grass.

Beneath her hair, they told me, when she lay
 Ready for burial in the small bush inn,
 There was one bullet mark to pay her sin,
Her small white hands were folded. Did she pray?
 After her death? (In life not much, I vow!)
 Pray to the God who would not hear her now.

But he died harder. When I saw her there
 I understood how he would fight for life,
 Although he had no weapon but a knife
With which to parry bullets. She was fair,
 And Death was not an easy thing to choose
 'When there was life—and life with her—to lose!

But they were very quiet when they slept
 On those rough trestles. So we laid them down
 Under the weeping myalls. Then to town
One for the sergeant went. But I—I kept
 Pact with the promptings of a strange desire
 And rode to find their little burned-out fire.

There was a wattle blooming at the edge
 Of that thick timber, and it spilled its gold
 Before my horse's hoofs, as though it told
Of golden reeds that rustle through Life's sedge,
 Making papyrus over which to write
 Record of hours that were all too bright

For mortals living. Death had given them these,
 Ere for himself the price he claimed I know.
 There was some special glory in the glow
Of that small camp-fire shining through the trees,
 And that, ere each crisp twig on it they set
 Often across its warmth their hands had met.

I left my horse, and idly, in the cold
 Of that dull pyre with my gum-switch stirred.
 It was no sob of shattered hopes I heard,
Dead leaf and chip that once were fairy gold!
 No hieroglyph of graves in cinders spelled:
 One quick sweet laugh was all the ashes held!