Poems (Storrie)/A Protest
For works with similar titles, see A Protest.
A Protest.
Oh! ye who blame Australia, Who tauntingly upbraid Her woods for lack of colour, Her trees that cast no shade,
Her birds that know no music, Her flowers without perfume, And the drear and ghastly phantoms That breed amid the gloom
Of spectral forests, gray and wild, Where crawls a shrunken stream, And weird, uncanny creatures Disport, as in a dream.
Oh! ye who draw such pictures, Whose spirits thus recoil, Are aliens! aliens!—Never one Is native to the soil,
For we, thine own, Australia— Bred of thee, blood and bone—We thrill responsive to thy voice, Answer thee tone for tone.
We find no lack of colour Where thy great forests spread Their burnished foliage, crested here With gold, and there with red.
For us the winds are laden With exquisite perfume, Delicate boronia scents, And breath of wattle-bloom.
Spices of white clover, That clusters at our feet, And airs from wild clematis stars Sun-warm and honey-sweet.
Leagues of red epaeris, And aromatic whiffs From myriad creepers blossoming About the broken cliffs.
And we have ears so fashioned That music seems to wake When mopokes, through the scented dusk Their soft indictments make.
Our spirits answer clearly When, liquid as a brook, That bubbles over golden sands, In some fern-fringed nook,
The laughing- jack salutes the dawn With clear and gurgling note, That falls, as if in silver drops, From his impetuous throat.
And parrots whistling cheerily, From green and rustling heights, And curlews wailing, wailing, Through long, quiet, brooding nights.
All speak to us in patois, That love alone imparts, And aliens cannot master The idiom of our hearts.
To us, when in the gloaming The drooping she-oaks sing Their low and plaintive music, What thrilling echoes ring!
What yearnings pent within us, What sweet, yet tragic strains Find voice in these Æolian harps, And tremble through our veins.
For us, the voice that murmurs From out the dark-tressed tree, In silhouette against the faint Sky's twilight mystery,
Is an imprisoned spirit, That whispers to our own Oh! softly, softly! as a dream, That visions the unknown.
For us, where 'mid the boulders, Strewn wide from cliff and scar, A hand's-breadth space of verdure Shines like an emerald star,
And lures a velvet footstep, A lissom form to spring All noiseless from obscurity, And browse, none hindering.
This life has all the beauty Of untamed woodland grace, We feel in it the naivete That permeates the place.
The charm of things unsullied, The luring mystery That lies in an unopened bud, A maiden's modesty.
A phantom thing, impalpable, That words may not reveal, The spirit of Australia That we Australians feel.
What think ye of our sunsets? Where have you ever seen Such crystal depths of amethyst, Such limpid seas of green.
What flower that ever budded On earth's enamelled breast Can match the magic blossom That opens in the west
And over fields of azure Its rosy petals sheds, And those untrodden pathways With golden pollen spreads.
Then fades in lovely pallors, To grays, remote and far, While from its withered calyx Springs up a living star.
Oh! ye who blame Australia, Who find her harsh and crude, And meaningless and gloomy, Oh! have ye never stood
Upon a plain, moon-lighted And limitless as thought, Where winds fall dumb, and languish As in enchantment caught,
Oh! have ye stood—I ask it, And in that silent place, Your soul, alone and naked, Regarded face to face.
Sing your own songs, Oh! aliens, Portray your native scenes, But let Australia's children Tell what Australia means.