The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses/Settlers
SETTLERS
If the gods of Hellas do not tread our shaggy mountains,
Stately, white-and-golden, with unfathomable eyes,
Yet the lesser spirits haunt our forests and our fountains,
Seas and green-brown river-pools no thirsty summer dries.
Never through the tangled scrub we see Diana glisten,
Silver-limbed and crescent-crowned and swift to hear and turn,
When the chase is hottest and the woods are waked to listen,
While her maidens follow running knee-deep in the fern.
Of the great gods only Pan walks hourly here—Pan only,
In the warm dark gullies, in the thin clear upland air,
On the windy sea-cliffs and the plains apart and lonely,
By the tingling silence you may know that he is there.
But the sea-nymphs make our shores shine gay with light and laughter,
At the sunset when the waves are mingled milk and fire
You may see them very plain, and in the darkness after
You may hear them singing with the stars' great golden choir.
When the earth is mad with song some blue September morning,
In the grove of myall trees that rustle green and grey,
Through the plumes of trailing leaves hung meet for her adorning,
See a dark-browed Dryad peep and swiftly draw away.
In the deep-cut river beds set thick with moss-grown boulders
Where the wagtails come to drink and balance lest they fall,
You may see the gleaming of a Naiad's slippery shoulders,
And the water sliding cool and quiet over all.
Through the narrow gorges where the flying-foxes muster,
Hanging from the kurrajongs like monstrous magic grapes,
Something spreads a sudden fear that breaks each heavy cluster—
See the furry prick-eared faun that chuckles and escapes!
Marble-smooth and marble-pale the blue gums guard the clearing
Where the winter fern is gold among the silver grass,
And the shy bush creatures watching bright-eyed and unfearing
See the slender Oreads while we unheeding pass.
Wreathed with starry clematis these tread the grassy spaces
When the moon sails up beyond the highest screening tree,
All the forest dances, and the furthest hidden places
Are astir with beauty—but we may not often see.
When came they to harbour here, the shy folk peering, flying?
Long before our coast showed blue to Poncé de León
Pan beheld a vision of an empty kingdom lying
Waiting—and he led them past the seas to claim his own.
Australia.