Recently in Ghosts and Spectres Category

   The clouds closed ashen gray --
   Where the last of sunlight lay
Like a dying ember on a hearth grown chill;
   And the great pines, that were green
   With the west aflame between,
Stood all sable on the sand-ridge -- whispering still.

   There arose not moon or star;
   And the horse bells, tinkling far
In the distant creek-bed, fainter fell and ceased.
   With its crimson bleached to snow
   Burned the camp-fire -- low, and low;
And a rainy gale blew sudden from the East.

   And the sombre serried lines
   Of the vast environing pines
Merged their blackness in the swiftly-gathered gloom.
   And 'twas then, ah then, I heard
   First thy plaintful voice, O bird --
Like the wail of banished ghost at word of doom.

   All a painted scene it seemed --
   While the sunset glowed and gleamed --
When the waning west grew cold. No ominous chill
   Checked the heart-beat steady and strong,
   As some savage-chanted song
Came the curlew's call and woke no boding thrill.

   So I hearkened -- oft and oft,
   For the foot of Fate fell soft;
Gladness, line by line, all moonlike melted slow;
   And the planets quenched and spent
   Yet awhile their lustre lent;   
And the angels poised for flight delayed to go.

First published in The Queenslander, 13 September 1890

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Old Qld Poetry

See also.

"Shut your ears, Stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now --
Shut your ears, Stranger," saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery Runic, when sets the half-moon in!

To-night the North Easter goes travelling slowly --
But it never stoops down to that Hollow unholy --
To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,
But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten!

For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,
And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing!
The wraiths of two Sawyers (STEP UNDER AND UNDER),
Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!

Whenever the Storm Wind comes driven and driving,
Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving --
You may see the Saw heaving, and falling, and heaving,
Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving.

And across a burnt body, as black as an adder,
Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog! -- was ever sight sadder?
For, as the dry thunder splits louder and faster,
This sprite of a sheep-dog howls for his master! --

"Oh! count your beads deftly," saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery Runic, when sets the half-moon in!
And well may she mutter, for the dark, hollow laughter
You will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after!

Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary,
For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary!
Pray for your peace in these perilous places,
And pray for the laying of horrible faces!

One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid,
Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid!
One telleth, with curses the gold that they drew there,
(Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there!

The Stranger, who came from the loved -- the romantic
Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic;
Leaving behind him a patient home, yearning
For the steps in the distance, never returning; --

Who was left in the Forest, shrunken and starkly
Burnt by his slayers; (so men have said, darkly);
With the half crazy sheepdog, who cowered beside there,
And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there!

Yes, cross your breast humbly, and hold your breath tightly;
Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly;
From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too!)
And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to.

I tell you the bushman is braver than most men,
Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen!
Although in that Hollow, unholy and lonely,
He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only!

First published in Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New Engand Advertiser, 16 August 1894;
and later in
The Athenaeum, 17 February 1866;
The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1866;
Leaves from Australian Forests by Henry Kendall, 1869;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1957;
The Poetical Works of Henry Kendall edited by Thomas Thornton Reed, 1966;
Selected Poems of Henry Kendall edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1988; and
Henry Kendall: Poetry, Prose and Selected Correspondence edited by Michael Ackland, 1993.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Spectral faces flit to and fro,
Haunting and wistful and sad to-nigh
Springing up with the afterglow,
Stately forms that onward go,
Gliding, mystic, silent, slow.

Fancied voices, breathing song
Singing weird words to a weird refrain
Singing a fiend's impassioned song,
Singing all night, the whole night long,
Singing dead words of a long dead song.

Rippling mirth, so haunting to-day;
Gruel peals of a girlish voice;
Graveyard laughs that are light and gay
Raising the dreams of that golden May,
Fatal old dream that passed away.  

First published in The Queenslander, 23 July 1898

Author: John Galliard Barker (1865-1941) was born in Brisbane, Queensland and may have been tutored by J. Brunton Stephens as a child.  Little else is known about the author.  He was a cousin of Australian novelist Rosa Praed.

Author reference site: Austlit