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I came from heights of eternal snow,
And I rode the wind to the vale below;
I bent the pine boughs as I passed
With the angry strength of my icy blast:
I ruffled the surface of the lake
Till a thousand waves with white crests brake;
I tossed the far-off wandering ships,
While children watched me with questioning lips.
Yet what do I care for men's drowning sighs,
Or the yearning grief in the women's eyes?
Tho' they wake the night with their anguished cry,
The Storm King laughs as he rushes by.

First published in The Queenslander, 21 May 1898

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

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O Reader was it ever thine to see
   A battle of the storm and hurricane,
   Waged round the peaks of some huge mountain chain,  
The deadly flash of Heaven's artillery,  
The cannon smoke of squall-clouds luridly  
   Hanging about the vantage points -- the rain
   Pausing, like darkness, ere it drops amain     
To still the combat? Such was deigned to me
   On Mount Victoria's majestic pass;
      The thunder volleyed and thick smoke of cloud
   Enveloped York and mounts of lesser mass,
      Save when the murderous flash of lightning ploughed
   A momentary passage, and the hail
   Swept like a bullet shower before the gale.  
      
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 5 January 1884

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

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Old Drought, Death's dearest champion,
   Walks gauntly o'er the land;
His teeth all white and gleaming,
   His weapons in his hand,
And near and far his war-notes,
   The stifled groans of pain,
Roll slowly to the welkin
   And echo back again.

The dust, his rolling standard,
   Waves high across the runs,
While throbbing thirst and famine,
   His two quick-firing guns,
With callous claim and deadly aim
Put peace and happiness to shame
Till joy is but an empty name,
   And Hope the horror shuns.

See! gloating o'er its suffering,
   With eager, straining eyes,
He stoops above the struggler
   And mocks it as it dies
With visions wild and joyful,
   Till, sure that joy is shown,
With rattle weird and eerie
   He claims it as his own.

Then, sweeping on in laughter,
   He calls; from far and wide
The ghosts of bygone suffering
   Stream in on every side;
And as they come, with moaning hum
Through lips that struggle to be dumb,
He sneers at most, but jests with some
   In very lust of pride.

The skeletons of sorrow
   Beneath his baneful stare,
With weary limbs and aching,
   Are all assembled there,
And, by his mournful music,
   Awakened from their trance,
With heavy feet and listless
   Begin to reel and dance.

With hollow tones and mocking
   He laughs to scorn their dread;
And now his teeth are gleaming
   A bright and smoking red.
The revelry of misery
Sweeps onward in its agony,
Till life itself has ceased to be ---
   The empty earth is dead.

First published in The Queenslander, 12 June 1897

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

What care I what wins the races?
   What care I for falling stock?
What care I for airs and graces
   Of the flappers on the Block?
All my cares have passed away;
   I'm beyond all dull complaining,
For the skies are leaden grey;
   And it's raining, raining, raining!

Plague me with no pleasant duties
   Of this sunny land of ours,
While the country side and cites
   Are athirst for cooling showers.
All my worries now are sped --
   Now that Sovereign Summer's waning;
And five million folk are fed;
   For it's raining! RAINING! RAINING!

First published in the Sun News-Pictorial, 11 May 1927

Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library

See also.

Note: the reference here to "the Block" refers to the Block Arcade in Melbourne at the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets.

This is a tale that the coachman told,
As he flicked the flies from Marigold
And flattered and fondled Pharaoh.
The sun swung low in the western skies;
Out on a plain, just over a rise,
   Stood Nimitybell, on Monaro;
Cold as charity, cold as Hell,
Bleak, bare, barren Nimitybell --
   Nimitybell on Monaro.

"Now this 'ere 'appened in eighty-three,
The coldest winter ever we see;
Strewth, it was cold, as cold as could be
   Out 'ere on Monaro:
It froze the blankets, it froze the fleas,
It froze the sap in the blinkin' trees.
I made a grindstone out of cheese,
   Right 'ere in Monaro!

"Freezin' an' snowin' -- ask the old hands
They seen, they knows, an' they understand
The ploughs was froze, and the cattle brands,
   Down 'ere in Monaro:
It froze our fingers and froze our toes:
I seen a passenger's breath so froze
Icicles 'ung from 'is bloomin' nose
   Long as the tail on Pharaoh!

"I ketched a curlew down by the creek;
His feet was froze to his blessed beak;
'E stayed like that for over a week --
   That's cold on Monaro.
Why, even the air got froze that tight
You'd 'ear the awfullest sounds at night,
When things was put to a fire or light,
   Out 'ere on Monaro.

"For the sounds was froze. At Haydon's Bog
A cove 'e crosscut a big back-log,
An' carted 'er 'ome ('e wants to jog --
   Stiddy, go stiddy there, Pharaoh!).
As soon as his log begins to thaw
They 'ears the sound of the crosscut saw
A-thawin' out. Yes, his name was Law.
   Old hands, them Laws, on Monaro.

"The second week of this 'ere cold snap
I'm drivin' the coach. A Sydney chap,
'E strikes this part o' the bloomin' map,
   A new hand 'ere on Monaro:
'Is name or game I never heard tell,
But 'e gets of at Nimitybell;
Blowin' like Bluey, freezin' like 'ell,
   At Nimitybell on Monaro.

"The drinks was froze, o' course, in the bar:
They breaks a bottle of old Three Star,
An' the barman sezs, 'Now, there y' are,
   You can't beat that for Monaro!'
The stranger bloke, 'e was tall an' thin,
Sez 'Strike me blue, but I think you win;
We'll 'ave another an' I'll turn in --
   It's blitherin' cold on Monaro.'

"'E borrowed a book an' went to bed
To read awhile, so the missus said,
By the candle-light. 'E must ha' read
   (These nights is long on Monaro)
Past closin' time. Then 'e starts an' blows
The candle out: but the wick 'ad froze!
Leastways, that's what folks round 'ere suppose
   Old hands as lived on Monaro.

"So bein' tired, an' a stranger, new
To these mountain ways, they think he threw
'Is coat on the wick; an' maybe, too,
   Any odd clothes 'e'd to spare. Oh,
This ain't no fairy, an' don't you fret!
Next day came warmer, an' set in wet --
There's some out 'ere as can mind it yet,
   The real old 'ands on Monaro.

"The wick must ha' thawed. The fire began
At breakfast time. The neighbors all ran
To save the pub`.....an' forgot the man
   (Stiddy, go stiddy there, mare-oh).
The pub was burned to the blanky ground;
'Is buttons was all they ever found.
The blinkin' cow, 'e owed me a pound --
   From Cooma his blinkin' fare, oh!

"That ain't no fairy, not what I've told;
l'm gettin' shaky an' growin' old,
An' I hope I never again see cold,
   Like that down 'ere 'on Monaro!"

He drives his horses, he drives them well,
And this is the tale he loves to tell
Nearing the town of Nimitybell,
   Nimitybell on Monaro.

First published in The Bulletin, 20 April 1922;
and later in
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964;
The Illustrated History of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, 1984;
My Country: Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, 1985;
Old Ballads from the Bush edited by Bill Scott, 1987;
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, 2007; and
100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, 2008.

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

See also.

Brown autumn turned to spring to-day;
   The little leaves went wild with play;
And, in and out, an August air
Between the March winds shook its hair
   And stole my heart away.

I left my quiet pansy bed,
   And, nodding to each frail, green head,
"I must go far and far from you,
To purple lakes and mountains blue,
   With young, white spring," I said.

I heard her carol merrily,
   "Ah, come with me to some charmed sea!
I know where richer lands than this
Flush sweeter 'neath the sun's red kiss.
   Come, follow, follow me!"

I ran no further than the creek,
   For there I paused, afraid to speak.
The autumn stillness everywhere
Won back my wild heart unaware
   And made me very meek.
 
I turned and sought my plants again,
   My autumn seedlings drenched with rain,
And sang to drown the voice of spring
That whispered in remembering
   Of other lands in vain.

Brown autumn turned to spring to-day,
   And tried to lure my heart away;
But down among the great, green trees
I heard a rush of memories,
   And could not choose but stay.

First published in The Sydney Mail, 14 April 1920

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

See also.

Far up on the height, in the tropical blaze of the noonday,
   Or 'neath shade of the pines and the solitude born of the air,
Where the white wings of birds and throb-notes of melody beat not
   In the motionless verdure of trees or the heat and the glare.

The motionless verdure of trees on the slope of the hill-side
   Throws a pendulous pall o'er the moss-covered boulder and me;
While the glitter of distant inlet my vision entrances,
   And the glint from the foam-flecked waves on the far-away sea.

Sultry the air; no cool breezes blow soft o'er the mountain,
   But the sheen of a shimmering ocean of crystalline light
Floods the peak and the plain. The wide-spreading forest and scrub-land
   Throb with tremulous poise and a lustre that dazzles the sight.

No sough from the moorland, no hum from the flower seeking bee.
   The moorland sere is afar, the last of the blossoms have fled;
The breath of a fiery December has touched them and dried them,
   Drought comes with heat, and flowers and pasture are withered and dead.

Oppressive the air grows, hazy the hills that bound the horizon;
   Mists veil the sky where glint of the sun on the ocean has been;
Mists change to slow-rising torreted ramparts, bodeful of tempest,
   Girding with vapours the sky and veiling with dimness the scene.

Whisperings come from the she-oak, murmurings soft from the pine-tree;
   Moans from the moorland, wails from dark gorges lurking beneath;
Rushes the wind with its garment of cloud-wrack sable and sombre ---
   Sulphurous mantle of vapour hiding the fire in its sheath.

Whisperings low change to wailing, murmurings deepen to moaning;
   There is swaying of branches, screaming of birds, the sudden splash of the rain;
Quivering gleam of the lightning in fitful and tremulous splendour,
   Rumble and crash of thunder, resounding again and again.

Nearer, still nearer the tumult, closer, still closer the roar;
   Surging the contest, baleful the fires that incessantly light
Lurid recesses of Hell, displacing bright mansions of Heaven,
   Or yawning abysses of darkness wrapt in the mantle of night.

Forth bursts the levin-bolt from the blackness above the pine-tops,
   And the aisles of the forest lament as the brave trees bend to their doom,
Mid the dirge of the blast and the roll of the storm fiend's chariot
   As he speeds on his wreck-strewn path through the maze of the glowering gloom.

Placid, tranquil the woodland, chequered with sunshine and shadow;
   Sweet exhalations from flowers are wafted upon the breeze;
The winds intone a paean, telling of freshness and gladness,
   Blent with the anthems of birds and rhythmical cadence of trees.

Fresh is the verdurous pasture, gladsome the ripple of brooklets,
   Purling and babbling the gentle laughter of waters that lave;
Tokens of plenitude vast pouring from bounteous Earth's bosom,
   Earth, fertile mother of fruits, bright blossoms, and branches that wave.

Such is the season of summer, charged with the storm or the drought,
   Fraught with the fate of flowers, green pastures, and cattle, and man:
Send us, beneficent God, abundant all-comforting showers;
   Grant us, O God, in the drear time of drought, release from Thy ban.

First published in The Queenslander, 7 March 1881

Note: the author of this poem is not known.