The Tear
IT WAS a tale of passion that we read—
Of two who loved, not happily, but well!
And evermore her gentle breast did swell
Like a twin-billow,—for her feelings fed
Upon its rhythmic grief—and brimming shed
Such dews of pity as can only fall
From natures full of sweetness, when the pall
Of tragedy o’ershadows them with dread.
Then, as I looked, in her raised eye there stood
A gem more excellent that ever shined
Within my spirit’s transcendental sphere,
And so embalmed its love with an immortal tear.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Outward Bound
Away, away she plunges,
With her white sails o’er her spread,
Like the sheety clouds that gather
On some great hill’s piny head.
Still away she plunges rampant,
Like a lion roused to wrath,
And the late proud wave lies humbled
In the foam-track of her path.
“Yet ho! My gallant sailors,
Wear her head from off the land!
As his steed obeys the Arab,
How she feels the steering hand!
And the deep in her wide dwelling,
Her wild spouse the gipsy wind;
Like a soul from earth departing,
So she leaves the coast behind.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Early Summer
’Tis the early summer season, when the skies are clear and blue;
When wide warm fields are glad with corn as green as ever grew,
And upland growths of wattles engolden all the view.
Oh! Is there conscious joyance in that heven so clearly blue?
And is it a felt happiness that thus comes beating through
Great nature’s mother heart, when the golden year is new?
When the woods are whitened over by the jolly cockatoo,
And swarm with birds as beautiful as ever gladdened through
The shining hours of time when the golden year was new?
poem by Charles Harpur
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How Full of God
How full of God those evening skies,
Arrayed in calmest loveliness;
But ah! To think how many eyes
Are wet with weeping none the less.
Nay, hearts are aching, eyes are wet
The more that they so richly glow,
Since in the past some glory set,
To leave them in the dark of woe.
To leave them dark, and such a tinge
O’er every aftersunset throw,
That it should only seem to fringe
The pall of a dead long ago.
Ah well-a-day! But so it is,
Pale sorrow groaneth everywhere,
And pain and loss we cannot miss;
To think is almost to despair.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Virginal Love
I LOVE him so,
That though his face I ne’er might see,
In the assurance that he so loved me
This heart of mine would glow
With pulses sweeter than the sweetest be
That colder ones can know.
I love him so,
That to my thought ’twere sweet to sleep
Even in death, believing he would keep
With solemn step and slow,
In Sabbath memory my grave and weep
For her who slept below.
I love him so,
That all desires when he is by
Shrink even from the import of a sigh:
As flowers unseen that grow,
Being mute must so remain, as in the sky
Are stars that none may know!
poem by Charles Harpur
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To Mary
WHERE Beauty is smiling
With Love undenied,
Where Gladness is flowing
From Pleasure’s hill-side,
Whatever of charming
I elsewhere may see,
I can turn from it, Mary,
To think upon thee.
When winds of affliction
Blow cold on my rest,
And the pang that will sleep not
Is loud in my breast,
Still however clinging
These troubles may be,
I can turn from them, Mary,
To think upon thee.
When Weariness sleepeth
And Care is at rest,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
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My Political Belief
O LIBERTY, yet build thee an august
And best abode in this most virgin clime;
The Old World yet, power-trampled to the dust,
Hath never known thee in thy perfect prime!
Seeing all Rule which at a given time
Expires not, as reposed in Public Trust,
And thence renewable but by Suffrage, must
Against thee in its nature be a crime!
Seeing that all not privileged to name
Their governors—and more, to govern too,
Choosing or chosen, but live unto thy blame!
That all are slaves in act who may not do
Whate’er is virtuous and in spirit who
Believing aught dare not avow the same!
poem by Charles Harpur
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Eva Gray
PALER, paler, day by day,
Waxeth wordless Eva Gray,
Wasting through the heart away!
How shall those who wish her well,
Lift the shadow erst that fell
Round her from Love’s darken’d spell?
Would they have her feast with Song?
Ah! its voices but prolong
Like far echoes Memory’s wrong.
Would they to beguile her leisure
Sweet reliefs in music measure?
Music dreams of foregone pleasure.
Would they lure her where the spring
Gives the unshadow’d heart to wing
Upward like a bird and sing?
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
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Gray
The loud, apt epithet, applying sure;
The dim-drawn image, artfully obscure;
The perfect stanza, framed of words as choice
And round as pearls, yet liquid to the voice;
A pith of phrase, and musical array
Of numbers;—these are the prime charms of Gray.
The naked majesty and open wonder
Of true sublimity heaped in lines of thunder;
That artless grace wherewith the olden time
Dandled the happy infancy of Rhyme;
That negligent melody which shames the trick
Of wire-drawn verse, and verse-drawn rhetoric:
These in our rich old Bards abound; but these
To Gray were literary heresies.
poem by Charles Harpur
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To My First Born
MY beautiful! For beautiful thou art
To me thy father, as the morning light
Which makes all common objects fresh and bright,
Yea gives them out of the dun void to start
As they were newly fashion’d from the Night!
For long there was a darkness round my heart,
Until thy mother made her life a part
Of mine, to pierce it with Love’s genial might—
The Aurora she and the young Morning thou
Of a new era in my worldly way!
Whence it behoves me heedfully to plough
The future for thy sake and for the vow
That I have made, to make thee (if I may)
A Man right worthy of our Australia.
poem by Charles Harpur
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