Greatness
That man is truly great, and he alone
Who venerates, of present things or past
The absolute only,—is the liege of none
Save God and truth; who, awed not by this vast
And shadowy scheme of life, but anchored fast
In love, and sitting central like the sun,
So gives his mental beams to pierce and run
Through all its secrets while his days may last.
While thus progressive, little faith has he
For mysteries, till, sounding them, he hear
The gathered tones of their stirred depths agree
With that religious harmony severe,
Which ever anthems to his spirit’s ear
The hallowing presence of the Deity.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Never Mind
My Country, though rude yet, and wild, be thy nature,
This alone our proud love should beget and command:
There's noon in thy broad breast for Manhood's full stature,
And honest Endeavour's a lord in the land.
And though much of thy bounty, by aliens in feeling
Has been made upon heads the least worthy to fall,
Their reign is nigh past, and the wrong is fast healing,
And they wide arms encircle a home for us all.
And though pygmies high placed in our councils yet fool us,
In our woods there's a Giant upgrowing the while -
The Spirit of Liberty destined to rule us,
And cheer on the world from the great Austral Isle!
poem by Charles Harpur
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Consolation
MINE heart is heavy with an ancient sorrow,
My brain is aching with a clinging grief,
And if I seek to smooth away the furrow
It plougheth in my soul, in the relief
And balminess of Song, the cheat is brief!
One feeling still from which the Past did borrow
Exceeding light, reminds me that the morrow
Must drag me farther from its lost belief.
For solace therefore would I dive with Truth
Into the depths of her remotest lore:
Somewhere in Nature’s motherly breast there’s ruth
Yet for her child though wounded to the core,
Though Life’s first objects may beguile no more
And Misery clothe her with the dreams of youth!
poem by Charles Harpur
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Yes
MY SOUL is raying like a star,
My heart is happier than a bird,
And all to hear through fortune’s jar
One promissory word.
A sound as simple as the low
Quick sliding gurgle of a rill,
And yet with power to overflow
A world with blissful will!
I feel as though the very air
Was breathen from the heart of Love,
As Pleasure in the sun’s bright lair
Sat brooding like a dove!
A billow of the sunny sea,
A cloudlet of the summer sky,
How wide is their felicity—
So widely blest am I!
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
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Regret
There's a regret that from my bosom aye
Wrings forth a dirgy sweetness, like a rain
Of deathward love; that ever in my brain
Uttereth such tones as in some foregone way
Seem gathered from the harmonies that start
Into the dayspring, when some rarest view
Unveileth its Tempèan grace anew
To meet the sun—the great world’s fervent heart.
’Tis that, though living in his tuneful day,
My boyhood might not see the gentle smile,
Nor hear the voice of Shelley; that away
His soul had journeyed, ere I might beguile
In my warm youth, by some fraternal lay,
One thought of his towards this may native isle.
poem by Charles Harpur
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John Heki
Should Switzerland’s rude rocks be held the throne
Of freedom (sanctioned there by God to quell
All proud invaders, Gessler-like o’erthrown!)
Because the echoes in their caves that dwell
Once leaped exultant at the shout of Tell?
And thine, New Zealand, yet be left unknown
To glory, now that thy dark chief hath sown
Broad over them a like memorial spell?
Should Wallace be a word time ne’er may lose?
And Hofer (he who for his mountains died
Rather than see the spoiler there abuse
Freedom’s rock-alter!) Be a sound of pride
Yet Heki’s name remain unglorified
In the grand lore of the heroic muse
poem by Charles Harpur
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A Similitude
FAIR as the night—when all the astral fires
Of heaven are burning in the clear expanse,
My love is; and her eyes like star-depths glance
Lustrous with glowing thoughts and pure desires,
And that mysterious pathos which inspires
All moods divine in mortal passion’s trance—
All that its earthly music doth enhance
As with the rapture of seraphic lyres!
I gaze upon her till the atmosphere
Sweetens intensely, and to my charmed sight
All fair associated forms appear
Swimming in joy, as swim yon orbs in light—
And all sweet sounds, though common to mine ear,
Chime up like silver-wingèd dreams in flight.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Morning
HOW beautiful that earliest burst of light
Which floodeth from the opening eyes of morn,
When like a fairy palace dew-bedight
Bough storying over bough upspreads the thorn,
And sweet the melodies which tow’rd the corn
In tassel, or the orchard these invite,
And that most love-like ever fresh delight
Which breathes of many a bloomy thing new born—
Breathes from vine clumps in the moist dells appearing,
Rich meads and river banks. And cheering then
The voice of cattle to their pasture steering,
And the full speech of fieldward hastening men!—
My very boyhood seems renew’d again
’Mid these delights like a delight careering!
poem by Charles Harpur
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Australia's First Great Poet
HIS lot how glorious whom the must shall name
Her first high-priest in this bright southern clime!
Aglow with light from her aspiring flame,
Catching the raptures of her Grecian prime,
Lifting these later days to heights sublime,
So shall he walk the glorious path of fame;
He boldly quarryeth from nature’s frame
The sculptured marble of his lofty thyme
Enbreathed with beauty; o’er his splendid page
Shall glow his country-women’s lustrous eyes,
And many a future hero’s noble rage
His flame shall kindle; all the brave and wise,
Breathing his influence from age to age,
Shall sound his glory to his native skies.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Sonnet
SHE loves me! From her own bliss-breathing lips
The live confession came, like rich perfume
From crimson petals bursting into bloom!
And still my heart at the remembrance skips
Like a young lion, and my tongue too trips
As drunk with joy! while every object seen
In life’s diurnal round wears in its mien
A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse.
And if the common things of nature now
Are like old faces flushed with new delight,
Much more the consciousness of that rich vow
Deepens the beauteous, and refines the bright,
While throned I seem on love’s divinest height
’Mid all the glories glowing round its brow.
poem by Charles Harpur
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