I PR 5473 
 S7 A63 
 I Copy 1 
 
 SHMHBffl Hi 
 
 MfaM 
 fliggll 
 
 <'■:;■/ 
 
 ^UBHI 
 
 ■.-■'!- 
 
L ggP£^qgP£^ > C y £gQ5£gi i k ^ ( 5 y k ^ , 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 chap. :.31Lsr/4_7: 
 
 Me// 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
Va 
 
 j 
 
THE BLACK GIN 
 
 j 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHEE POEMS 
 
 u 
 
 Q 
 
 / 
 
 J.^BRUNTON STEPHENS 
 
 Author of" The Godolphin Arabian," &c, 
 
 CHIEFLY REPRINTED FROM THE AUSTRALASIAN." 
 
 GEORGE ROBERTSON 
 
 1873 
 I. 
 
£7 A 63 
 
 MELBOURNE : 
 
 PRINTED BY WALKER, MAY, AND CO., 
 
 9 MACKILLOP STREET. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To a Black Gin . . . . . ' i 
 
 My Chinee Cook ..... 6 
 
 My Other Chinee Cook . . . .11 
 
 A Piccaninny . . . . . 16 
 
 "Big Ben " ...... 21 
 
 Adelaide Ironside ..... 24 
 
 The Dark Companion . . . . .29 
 
 The Southern Cross .... 32 
 
 A Brisbane Reverie . . . . . 36 
 
 A Lost Chance .... .42 
 
 The Squatter's Baccy Famine . . -48 
 
 "My Word !— No Fear" . . . . 51 
 
 The Antipodes . . . . . -53 
 
 Spirit and Star ..... 54 
 
 New Chum and Old Monarch . . . 58 
 
 Off the Track ..... 64 
 
 The Headless Trooper . . . . .66 
 
 King Billy's Skull ..... 78 
 
 Macaulay's New Zealander . . . .90 
 
POEMS 
 
 TO A BLACK GIN. 
 
 DAUGHTER of Eve, draw near— I would behold 
 thee. 
 Good Life ! Could ever arm of man enfold thee ! 
 Did the same Nature that made Phryne mould thee ? 
 
 Come thou to leeward ; for thy balmy presence 
 Savoureth not a whit of itiille-fleurescziice : — 
 My nose is no insentient excrescence. 
 
 Thou art not beautiful, I tell thee plainly, 
 Oh ! thou ungainliest of things ungainly ; 
 Who thinks thee less than hideous doats insanely. 
 
 Most unsesthetical of things terrestrial, 
 Hadst thou indeed an origin celestial ? — 
 Thy lineaments are positively bestial ! 
 

 4c 
 
 TO A BLACK GIN. 
 
 Yet thou my sister art, the clergy tell me ; 
 Though, truth to state, thy brutish looks compel me 
 To hope these parsons merely want to sell me. 
 
 A hundred times and more I've heard and read it ; 
 But if Saint Paul himself came down and said it, 
 Upon my soul I could not give it credit. 
 
 " God's image cut in ebony," says some one ; 
 
 5 Tis to be hoped some day thou may'st become one ; 
 
 The present image is a very rum one. 
 
 Thy face "the human face divine" ! . . . Oh, Moses I 
 Whatever trait divine thy face discloses, 
 Some vile Olympian cross-play pre-supposes. 
 
 Thy nose appeareth but a transverse section : 
 Thy mouth hath no particular direction, — 
 A flabby-rimmed abyss of imperfection. 
 
 Thine eyes are set in bile, thou filthy smoker! 
 The very whites of them are yellow ochre : — 
 "The windows of the soul" ! ! — Another choker. 
 
 Thy skull development mine eye displeases; 
 Thou wilt not suffer much from brain diseases; 
 Thy facial angle forty-five degrees is. 
 
TO A BLACK GIN. 3 
 
 The coarseness of thy tresses is distressing, 
 With grease and raddle firmly coalescing.. 
 I cannot laud thy system of "top-dressing." 
 
 Thy dress is somewhat scant for proper feeling; 
 As is thy flesh, too, — scarce thy bones concealing: 
 Thy calves unquestionably want re-vea/mg. 
 
 Thy mangy skin is hideous with tattooing, 
 And legible with hieroglyphic wooing — 
 Sweet things in art of some fierce lover's doing. 
 
 For thou some lover hast, I bet a guinea, — 
 Some partner in thy fetid ignominy, 
 The raison d'etre of this piccaninny. 
 
 What must he be whose eye thou hast delighted ! 
 His sense of beauty hopelessly benighted ! 
 The canons of his taste how badly sighted ! 
 
 What must his gauge be, if thy features pleased him ? 
 If lordship of such limbs as thine appeased him, 
 It was not "ca/f-love" certainly that seized him. 
 
 And is he amorously sympathetic? 
 
 And doth he kiss thee? . . . Oh my soul prophetic! 
 
 The very notion is a strong emetic ! 
 

 In. 
 
 4 TO A BLACK 
 
 And doth he smooth thine hours with oily talking? 
 
 And take thee conjugally out-a^Walking? 
 
 And crown thy transports with a tom-a-hawking. 
 
 I guess his love and anger are combined so; 
 His passions on thy shoulders are denned so; 
 '•His passages of love" are underlined so. 
 
 Tell me thy name. What?. . Helen? . . . (Oh,(Enone, 
 That name bequeathed to one so foul and bony 
 Avengeth well thy ruptured matrimony!) 
 
 Eve's daughter! with that skull! and that complexion? 
 
 What principle of "Natural Selection" 
 
 Gave thee with Eve the most remote connection? 
 
 Sister of L. E. L. . . . of Mrs. Stowe, too ! 
 Of E. B. Browning ! Harriet Martineau, too ! 
 Do theologians know where fibbers go to? 
 
 Of dear George Eliot, whom I worship daily ! 
 Of Charlotte Bronte! and Joanna Baillie! — 
 Methinks that theory is rather "scaly." 
 
 Thy primal parents came a period later — 
 The handiwork of SDme vile imitator; 
 I fear they had the devil's imprimatur. 
 
TO A BLACK GIN. 5 
 
 This in the retrospect. — Now, what's before thee? 
 The white man's heaven, I fear, would simply bore thee ; 
 Ten minutes of doxology would floor thee. 
 
 Thy Paradise should be some land of Goshen, 
 Where appetite should be thy sole devotion, 
 And surfeit be the climax of emotion; — 
 
 A land of Bunya-bunyas towering splendid, — 
 Of honey-bags on every tree suspended, — 
 A Paradise of sleep and riot blended; — 
 
 Of tons of 'baccy, and tons more to follow, — 
 Of wallaby as much as thou could st swallow, — 
 Of hollow trees, with 'possums in the hollow; — 
 
 There, undismayed by frost, or flood, or thunder, 
 As joyous as the skies thou roamest under, 
 There shouldst thou .... Cooey ! . . Stop ! She's off 
 . . . No wonder. 
 
MY CHINEE COOK. 
 
 THEY who say the bush is dull are not so very far 
 astray, 
 For this eucalyptic cloisterdom is anything but gay ; 
 But its uneventful dulness I contentedly could brook, 
 If I only could get back my lost, lamented Chinee cook. 
 
 We had tried them without number — cooks, to wit — 
 
 my wife and I ; 
 One a week, then three a fortnight, as my wife can 
 
 testify ; 
 But at last we got the right one ; I may say 'twas by a 
 
 fluke, 
 For he dropped in miscellaneous-like, that handy 
 
 Chinee cook. 
 
 He found the kitchen empty, laid his swag down, and 
 
 commenced ; 
 My wife, surprised, found nothing to say anything 
 
 against : 
 But she asked him for how much a year the work he 
 
 undertook — 
 "Me workee for me ration,"said that noble Chinee cook. 
 
MY CHINEE COOK. 7 
 
 Then right off from next to nothing such a dinner he 
 prepared, 
 
 That the Governor I'm certain less luxuriously- 
 fared ; 
 
 And he waited, too, in spotless white, with such 
 respectful look, 
 
 And bowed his head when grace was said, that pious 
 Chinee cook. 
 
 He did the work of man and maid — made beds and 
 swept out rooms ; 
 
 Nor cooled he in his zeal, as is the manner of new 
 brooms : 
 
 Oh, he shed celestial brightness on the most seques- 
 tered nook, 
 
 For his mop and pail were everywhere — my cleanly 
 Chinee cook. 
 
 We got fat upon his cooking ; we were happy in 
 
 those days, 
 For he tickled up our palates in a thousand pleasant 
 
 ways. 
 Oh his dinners ! Oh his dinners ! they were fit for any 
 
 duke ! 
 Oh delectable Mongolian ! Oh celestial Chinee 
 
 cook ! 
 
8 MY CHINEE COOK. 
 
 There was nothing in creation that he didn't put to 
 use, 
 
 And the less he got to cook with, all the more he could 
 produce. 
 
 All nature was his kitchen range, likewise his cook'ry 
 book — 
 
 Neither Soyer nor Meg Dod could teach that know- 
 ing Chinee cook. 
 
 And day by day upon my wife and me the mystery 
 
 grew, 
 How his virtues were so many and his earnings were 
 
 so few ; 
 And we laid our heads together to find out by hook 
 
 or crook, 
 The secret of the cheapness of that priceless Chinee 
 
 cook. 
 
 And still the sense of mystery grew on us day by 
 
 day, 
 Till it came to be a trouble, and we wished him well 
 
 away ; 
 But we could not find a fault in one so far above 
 
 rebuke — 
 Ah, we didn't know the value of that valuable 
 
 cook. 
 

 MY CHINEE COOK. 9 
 
 But one day when I was out he brought my wife a lot 
 
 of things, 
 Turquoise earrings, opal bracelets, ruby brooches, 
 
 diamond rings, 
 And he ran their various prices o'er as glibly as a 
 
 book, 
 And dirt cheap, too, were the jewels of that jewel of a 
 
 cook. 
 
 I returned, and just in time to stop the purchase of the 
 
 lot, 
 And to ask him where on earth those costly jewels he 
 
 had got, 
 And when I looked him in the face, good gracious 
 
 how he shook ! 
 And he says, says he, " Me bought him " — did that 
 
 trembling Chinee cook. 
 
 And I a justice of the peace ! Oh Fortune ! how un- 
 kind ! 
 
 For a certain Sydney robbery came rushing to my 
 mind. 
 
 " You bought them ! Ah, I fear me, John, you paid 
 them with a hook ! 
 
 I am bound to apprehend you, oh unhappy Chinee 
 cook !" 
 
IO MY CHINEE COOK. 
 
 So the mystery was solved at length ; the secret now 
 
 we saw ; 
 John had used us as a refuge from the clutches of the 
 
 law ; 
 And now, alas, too late would I his frailty 
 
 overlook ! 
 He is gone, and I am left without my skilful Chinee 
 
 cook. 
 
 Oh, could I taste again of those delicious luscious 
 
 things, 
 I could pardon him the robbery of other people's 
 
 I exaggerated principle, my duty I mistook, 
 
 When I handed over to the law my peerless Chinee 
 cook. 
 
 What would I give just now for one of his superb 
 ragouts, 
 
 His entremets, his entrees, his incomparable 
 stews ; 
 
 Oh, art and taste and piquancy my happy board for- 
 sook, 
 
 When I came the J. P. over my lamented Chinee 
 cook. 
 
MY CHINEE COOK. II 
 
 Take away the hated letters. 'Twas my " justice " 
 robbed my " peace " ; 
 
 Take my name from the commission, and my match- 
 less cook release. 
 
 But I fear my Johnny's dead, for I am haunted by a 
 spook, 
 
 With oblique eyes and a pigtail, like my lost, my 
 Chinee cook. 
 
 MY OTHER CHINEE COOK. 
 
 YES, I got another Johnny; but he was to Number 
 One 
 As a Satyr to Hyperion, as a rushlight to the sun; 
 He was lazy, he was cheeky, he was dirty, he was sly, 
 But he had a single virtue, and its name was rabbit pie. 
 
 Now those who say the bush is dull are not so far 
 
 astray, 
 For the neutral tints of station life are anything but 
 
 gay; 
 
 But, with all its uneventfulness, I solemnly deny 
 That the bush is unendurable along with rabbit pie. 
 
12 MY OTHER CHINEE COOK. 
 
 We had fixed one day to sack him, and agreed to moot 
 
 the point 
 When my lad should bring our usual regale of cindered 
 
 joint, 
 But instead of cindered joint we saw and smelt, my 
 
 wife and I, 
 Such a lovely, such a beautiful, oh! such a rabbit 
 
 pie! 
 
 There was quite a new expression on his lemon- 
 coloured face, 
 
 And the unexpected odour won him temporary 
 grace, 
 
 For we tacitly postponed the sacking-point till by-and- 
 bye, 
 
 And we tacitly said nothing save the one word "rabbit 
 pie ! " 
 
 I had learned that pleasant mystery should simply be 
 
 endured, 
 And forbore to ask of Johnny where the rabbits were 
 
 procured; 
 I had learned from Number One to stand aloof from 
 
 how and why, 
 And I threw myself upon the simple fact of rabbit 
 
 pie. 
 
MY OTHER CHINEE COOK. 13 
 
 And when the pie was opened, what a picture did we 
 
 see! 
 They lay in beauty side by side, they filled our home 
 
 with glee ! 
 How excellent, how succulent, back, neck, and leg, 
 
 and thigh ! 
 What a noble gift is manhood! What a trust is rabbit 
 
 pie! 
 
 For a week the thing continued, rabbit pie from day to 
 
 day; 
 Though where he got the rabbits John would ne'er 
 
 vouchsafe to say; 
 But we never seemed to tire of them, and daily could 
 
 descry 
 Subtle shades of new delight in each successive rabbit 
 
 pie. 
 
 Sunday came; by rabbit reckoning, the seventh day of 
 
 the week; 
 We had dined, we sat in silence, both our hearts (?) too 
 
 full to speak; 
 When in walks Cousin George, and, with a sniff, says 
 
 he, "Oh my! 
 What a savoury suggestion! what a smell of rabbit 
 
 pie !" 
 
14 MY OTHER CHINEE COOK. 
 
 " Oh, why so late, George?" says my wife, "the rabbit 
 
 pie is gone; 
 But you must have one for tea though. Ring the bell, 
 
 my dear, for John." 
 So I rang the bell for John, to whom my wife did 
 
 signify, 
 "Let us have an early tea, John, and another rabbit 
 
 pie." 
 
 But John seemed taken quite aback, and shook his 
 
 funny head, 
 And uttered words I comprehended no more than the 
 
 dead; 
 "Go, do as you are bid," I cried, "we wait for no 
 
 reply; 
 Go ! let us have tea early, and another rabbit 
 
 pie!" 
 
 • 
 Oh, that I had stopped his answer ! But it came out 
 
 with a run : 
 "Last-a week-a plenty puppy; this-a week-a puppy 
 
 done!" 
 Just then my wife, my love, my life, the apple of mine 
 
 eye, 
 Was seized with what seemed "mal-de-mer," — "sick 
 
 transit" rabbit pie! 
 
MY OTHER CHINEE COOK. 1 5 
 
 And George! By George, he laughed, and then he 
 
 howled like any bear ! 
 The while my wife contorted like a mad "convulsion- 
 
 naire;" 
 And I — I rushed on Johnny, and I smote him hip and 
 
 thigh, 
 And I never saw him more, nor tasted more of rabbit 
 
 pie. 
 
 And the childless mothers met me, as I kicked him 
 
 from the door, 
 With loud maternal wailings and anathemas galore; 
 I must part with pretty Tiny, I must part with little 
 
 Fly, 
 For I'm sure they know the story of the so-called 
 
 "rabbit pie." 
 
A PICCANINNY. 
 
 LO by the " humpy " door, a smockless Venus ! 
 Unblushing bronze, she shrinks not, having 
 seen us, 
 Though there is nought but short couch-grass between 
 us. 
 
 She hath no polonaise, no Dolly Varden ; 
 Yet turns she not away, nor asketh pardon; 
 Fact is, she doesn't care a copper "farden." 
 
 Ah yet, her age her reputation spareth ; 
 At three years old pert Venus little careth, 
 She puts her hand upon her hip and stareth ; 
 
 All unabashed, unhaberdashed, unheeding, 
 
 No Medicean, charmingly receding, 
 
 But quite unconscious of improper breeding. 
 
 Tis well ; it smacks of Eden ere came sin in, 
 Or any rag of consciousness or linen, 
 Or anything that one could stick a pin in. 
 
A PICCANINNY. I 7 
 
 Could boundaries be neater ? posture meeter ? 
 Could bronze antique or terra cotta beat her ? 
 Saw ever artist any thing completer ? 
 
 A shade protuberant, beyond contesting, 
 Where this day's 'possum is just now digesting, 
 But otherwise, all over interesting; 
 
 Trim without trimming, furbelow, or bow on ; 
 Was ever sable skin with such a glow on ? 
 So darkly soft, so softly sleek, and — so on ? 
 
 Did ever fingers scratch a head so woolly ? 
 Took ever child the outer world so coolly, 
 Though Fahrenheit's at ninety-seven fully ? 
 
 Was ever known so dark, so bright an iris. 
 Where sleep of light, but never play of fire is — 
 Where not a soupcon of a wild desire is ? 
 
 Oh swarthy statuette ! hast thou no notion 
 That life is fire and war and wild commotion ? 
 A burning: bush, a chafed and rasrin^ ocean ? 
 
 ■"6" 
 
 Hast thou no questioning of what's before thee ? 
 Of who shall envy thee, or who adore thee ? 
 Or whose the jealous weapon that shall score thee ? 
 
 3 
 
1& A PICCANINNY. 
 
 Hast thou no faint prevision of disaster — 
 
 Of dark abduction from thy lord and master— 
 
 Of aliens fleeing, kindred following faster ? 
 
 No faint forehearing of the waddies banging, 
 Of club and heelaman together clanging, 
 War shouts, and universal boomeranging ? 
 
 And thou the bone of all the fierce contention — 
 The direful spring of broken-nosed dissension — 
 A Helen in the nigger apprehension ? 
 
 Nay, my black tulip, I congratulate thee, 
 
 Thou canst not guess the troubles that await thee, 
 
 Nor carest who shall love or who shall hate thee : 
 
 Recking as little of the human passions 
 
 As of the very latest Paris fashions, 
 
 And soaring not beyond thy daily rations ! 
 
 Die young, for mercy's sake ! If thou grow older, 
 Thou shalt grow lean at calf and sharp at shoulder, 
 And daily greedier and daily bolder ; 
 
 A pipe between thy savage grinders thrusting, 
 For rum and everlasting 'baccy lusting, 
 And altogether filthy and disgusting. 
 
A PICCANINNY. 1 9 
 
 Just such another as the dam that bore thee — 
 That haggard Sycorax now bending o'er thee ! 
 Die young, my sable pippin, I implore thee ! 
 
 Why shouldst thou live to know deterioration ? 
 
 To walk, a spectre of emaciation ? 
 
 To grow, like that, all over corrugation ? 
 
 A trifle miscellaneous like her, too, 
 
 An object not " de luxe " and not " de vertu " — 
 
 A being odious even to refer to ? 
 
 Her childhood, too, like thine, was soft and tender ; 
 Her womanhood hath nought to recommend her ; 
 At thirty she is not of any gender. 
 
 Oh, dusky fondling, let the warning teach thee ! 
 Through muddiest brain-pulp may the lesson reach thee! 
 Oh, die of something fatal, I beseech thee ! 
 
 While yet thou wear'st the crown of morning graces, 
 While yet the touch of dawn upon thy face is — 
 Back, little nigger, to the night's embraces ! 
 
 Hope nought : each year some new defect discloses ; 
 As sure as o'er thy mouth thy little nose is, 
 Thy only hope is in metempsychosis. 
 
20 A PICCANINNY. 
 
 Who knows but after some few short gradations, 
 
 After a brace or so of generations, 
 
 We two may have exchanged our hues and stations ? 
 
 Methinks I see thee suddenly grow bigger, 
 White in the face, and stately in the figure, 
 And I a miserable little nigger ! 
 
 Should this be thus — oh come not moralising ! 
 Approach not thou my humpy poetising ! 
 Spare thine Iambics and apostrophising ! 
 
 Let subtle nature, if it suit her, black me, 
 Let vesture lack me, bigger niggers whack me, 
 Let hunger rack me, let disaster track me, 
 And anguish hoist me to her highest acme — 
 
 Let me bear all thine incidental curses, 
 Nor share the smallest of thy scanty mercies, 
 But put me not — oh, put me not in verses ! 
 
 She grins. She heedeth not advice or warning, 
 
 Alike philosophy and triplets scorning. 
 
 Adieu, then. Fare thee welL Ta-ta. Good morning". 
 
"BIG BEN." 
 Died at Yaamba Creek, July, 1872. 
 
 DE mortuis nil ni- 
 Si bonum : R.I.P. :— 
 
 No more upbraid him : — 
 Nay, rather plead his cause, 
 For Ben exactly was 
 
 What Nature made him. 
 
 Not radically bad, 
 He naturally had 
 
 No leaning sinwards ; 
 But Nature saw it good 
 One life-long crave for food 
 
 Should rack his inwards. 
 
 According to his lights, 
 And to the appetites 
 
 In him implanted, 
 He did his level best 
 To feed — and all the rest 
 
 He took for granted. 
 
" BIG BEN/ 
 
 Ere birth he was laid low, 
 And yet no man I know 
 
 For high birth matched him 
 Apollo was his sire, 
 Who with life-giving fire 
 
 Ab ovo hatched him. 
 
 Just over Capricorn 
 
 This same Big Ben was born, 
 
 A feeble lizard; 
 But with the years came strength, 
 And twenty feet of length — 
 
 The most part gizzard. 
 
 By Fitzroy's rugged crags, 
 Its " sawyers" and its snags, 
 
 He roamed piscivorous; 
 Or watching for his prey, 
 By Yaamba creek he lay, 
 
 In mood carnivorous. 
 
 Unthinking little hogs, 
 And careless puppy-dogs 
 
 Fitzroy-ward straying, 
 
 Were grist unto his mill 
 
 His grinders now are still, 
 
 Himself past preying. 
 
" BIG BEN." 
 
 Whether in self-defence, 
 Or out of hate prepense, 
 
 Or just for fun shot, 
 Are things beyond my ken — 
 I only know Big Ben 
 
 Died of a gunshot. 
 
 It was a sorry case; 
 
 For Ben loved all our race, 
 
 Both saint and sinner; 
 If he had had his way, 
 He would have brought each day 
 
 One home to dinner: — 
 
 Loved with that longing love, 
 Such as is felt above 
 
 The Southern Tropic: — 
 Small chance was ever his, 
 But his proclivities 
 
 Were philanthropic. 
 
 There are who would insist 
 He was misogynist, — 
 
 Tis slander horrid; 
 For every nymph he saw, 
 He would have liked her — raw, 
 
 From toe to forehead. 
 
24 " BIG BEN." 
 
 Then let his memory be; 
 No misanthrope was he; 
 
 No woman-hater; 
 But just what you may call, 
 Take him for all in all, 
 
 An tf//igator. 
 
 ADELAIDE IRONSIDE. 
 
 (Australian Painter. Born at Sydney, November 17. 
 1831. Died at Rome, April 15, 1867.) 
 
 [guardian angel.] 
 
 KNO WEST thou now, Oh Love ! Oh pure from 
 the death of thy summer of sweetness ! 
 Seest thou now, Oh new-born Delight of the 
 Ransomed and Free ! 
 We have gathered the flower for the fruit; we have 
 hastened the hour of thy meetness ; 
 For thou wert sealed unto us, and thine Angel hath 
 waited for thee. 
 
ADELAIDE IRONSIDE. 25 
 
 Not in disdain, Oh Love ! Oh Sweet ! of desires that 
 are earthly and mortal, 
 Not in the scorn of thine Art, whose beginning and 
 end is Divine, 
 So soon have we borne thee asleep through the glow 
 of the uttermost portal, 
 But in the ruth of high souls that have travailed 
 with longings like thine. 
 
 Nothing is lost, Oh Love ! Oh mine ! and thy seem- 
 ingly broken endeavour 
 Here re-appeareth, transfigured as thou ; yet the 
 Art of thy youth ; 
 And the light of the Spirit of Beauty is on it for ever 
 and ever ; 
 For Art is the garment of Praise, and the broidered 
 apparel of Truth. 
 
 Seest thou now, Oh Love ! how Art, in a way to mor- 
 tality nameless 
 Liveth again, soul informed, love sustained, self com- 
 pleting, for aye ? 
 How thy heart's purpose was good, and the dream of 
 thy maidenhood blameless, — 
 How thy fair dawn is fulfilled in the light of ineffable 
 day? 
 
26 ADELAIDE IRONSIDE. 
 
 Seest thou now, Oh Love ! Oh Fair ! how the high 
 spirit-life is Art regnant — 
 Art become bliss, and harmonious response to the 
 Infinite Will? 
 Fused and transfused into Love, with the germs of 
 eternity pregnant — 
 Crowned as the law of the beauty of Holiness ; 
 throned, yet Art still ? 
 
 Not then in vain, Oh Love ! thy dawn, nor the dream 
 of thy holy ambition ; 
 Never a trace of thy finger hath witnessed for Beauty 
 in vain ; 
 In the bloom of the noon of thine ardour thy soul 
 became fair for fruition ; 
 We have smitten the green into gold but to spare 
 thee the harvest of pain. 
 
 Nothing that came from thy hand, Oh Love, made 
 void, cut off, evanescent, — 
 From the infantile essay that strove with the 
 weapon of outline alone, 
 To the Angels thou lovedst to pourtray with luminous 
 plumes iridescent, 
 Till thy soul drew so near unto us that we took thee 
 for one of our own. 
 
ADELAIDE IRONSIDE. 27 
 
 Now may'st thou trace, Oh Heart ! Sweet Heart ! from 
 on high all the way I have led thee, 
 From the youth of a world in the Seas of the South 
 to unperishing Rome ; 
 For the lure of thy following soul was the sheen of my 
 wings that o'erspread thee, 
 Flushing with reflex of glory the path of thy pilgrim- 
 age — home. 
 
 By the way of the age of the world I have chosen to 
 lead thee to glory ; 
 Of the wine of the might of the world have I given 
 thee to drink ere thou slept ; 
 Where the Masters have walked I have laid thee, en- 
 sphered with the darlings of story ; 
 I have waked thee a perfected spirit ; matured, 
 yet thine innocence kept. 
 
 There, too, I led thee to feed thee with prescience and 
 keen intimation 
 Of the art-adjuvant Grace that hath given thee, a 
 love-gift, to me ; 
 By the work of my hands did I wake in thee foretaste 
 of Transfiguration, — 
 For thine Angel once wrought upon earth as thou ; 
 and his work thou did'st see. 
 
2% ADELAIDE IRONSIDE. 
 
 Now is thy spirit, Oh Love ; in mine. In thy heart I 
 behold thou dost know me. 
 I looked for thy glad recognition ; no converse of 
 aliens is this ; 
 Oft when thy longings went upward, thy soul, like a 
 mirror below me, 
 Caught my own loveliest visions in shapes of Elysian 
 bliss. 
 
 Name me not now, Oh Love ! Oh mine ! for the name 
 of my days of way-faring 
 Still hath the note of a fevered desire, and an echo 
 of pain. 
 Come thou, Oh Gift of long hope, to the home of 
 thine Angel's preparing ; 
 There I shall show thee the mercy of God, and the 
 things that remain. 
 
THE DARK COMPANION. 
 
 THERE is an orb that mocked the lore of sages 
 Long time with mystery of strange unrest ; 
 The steadfast law that rounds the starry ages 
 Gave doubtful token of supreme behest. 
 
 But they who knew the ways of God unchanging, 
 Concluded some far influence unseen — 
 
 Some kindred sphere through viewless ethers ranging, 
 Whose strong persuasions spanned the void between. 
 
 And knowing it alone through perturbation 
 
 And vague disquiet of another star, 
 They named it till the day of revelation, 
 
 " The Dark Companion " — darkly guessed afar. 
 
 But when through new perfection of appliance, 
 Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, 
 
 The mystic mover was revealed to science, 
 No Dark Companion, but — a speck of light. 
 
30 THE DARK COMPANION. 
 
 No Dark Companion, but a sun of glory ; 
 
 No fell disturber, but a bright compeer ; 
 The shining complement that crowned the story ; 
 
 The golden link that made the meaning clear. 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us, 
 Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways, 
 
 Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us, 
 Disquieting all the tenor of our days — 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces 
 O'ertake remotest change of clime and skies — 
 
 Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces 
 Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise — 
 
 Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing, 
 The clearer day shall change our faith to sight, 
 
 Shalt show thyself in that supreme revealing 
 No Dark Companion, but a thing of light. 
 
 No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order ; 
 
 No alien heart of discord and caprice ; 
 A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border ; 
 
 A kindred element of law and peace. 
 
THE DARK COMPANION. 3 1 
 
 So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling, 
 The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth, 
 
 Are but thy magnet-communings compelling 
 Our spirits farther from the scope of earth. 
 
 So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving, 
 Tis that thou leadst us by a path unknown, 
 
 Our seeming deviations all subserving 
 
 The perfect orbit round the central throne. 
 
 The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round 
 me. 
 
 The loved who live — ah, God ! how few they are ! 
 I looked above ; and Heaven in mercy found me 
 
 This parable of comfort in a star. 
 
THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 
 
 (A Frustration.) 
 
 FOUR stars on Night's brow, or Night's bosom,. 
 Whichever the reader prefers ; 
 Or Night without either may do some, 
 
 Each one to his taste or to hers. 
 Four stars — to continue inditing, 
 So long as I feel in the vein — 
 Hullo ! what the deuce is that biting ? 
 
 Mosquitos again ! 
 
 Oh glories not gilded but golden, 
 
 Oh daughters of Night unexcelled, 
 By the sons of the north unbeholden, 
 
 By our sons (if we have them) beheld ; 
 Oh jewels the midnight enriching, 
 
 Oh four which are double of twain ! 
 Oh mystical — bother the itching ! 
 
 Mosquitos again t 
 
THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 33 
 
 You alone I can anchor my eye on, 
 
 Of you and you only I'll write : 
 And I now look awry on Orion, 
 
 That once was my chiefest delight. 
 Ye exalt me high over the petty 
 
 Conditions of pleasure and pain — 
 Oh Heaven 1 Here are these maladetti 
 
 Mosquitos again ! 
 
 The poet should ever be placid. 
 
 Oh vex not his soul or his skin ! 
 Shall I stink them with carbolic acid ? 
 
 It is done and afresh I begin. 
 Lucid orbs ! — that last sting very sore is ; 
 
 I am fain to leave off, I am fain \ 
 It has given me uncommon dolores — 
 
 The Latin for pain. 
 
 Not quite what the shape of a cross is — 
 
 A little lop-sided, I own — 
 Confound your infernal proboscis, 
 Inserted well nigh to the bone ! 
 Queen-lights of the heights of high heaven, 
 
 Ensconced in the crystal inane — 
 Oh me, here are seventy times seven 
 
 Mosquitos again 1 
 4 
 
34 THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 
 
 Oh horns of a mighty trapezium ! 
 
 Quadrilateral area, hail ! 
 Oh bright is the light of magnesium ! 
 
 Oh hang them all, female and male ! 
 At the end of an hour of their stinging, 
 
 What shall rest of me then, what remain ? 
 I shall die as the swan dieth, singing, 
 
 Mosquitos again ! 
 
 Shock keen as the stroke of the leven ! 
 
 They sting, and I change in a flash 
 From the peace and the poppies of heaven 
 
 To the flame and the firewood of — dash ! 
 Oh Cross of the South, I forgot you ! 
 
 These demons have addled my brain. 
 Once more I look upward. . . Od rot you ! 
 
 You're at it again ! 
 
 There ! stick in your pitiless brad-awl, 
 And do your malevolent worst ! 
 
 Dine on me and when you have had all, 
 Let others go in for a burst ! 
 
 Oh silent and pure constellation, 
 Can you pardon my fretful refrain ? 
 
 Forgive, oh forgive my vexation — 
 
 They're at it again ! 
 
THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 35 
 
 Oh imps that provoke to mad laughter, 
 Winged fiends that are fed from my brow, 
 
 Bite hard ! let your neighbours come after, 
 And sting where ye stung me just now ! 
 
 Red brands on it smitten and bitten, 
 Round blotches I rub at in vain ! 
 
 Oh Crux ! whatsoever Fve written, 
 
 IVe written in pain. 
 
 Ye chrysolite crystalline creatures, 
 
 Wan watchers the fairest afield, 
 Stars — and garters, are these my own features 
 
 In the merciless mirror revealed ! 
 They are mine, even mine, and none other, 
 
 And my hands how they slacken and strain ! 
 Oh my sister, my spouse, and my mother ! 
 
 I'm going insane ! 
 
A BRISBANE REVERIE. 
 
 March, 1873. 
 
 AS I sit beside my little study window, looking 
 down 
 From the heights of contemplation (attic front) upon 
 
 the town — ■ 
 (Attic front, per week — with board, of course — a sove- 
 reign and a crown) ; — 
 
 As I sit — (these sad digressions, though, are much to 
 
 be deplored) — 
 In my lonely little attic — (it is all I can afford ; 
 And I should have mentioned, washing not included 
 
 in the board) ; — 
 
 As I sit — (these wild parentheses my very soul ab- 
 hors) — 
 
 High above the ills of life, its petty rumours, paltry 
 wars — 
 
 (The attic back is cheaper, but it wants a chest of 
 drawers) ; — 
 
A BRISBANE REVERIE. 37 
 
 In the purpling light of half-past six before the stars 
 
 are met, 
 While the stricken sun clings fondly to his royal • 
 
 mantle yet, 
 Dying glorious on the hill-tops in reluctant 
 
 violet, — 
 
 Just the time that favours vision, blissful moments 
 
 that unbar 
 The inner sight (assisted by a very mild cigar), ^ 
 To behold the things that are not, side by side with 
 
 those that are, — 
 
 Just the very light and very time that suit the bard's 
 
 complaint, 
 When through present, past, and future, roams his soul 
 
 without restraint — 
 When no clearer are the things that are than are the 
 
 things that ain't ; — 
 
 With a dual apperception, metaphysical, profound, 
 Past and present running parallel, I scan the scene 
 
 around — 
 (Were there two of us the attic front would only be a 
 
 pound). — 
 

 38 A BRISBANE REVERIE. 
 
 Beneath mine eyes the buried past arises from the- 
 
 tomb, 
 Not cadaverous or ghostly, but in all its living - 
 
 bloom — 
 (I would rather pay the odds than have a partner in 
 
 my room). 
 
 How the complex now contrasteth with the elemental 
 
 the?i I 
 Tide of change outflowing flow of ink, outstripping 
 
 ' : stride of pen ! 
 (Unless it were, .... but no ... . they only take in 
 
 single men). 
 
 Where trackless wilderness lay wide, a hundred ages 
 through — 
 
 I can see a man with papers, from my attic point of 
 view, 
 
 Who for gathering house-assessments gets a very de- 
 cent screw. 
 
 Where forest-contiguity assuaged the summer heats, 
 It is now an argued question, when the City Council 
 
 meets, 
 If we mightn't buy a tree or two to shade the glaring 
 
 streets. 
 
A BRISBANE REVERIE. 39 
 
 Where no sound announced the flight of time, not 
 
 even crow of cock, 
 I can see the gun that stuns the town with monitory 
 
 shock, 
 And a son of that same weapon hired to shoot at 
 
 i o'clock. 
 
 Where the kangaroo gave hops, the "old man" fleetest 
 
 of the fleet, 
 Mrs. Pursy gives a "hop" to-night to all the town's 
 
 elite, 
 But her " old man " cannot hop because of bunions on 
 
 his feet. 
 
 Where the emu, "at its own sweet will," went wander- 
 ing all the day, 
 
 And left its bill-prints on whatever came handy in its 
 way, 
 
 There are printed bills that advertise " The Emu for 
 the Bay." 
 
 Where of old with awful mysteries and diabolic 
 
 din, 
 They "kippered" adolescents in the presence of their 
 
 kin, 
 There's a grocer selling herrings kippered, half-a-crown 
 
 per tin. 
 
40 A BRISBANE REVERIE. 
 
 Where the savage only used his club to supplement 
 
 his fist, 
 The white man uses his for friendly intercourse and 
 
 whist, 
 Not to mention sherry, port, bordeaux, et cetera — see 
 
 list. 
 
 Where dress was at a discount, or at most a modest 
 "fall/' 
 
 Rise " Criterion," " Cosmopolitan," and " City Cloth- 
 ing Hall," 
 
 And neither men nor women count for much — the 
 dress is all. 
 
 Where a bride's trousseau consisted of an extra coat of 
 
 grease, 
 And Nature gave the pair a suit of glossy black 
 
 apiece, 
 Now the matrimonial outfit is a perfect golden 
 
 fleece. 
 
 Where lorn widows wore the knee-joints of the late 
 
 lamented dead, 
 We have dashing wives who wear their living husbands' 
 
 joints instead — 
 Yea, their vitals, for embellishment of bosom, neck, 
 
 and head. 
 
A BRISBANE REVERIE. 41 
 
 Where the blacks, ignoring livers, lived according to 
 
 their wills, 
 Nor knew that flesh is heir to quite a lexicon of 
 
 ills, 
 Five white chemists in one street grow rich through 
 
 antibilious pills. 
 
 Where the only bell was the bell-bird's note, now many 
 
 mingling bells 
 " Make Catholic the trembling air/ 7 as famed George 
 
 Eliot tells 
 Of another town somewhere between more northern 
 
 parallels. 
 
 (But in case the name of Catholic offend protesting 
 
 ear, 
 Let Wesleyan or Baptist be interpolated here, 
 Or that bells make Presbyterian the trembling atmo- 
 sphere). 
 
 Where the savage learned no love from earth, nor 
 
 from the " shining frame," 
 And merely feared the devil under some outlandish 
 
 name, 
 There are heaps of Britishers whose creed is — very 
 
 much the same ! 
 
42 A BRISBANE REVERIE. 
 
 Where the gin was black — (methinks 'tis time the bard 
 
 were shutting up : 
 The bell is ringing for the non-inebriating cup, 
 And even attic bards must have their little " bite and 
 
 sup"). 
 
 A LOST CHANCE. 
 
 [It is stated that a shepherd, who had for many years grazed his 
 flocks in the district in which a rich tin-mining town in 
 Queensland now stands, went mad on learning of the great 
 discoveries made there.] 
 
 JUST to miss it by a hair's breadth ! Nay, not miss 
 it ! To have held it 
 In my hand, and oftimes through my fingers run 
 the swarthy ore ! 
 Minus only the poor trick of Art or Science that com- 
 pelled it 
 To unveil for others' good the hidden value, and to 
 
 pour 
 On to a thousand hearts the light of Hope, that 
 shines for me no more ! 
 
A LOST CHANCE. 43 
 
 To have held it in my hand in vacant listlessness of 
 wonder, 
 Taken with its dusky lustre, all incurious of its 
 worth — 
 To have trod for years upon it, I above, and Fortune 
 under — 
 To have scattered it a thousand times like seed upon 
 
 the earth! 
 Who shall say I am not justified who curse my day 
 of birth? 
 
 To have built my hovel o'er it — to have dreamed above 
 it nightly — 
 
 Pillowed on the weal of thousand lives, and dead 
 unto my own ! 
 Planning paltry profits wrung from year-long toil, and 
 holding lightly 
 
 What lay acres-wide around me, naked-bright, or 
 grass-o'ergrown — 
 
 Holding lightly — and for that I curse — no, not my- 
 self alone ! 
 
 For a youth made vain with riot, for the golden graces 
 squandered, 
 Home forsaken, dear ones alienated, Love itself 
 aggrieved, 
 
44 A LOST CHANCE. 
 
 I had sworn a full atonement, to the ends of earth 
 
 had wandered, 
 Drunk the dregs of expiation, unbelauded, unper- 
 
 ceived — 
 Heav'n alone beheld, and — mocks me with w r hat 
 
 "might have been" achieved! 
 
 All the cold suspicion of the world I took for my 
 demerit, 
 Its deceit my retribution, its malignity my meed : 
 When Misfortune smote, unmurmuring I bowed my 
 head to bear it, 
 Driven to minister to brutes in my extremity of 
 
 need — 
 Who shall say now it delights not Heaven to break 
 the bruised reed? 
 
 In the round of conscious being, from the rising to the 
 
 setting 
 Of Thine imaged self, Thy merciless, unsympathising 
 
 Sun, 
 Was there one from hard Disaster's hand so piteously 
 
 shrinking 
 Whom this boon had more advantaged? God, I ask 
 
 Thee, was there one? 
 In Thy passionless immunity, Thou knowest there 
 
 was none ! 
 
A LOST CHANCE. 45 
 
 To the wrongs the world hath wrought me, to its 
 coldness and disfavour, 
 To the wreck of every venture, to enduring un- 
 success, 
 
 To the sweat of cheerless toil, the bread made bitter 
 
 with the savour 
 Of the leaven of regret, and tears of unforgetfulness, 
 Hadst thou need to add Thy mocker}-, to perfect my 
 
 distress? 
 
 For I hold it cruel mockery in man, or God, or 
 
 devil. 
 To assign the poor his blindfold lot from wean- day 
 
 to day, 
 In the very lap of Affluence, on Fortune's highest 
 
 level, 
 Then upon the brink of revelation, trick his steps 
 
 away, 
 And flash the truth upon him when the chance is 
 
 gone for aye ! 
 
 I had soothed repulse with hope, matched disappoint- 
 ment with defiance, 
 Or opposed a pliant meekness to the driving s tonus 
 of Fate : 
 
 But — the merely " coming short ! ;; Oh, what reme- 
 dial appliance, 
 
46 A LOST CHANCE. 
 
 What demeanour of resistance shall have virtue to 
 
 abate 
 The nameless woe that trembles in the echo of Too 
 
 Late ! 
 
 Oh, the might have been ! the might have been ! the 
 sting of it ! the madness ! 
 
 What a wave of the Inexorable chokes my fitful 
 breath ! 
 What a rush of olden echoes voiced with many-sound- 
 ing sadness ! 
 
 What a throng of new despairs that drive me down 
 the path of death ! 
 
 Who is there in heaven who careth ? Who on earth 
 who comforteth ? 
 
 They on earth but seek their own. In eager crowds 
 they hasten thither 
 Where I trod so late unconscious on futurities un- 
 told. 
 And I ! I, whose all is gone ! The curse of desolation 
 wither — 
 Whom ? — Myself, who, year-worn, turned again unto 
 
 the sin of old ? 
 Or the fiends who sold me poison for my little all of 
 gold? 
 
A LOST CHANCE. 47 
 
 Both ! All men ! Yea, Heaven ! But chiefly those who 
 prosper where I languished ! 
 Those who reap the ripe occasion, where in many a 
 wandering line, 
 The old traces of my footsteps, worn in fevered moods 
 and anguished, 
 Xow are paths of rich expectancy for other feet 
 
 than mine ! 
 Can I breathe without upbraiding? Shall I die 
 without a sign ? 
 
 It was mine ! Is mine, by Heaven ! Consecrated to 
 
 me only, 
 By the sacred right of service, by the pledge of 
 
 wean" years ! 
 By the bond of silent witness, by communion dumb 
 
 and lonely, 
 By the seal of many sorrows, by the sacrament of 
 
 tears ! 
 Mine ! — The echoes laugh, and the fiends of hell 
 
 are answering with jeers. 
 
 Where am I ? and who are these ? — Nay, nay ! Un- 
 hand me ! Let me go, sirs ! 
 
mm 
 
 48 A LOST CHANCE. 
 
 I am very very rich ! IVe miles on miles of priceless 
 
 ore ! 
 I will make your fortunes — all of you ! — and I would 
 
 have you know, sirs — 
 There is not a single sheep amissing — Loose me, I 
 
 implore ! 
 It is only sleep that ails me — let me sleep — for 
 
 evermore ! 
 
 THE SQUATTER'S BACCY FAMINE. 
 
 IN blackest gloom he cursed his lot; 
 His breath was one long weary sigh; 
 His brows were gathered in a knot 
 That only baccy could untie. 
 His oldest pipe was scraped out clean; 
 The deuce a puff was left him there; 
 A hollow sucking sound of air 
 Was all he got his lips between. 
 
 He only said "My life is dreary, 
 
 The Baccy 7 s done," he said. 
 He said "I am aweary, aweary; 
 By Jove, I'm nearly dead." 
 
THE SQUATTER'S BACCY FAMINE. 49 
 
 The chimney-piece he searched in vain, 
 Into each pocket plunged his fist; 
 His cheek was blanched with weary pain, 
 
 His mouth awry for want of twist. 
 He idled with his baccy-knife; 
 
 He had no care for daily bread : — 
 A single stick of Negro-head 
 Would be to him the staff of life. 
 
 He only said "My life is dreary. 
 
 The Baccy 's done," he said. 
 He said "I am aweary, aweary; 
 I'd most as soon be dead." 
 
 Books had no power to mend his grief; 
 
 The magazines could tempt no more; 
 "Cut Gold-Leaf" was the only leaf 
 
 That he had cared to ponder o'er. 
 From chair to sofa sad he swings, 
 
 And then from sofa back to chair; 
 But in the depth of his despair 
 Can catch no "bird's-eye" view of things. 
 
 And still he said "My life is dreary.. 
 
 No Baccy, boys," he said. 
 He said, " I am aweary, aweary; 
 I'd just as soon be dead." 
 
 5 
 
50 THE SQUATTER S BACCY FAMINE. 
 
 His meals go by he knows not how ; 
 
 No taste in flesh, or fowl, or fish ; 
 There's not a dish could tempt him now, 
 
 Except a cake of Caven-dish. 
 His life is but a weary drag ; 
 
 He cannot choose but curse and swear, 
 And thrust his fingers through his hair, 
 All shaggy in the want of shag. 
 
 And still he said, "My life is dreary. 
 
 No Baccy, boys," he said. 
 He said, "I am aweary, aweary ; 
 I'd rather far be dead. 
 
 To him one end of old cheroot 
 
 Were sweetest root that ever grew. 
 No honey were .due substitute 
 
 For "Our Superior Honey-Dew." 
 One little fig of Latakia 
 
 Would buy all fruits of Paradise ; 
 "Prince Alfred's Mixture" fetch a price 
 Above both Prince and Galatea. 
 
 Sudden he said, "No more be dreary! 
 The dray has come \" he said. 
 He said, " I'll smoke till I am weary, - 
 And then, I'll go to bed." 
 
"MY WORD!— NO FEAR." 
 
 IT is the Bushman come to town ; — 
 "Moy word !— No fear!" 
 Come to spend his cheque in town, 
 Come to do his "lambing down" : — 
 Mark his hat with lofty crown, 
 Cheeks done tropically brown, 
 Tread of horse, and stare of clown, 
 
 And his "Moy word ! — No fear I" 
 
 Top to toe all spick and span ; — 
 
 "Moy word!— No fear!" 
 Top to toe all spick and span ; 
 All that wool and leather can 
 Do to make a man a man ; 
 Hear him foremost in the van 
 Of pleasures metropolitan, 
 
 With his "Moy word ! — No fear !" 
 
 Brisbane is a jolly place — 
 
 " Moy word !— No fear !" 
 Brisbane is a jolly place ; 
 Pleasure lights the Bushman's face ; 
 
52 "MY WORD! — NO FEAR." 
 
 Health and " spirits " run a race ; 
 Beauty (?) lends her soft embrace ; 
 Lots of fun and no disgrace ; — 
 This is how he goes the pace, 
 
 With his " Moy word ! — No fear ! ,r 
 
 Comes the bottom of the purse — 
 
 Oh dear ! Oh dear I 
 
 Comes the bottom of the purse — 
 
 Not a penny to disburse ; 
 
 Body sick, and spirit worse ; 
 
 Bushman now not worth a curse ; 
 
 Send a doctor or a nurse, 
 
 Or undertaker with a hearse — 
 
 Oh dear ! Oh dear I 
 
THE ANTIPODES. 
 
 A TOWN, a river, hills and trees, 
 Blue-bounded by the boundless sky- 
 Is this the strange antipodes 
 That baffled young credulity? 
 
 Once on a time, of childhood's dreams 
 This was the very cap and crown; 
 
 But now how natural it seems 
 
 That down is up, and up is down! 
 
 Things on the whole don't look askew : 
 It's " all serene," somehow or other; 
 
 And yet 'tis veritably true 
 
 That I am treading on my mother! 
 
 Oh, mother dear, forgive the act, 
 
 Great Nature's laws my steps control : 
 
 Love leaps o'er all; we are, in fact, 
 Now more than ever sole to sole ! 
 
SPIRIT AND STAR. 
 
 THROUGH the bleak cold voids, through the 
 wilds of space, 
 Trackless and starless, forgotten of grace, — 
 Through the dusk that is neither day nor night, 
 Through the grey that is neither dark nor light — 
 Through thin chill ethers where dieth speech, 
 Where the pulse of the music of heaven cannot reach, 
 Unwarmed by the breath of living thing, 
 And for ever unswept of angel's wing — 
 Through the cold, through the void, through the wilds 
 
 of space, 
 With never a home or a resting-place, 
 How far must I wander ? Oh God, how far ? 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
. SPIRIT AND STAR. 55 
 
 Once on a time unto me was given 
 
 The fairest star in the starry heaven — 
 
 A little star, to tend and to guide, 
 
 To nourish and cherish and love as a bride. 
 
 Far from all great bright orbs, alone, 
 
 Even to few of the angels known, 
 
 It moved ; but a sweet pale light on its face 
 
 From the sapphire foot of the throne of grace, 
 
 That was better than glory and more than might, 
 
 Made it a wonder of quiet delight. 
 
 Still must I wander ? Oh God, how far ? 
 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
 On the starry brow was the peace of the blest, 
 And bounteous peace on the starry breast ; 
 All beautiful things were blossoming there, 
 Sighing their loves to the delicate air : 
 Xo creature of God such fragrance breathed, 
 White-rose-girdled and white-rose-wreathed : 
 And its motion was music, an undertone, 
 With a strange sad sweetness all its own. 
 Dearer to me than the louder hymn 
 Of the God-enraptured seraphim. — 
 How far must I wander ? Ah Heaven, how far ? 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
56 SPIRIT AND STAR. 
 
 In a round of joy, remote and alone, 
 
 Yet ever in sight of the great white throne, 
 
 Together we moved, for a love divine 
 
 Had blent the life of the star with mine : — 
 
 And had all the angels of all the spheres 
 
 Forecast my fate and foretold my tears, 
 
 The weary wand'ring, the gruesome gloom, 
 
 And bruited them forth through the Trump of 
 
 Doom — 
 Hiding a smile in my soul, I had moved 
 Only the nearer to what I loved. 
 Yet I must wander ? Oh God, how far ? 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
 Ah woe the delusive demon-light 
 
 That beckoned me, beckoned me, day and night ! — 
 
 The untwining of heartstrings, the backward glance, 
 
 The truce with faith, and the severance ! 
 
 Ah woe the unfolding of wayward wings 
 
 That bore me away from all joyous things, 
 
 To realms of space whence the pale sweet gleam 
 
 Looked dim as a dimly-remembered dream — 
 
 To farther realms where the faint light spent 
 
 Vanished at length from my firmament ; 
 
 And I seek it in vain — Ah God, how far ? 
 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
SPIRIT AND STAR. 57 
 
 On sleepless wing I have followed it 
 
 Through the star-sown fields of the Infinite ; 
 
 And where foot of angel hath never trod 
 
 I have threaded the golden mazes of God ; 
 
 I have pierced where the fire-fount of being runs, 
 
 I have dashed myself madly on burning suns, 
 
 Then downward have swept with shuddering breath 
 
 Through the place of the shadows and shapes of 
 
 death, 
 Till sick with sorrow and spent with pain 
 I float and faint in the dim inane ! 
 Must I yet wander ? Ah God, how far ? 
 T have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
 Oh could I find in uttermost space, 
 A place for hope, and for prayer a place, 
 Mine were no suit for a glittering prize 
 In the chosen seats of the upper skies — 
 No grand ministration, no throned height 
 In the midmost intense of unspeakable light. 
 What sun-god sphere with all-dazzling beam 
 Could be unto me as that sweet, sad gleam ? 
 Let me roam through the ages all alone, 
 If He give me not back my own, my own ! 
 How far must I wander ? Oh God, how far ? 
 I have lost my star, I have lost my star ! 
 
58 SPIRIT AND STAR. 
 
 In the whispers that tremble from sphere to sphere, 
 
 Which the ear of a spirit alone can hear, 
 
 I have heard it breathed that there cometh a day 
 
 When tears from all eyes shall be wiped away, 
 
 When faintness of heart and drooping of wings 
 
 Shall be told as a tale of olden things, 
 
 When toil and trouble and all distress 
 
 Shall be lost in the round of Blessedness. 
 
 In that day when dividing of loves shall cease, 
 
 And all things draw near to the centre of peace, 
 
 In the fulness of time, in the ages afar, 
 
 God, oh God, shall I find my star ? 
 
 NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 
 
 "Story ! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir." 
 
 — Canning. 
 
 U i^HIEFTAIN, enter my verandah; 
 V_/ Sit not in the blinding glare; 
 Thou shalt have a refuge, and a 
 Remnant of my household fare. 
 
NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 59 
 
 4 '111 becomes thy princely haunches 
 Such a seat upon the ground : 
 Doubtless, on a throne of branches 
 Thou hast sat, banana-crowned. 
 
 'By the brazen tablet gleaming 
 
 On the darkness of thy breast, 
 Which, unto all outward seeming, 
 Serves for trousers, coat, and vest; — 
 
 "By the words thereon engraven, 
 Of thy royal rank the gage, 
 Hail ! true King, in all things save in 
 Unessential acreage. 
 
 "Such divinity doth hedge thee, 
 
 I had guessed thy rank with ease; — 
 Such divinity — (but edge thee 
 
 Somewhat more to leeward, please.) 
 
 "Though thy lineage I know not, 
 Thou art to the manner born; 
 Every inch a king, although not 
 King of one square barleycorn. 
 
<6o NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 
 
 "Enter, sire; no longer linger; 
 
 Cease thy signals grandly dumb; 
 Point not thus with royal finger 
 To thy hungry vacuum. 
 
 "Though thy pangs are multifarious, 
 Soon they all shall pass away : 
 Come, my begging Belisarius — 
 Belisorius, I should say. 
 
 "Fear not; I am the intruder; 
 I, and white men such as I : 
 Simpler though thou art, and ruder, 
 Thou art heir of earth and sky. 
 
 " Thine the mountain, thine the river, 
 Thine the endless miles of scrub : 
 Shall I grudge thee, then — oh never !- 
 Useless ends of refuse grub ? 
 
 •"Lay aside thy spears — (I doubt them) ; 
 Lay aside thy tomahawk; 
 I prefer thee, sire, without them, 
 By a somewhat longish chalk. 
 
NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 6 1 
 
 " Lay aside thy nullah-nullahs ; 
 Is there war betwixt us two ? 
 Soon the pipe of peace shall lull us — 
 Pipe a-piece, bien entendu. 
 
 " Seat thee in this canvas chair here ; 
 
 Heed not thou the slumbering hound ; 
 Fear not ; all is on the square here, 
 Though thou strangely lookest round. 
 
 " Or if thou, my chair deriding, 
 Follow thine ancestral bent, 
 To the naked floor subsiding 
 
 Down the groove of precedent, — 
 
 11 If the boards have more temptation, 
 Wherefore should I say thee No, 
 Seeing caudal induration 
 Must have set in long ago ? 
 
 " Take thou now this refuse mince-meat ; 
 Pick this bone, my regal guest : 
 Shall a fallen-warrior prince meet 
 Other welcome than the best ? 
 
6'2 NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 
 
 " Treated like a veiy rebel, 
 
 Chased from town at set of sun, 
 Wert thou ev'n the debbil-debbil, 
 
 Thou shouldst eat — when I am done: 
 
 On the bare floor sat the sable 
 Chieftain of a fallen race, 
 
 Two black knees his only table, 
 " Wai-a-roo " his simple grace. 
 
 Stood I by and ruminated 
 
 On the chiefs Decline and Fall, 
 
 While his highness masticated 
 What I gave him, bone and all. 
 
 " Chief," said I, when all had vanished, 
 " Fain am I thou shouldst relate 
 
 Why thou roam'st discrowned and banished 
 From thy scrub-palatinate." 
 
 Stared the chief, and wildly muttered, 
 As if words refused to come ; 
 
 " Want him rum," at length he uttered ; 
 " Black f 'lo plenty like him rum !" 
 
NEW CHUM AND OLD MONARCH. 6$ 
 
 " Nay ! 'Twill make thee mad — demoniac ! 
 Set thee all a-nre within ! 
 Law forbids thee mm and cognac, 
 Though in mercy, spares thy gin. 
 
 " Come \ thy tale, if thou hast any." — 
 Forth the chieftain stretched his hand, 
 Stood erect, and shouted " Penny !" 
 In a voice of stern command. 
 
 " Out upon thee ! savage squalid I 
 Mine ideal thus to crush, 
 With thy beggar} 7 gross and solid, 
 All for money and for lush ! 
 
 " Out upon thee ! prince degenerate ! 
 Get thee to thy native scrub ! 
 Die a dog's death ! — or at any rate, 
 Trouble me no more for grub ! 
 
 " At him, Ginger ! Up and at him ! 
 Go it, lad ! On, Ginger, on ! 
 King, indeed ! the beggar ! . . . Drat him ! 
 One more fond illusion gone." 
 
OFF THE TRACK. 
 
 OH where the deuce is the track, the track ? 
 Round an' round, an' forrard, an' back ! 
 " Keep the sun on yer right/' they said — 
 But, hang it, he's gone an' got over my head ! 
 
 " Make for a belt of apple trees ;" — 
 Jist so. But where's yer belt, if ye please ? 
 By gum, it's hot ! This child'U melt, 
 An' there ain't no apples, nor ain't no belt. 
 
 " Keep clear o' the timber-getters' tracks," — 
 But wich is wich, I'd beg to ax ? 
 They forks and jines, the devil knows how — 
 I wish I'd a sight o' either now ! 
 
 " Leave the track," sez they, " when you sees 
 Some yards to the right two big grass trees." 
 Two ! It's dozens on dozens I pass — 
 Most on 'em big, an' all on 'em grass. 
 
OFF THE TRACK. 65 
 
 Oh where the deuce is the track, the track ? 
 I'm fairly taken aback, aback. 
 " Keep tow'rd the river. You can't go wrong." 
 Whew ? Can't I, though ! That was rayther strong. 
 
 " Follow the lay o' the land," sez they ; 
 But, Lord, this flat ain't got no lay ! 
 Whew ! Ain't it hot on the pint o' the nose ! 
 An' the more I mops the hotter I grows. 
 
 " An' when you comes to the foot o' the range "- 
 When ! That's the pint. But ain't it strange, 
 That the further I goes, to left or right, 
 The more there ain't no range in sight. 
 
 Gum trees, gum trees, slim an' high, 
 Timber green an' timber dry, 
 Blackened stumps an' fallen logs — 
 Lively work as on we jogs ! 
 
 Oh the devil an' all take the flat, the flat ! 
 I'm one myself for the matter o' that. 
 I'm mazed, an' so is the brute I rides, 
 An' the sun's getting over the left besides. 
 
 6 
 
66 OFF THE TRACK. 
 
 Dash it, I'll follow my nose, my nose ! 
 Step out, straight forrard, here goes, here goes ! 
 Let the sun be left, or the sun be right, 
 Summat or other must come in sight. 
 
 Well, well ! If this ain't too bad by half! 
 Lor', how the beggars '11 laugh an' chaff ! 
 Back to my startin' point ? Yes ; tis so. 
 I put up them slip-rails six hours ago. 
 
 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 \T O ; not another step, for all 
 L i The troopers out of hell ! 
 I'll camp beside this swamp to-night, 
 
 Despite the yarns you tell. 
 I'm dead beat ; that's a solid fact ; 
 
 The other thing's a sell." 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 6*J 
 
 And Ike gave in ; good easy Ike ; 
 
 Though now and then he stole 
 A glance across that dismal swamp, 
 
 Lugubriously droll ; 
 'Twas plain that Headless Trooper lay 
 
 Heavily on his soul. 
 
 And, ere he slept, again he told 
 
 That tale of bloody men ; 
 And how the Headless Trooper still 
 
 Rode nightly in the fen ; 
 And then he slept, but in his sleep 
 
 He told it all again. 
 
 I cannot rest beside a man 
 
 Who mutters in his sleep ; 
 It makes the chilly goose-flesh rise, 
 
 The epidermis creep — 
 ( ; Tis no objection in a wife — 
 
 You get her secrets — cheap). 
 
 I put a hundred yards between 
 
 The muttering Ike and me : 
 I lay and thought of things that were, 
 
 And things that yet might be : 
 I could not sleep ; I know not why ; 
 
 My hair rose eerily. 
 
68 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 I rose and sat me on a log, 
 And tried to keep me cool ; 
 
 I thought of " Hume on Miracles," 
 And called myself a fool ; 
 
 But still the proverb racked my soul, 
 " Exceptions prove the rule." 
 
 The moon was full ; the stars were out ; 
 
 I tried to fix my eye 
 Where Night laid shining love-gifts 
 
 On the bosom of the sky ; — 
 But well I knew that all the while 
 
 The Thing was standing by. 
 
 How tall this pine tree on my left ! 
 
 How graceful in its height ! 
 Its topmost branches seem to touch 
 
 The very brow of Night ; — 
 But all the while I knew the Thing 
 
 Was panting at my right. 
 
 The 'possum leaves his hollow tree ; 
 
 The bandicoot is glad ; 
 It is the human heart alone 
 
 The still night maketh sad j — 
 And all the while the Headless Thing 
 
 Was wheezing there like mad. 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 69 
 
 How ghostly is the mist that crawls 
 
 Along the swampy ground ! 
 The Headless Thing here cleared its throat 
 
 With most unearthly sound ! 
 And then I heard a gurgling voice, 
 
 But dared not glance around. 
 
 " They shot me ; Was it not enough ! 
 
 Look, darn you ! Here's the hole ! 
 Was this not passage amply wide 
 
 For any human soul ? 
 But, no ! the blasted convict gang 
 
 Must likewise take my poll !" 
 
 I turned \ looked up ; and at the sight 
 
 My heart within me sunk : 
 'Twas new to me to find myself 
 
 In such a mortal funk ; — 
 But newer still to fraternise 
 
 With a bifurcated trunk ! 
 
 Above the neck no trooper was ; 
 
 But formless void alone ; 
 There physiognomy was ;///, 
 
 Phrenology unknown ; 
 Where head had been there but remained 
 
 The frustum of a cone ! 
 
70 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 Nay ; I retract the " formless void ; "' 
 
 The case was otherwise ; 
 For on the clotted marge there spun 
 
 A living globe of flies ! 
 When one is dealing with the truth 
 
 One can't be too precise. 
 
 The loathsome whirling substitute 
 
 Buzzed in the vacant space, 
 And a thousand thousand little heads 
 
 Of one head took the place : — 
 And oh, the fly expression 
 
 Of that rotatory face ! 
 
 The breast was bare ; the shirt thrown back 
 
 Exposed the wound to view : 
 The bullet in its course of death 
 
 Had cleared an avenue : — 
 Oh Gemini ! I saw the Twins 
 
 Distinctly shining through ! 
 And those same Twins are shining still 
 
 To prove my story true. 
 
 In breeches, boots, and spurs arrayed 
 
 The nether Trooper stood ; 
 The soundless phantom of a horse 
 
 Grazed in his neighbourhood, — 
 At all events went through the form 
 
 Of hoisting in his food. 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 7 1 
 
 "What wouldst thou, Headless Trooper, 
 On the night's Plutonian shore ?" 
 
 I took it from Poe's Raven 
 I had read not long before ; 
 
 And I more than half expected 
 He would answer " Nevermore !" 
 
 But the Trooper only answered 
 
 By a perfect storm of sighs, 
 Which through his crater issuing, 
 
 Played Hades with the flies, — 
 As I have seen Vesuvius 
 
 Blow ashes to the skies ! 
 
 " Oh wherefore, Headless Trooper, 
 With the living intermix ? 
 Since thou art dead, and hast no head, 
 
 Why kick against the pricks ? 
 Why dost thou not, as others do, 
 Get clear across the Styx ?" 
 
 The Trooper cleared his cone of flies, 
 And through his crater said, 
 " 'Tis true I have no business here ; 
 'Tis true that I am dead ; 
 And yet I cannot cross the Styx — 
 They've fixed a fare ' per head ! ' 
 
72 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 " Fain would I cross as others do — 
 Fain would I pay my shot ! 
 
 They only mock me when I ask 
 For leave to go to Pot ! 
 
 How ca?i I pay so much 'per head * 
 When I no head have got ? 
 
 " Yet what could I, thus headless, do 
 In that last Land of Nod ? 
 
 It is not that the thing is dear, 
 So much as that it's odd ; — 
 
 They only charge an obolus, 
 A sort of Tommy Dodd. 
 
 " I've tried the ferryman with gold — 
 With every coin that goes ; 
 
 He merely cries, ' Oh, go a-head ! y 
 And, laughing, off he rows. 
 
 He can't twit me, at all events, 
 With paying through the nose ! 
 
 " A drachma once I offered him, 
 Six times the fare in Greek ; 
 He merely cursed my ' impudence/ 
 
 And pushed off in a pique : — 
 I didn't think a faceless man 
 Could be accused of cheek. 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 73 
 
 ** From day to day, from night to night, 
 My prayer the wretch denies ; 
 Yet even in this headless breast 
 
 Some grateful thoughts arise — 
 For though he's blasted all my hopes, 
 He cannot blast my eyes. 
 
 " I know not where the convict crew 
 
 My missing head consigned, 
 But I am doomed to walk the earth 
 
 Till that same head I find. 
 Oh, could I come across it 
 
 I would know it though Fm blind, — 
 The bump of amativeness sticks 
 
 So strongly out behind ! 
 
 " The mouth extends from ear to ear ; 
 
 The hair is fiery red ; 
 Perchance it might attract thine eye 
 
 Who art not blind or dead • 
 I pray thee help me to obtain 
 
 My disembodied head !" 
 
 " Oh Headless Trooper, fain would I 
 
 With thee the search begin, 
 But ere the day I must away, 
 
 And trudge through thick and thin ; 
 For I am bound to Stanthorpe town, 
 
 And time with me is tin. 
 
74 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 " But ere upon my pilgrimage 
 With dawn's first streak I go, 
 
 I fain would do what in me lies 
 
 , To mitigate thy woe. 
 
 If I can serve thee anywise, 
 I pray thee let me know." 
 
 The Trooper thought a little space, 
 
 His body forward bowed, 
 With plenteous sighs dispersed the flies, 
 
 And once more spoke aloud : — 
 " Tis long since I have tried the weed; 
 
 I'd like to blow a cloud." 
 
 " How canst thou, headless man, who hast 
 No lips wherewith to puff?" 
 
 Here deprecatingly he waved 
 His hand, and said " Enough. 
 
 Myself will guarantee the how, 
 If thou supply the stuff." 
 
 I took a meerschaum from my pouch, 
 A meerschaum clean and new, 
 
 As white as is undoctored milk, 
 As pure as morning dew : — 
 
 I pray you mark that it was white, 
 ; Twill prove my story true. 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 75 
 
 I passed it to him, filled and lit. 
 
 Still wondering in my mind. 
 "Thanks, generous colonial. 
 
 Thou art very, very kind. 
 Now pick a thickish waddy up, 
 
 And plug my wound behind." 
 
 I picked a thickish waddy up. 
 
 And did as I was bid ; 
 And right into the bullet-hole 
 
 The amber mouth he slid ; 
 And then ! — You never saw the like ! 
 
 At least / never did. 
 
 Like a forge bellows went his chest, 
 
 And upward from his cone 
 There shot a vaporous spire, like that • 
 
 From Cotopaxi blown. 
 
 The flies unglobed themselves, and fled 
 With angry monotone. 
 
 So fierce the blast, the pipe was void 
 
 Ere one might reckon ten ; 
 And then with gesture wild he signed 
 
 To fill the bowl again ; 
 The which I did, till he had smoked 
 
 Enough for fifty men. 
 
76 THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 
 
 Hour after hour he drew and blew, 
 
 Till twist began to fail, 
 Till all the sky grew dim with smoke, 
 
 And all the stars grew pale ; 
 Till even the seasoned stomach turned 
 
 Of him who tells the tale. 
 
 The smoke mixed darkly with the mists 
 
 On the adjacent bogs, 
 And roused the hoarse remonstrant wail 
 
 Of semi-stifled frogs ; 
 The 'possums all within a mile 
 
 Went home as sick as dogs. 
 
 But suddenly the phantom steed 
 Neighed with sepulchral sound, 
 
 And where both man and horse had been 
 Nor man nor horse was found ! 
 
 I stood alone ; the meerschaum lay 
 Before me on the ground. 
 
 The meerschaum lay upon the ground — 
 
 This much I may avouch ; 
 I took it, and with trembling hand 
 
 Replaced it in my pouch ; 
 And overcome with nausea 
 
 I sought my grassy couch. 
 
THE HEADLESS TROOPER. 77 
 
 The sun was up when I awoke, 
 
 And in his gladsome beams 
 I mocked the things of yesternight, 
 
 And laughed away my dreams : 
 Disciples of the School of Doubt 
 
 Are always in extremes. 
 
 But when I roused me from my couch 
 
 To take my morning smoke, 
 Like lightning flash the verity 
 
 Upon my laughter broke ; — 
 The scarcity of 'baccy proved 
 
 The thing beyond a joke. 
 
 And when my pouch I opened next — 
 
 (Now check the wanton jeer) — 
 My pipe, my new, fresh meerschaum pipe — 
 
 ('Tis true as I am here) — 
 My pipe was " coloured I " as if I 
 
 Had smoked it for a year ! 
 
 My pipe was coloured ! — no, not brown, 
 
 But black — as black as jet. 
 You don't believe it ? — Man alive, 
 
 The pipe is coloured yet ! 
 Look here — why here's the best of proofs — 
 
 The pipe, videlicet. 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 
 
 THE scene is the Southern Hemisphere ; 
 The time — oh, any time of the year 
 Will do as well as another • say June, 
 Put it down likewise as the full of the Moon, 
 And midnight to boot, when churchyards, they say, 
 Yawn in a most unmannerly way ; 
 And restless ghosts in winding-sheets 
 Go forth and jabber about the streets, 
 And rehearse old crimes that were better hid 
 In the darkness beneath the coffin-lid. 
 Observe, that I merely say, on dit ; 
 But though it never happened to me 
 To encounter, either in-doors or out, 
 A posthumous gentleman walking about, 
 In regulation sepulchral guise, 
 Or in shirt, Crimean or otherwise, 
 Or in hat and boots and usual wear, 
 Or, save for a cloud, unbecomingly bare, 
 Or in gaseous form, with the stars shining through him, 
 Beckoning me to interview him — 
 On mission of solemnest import bound, 
 Or merely a constitutional round, 
 
KING BILLYS SKULL. 79 
 
 Beginning at twelve as books declare, 
 And ending at first sniff of morning air ; — 
 Though all such things, you will understand, 
 Have reached me only at second-hand, 
 Or third, or fourth, as the case may be, 
 Yet there really did occur to me 
 Something which I perforce must call 
 Ultra-super-natural : — 
 In fact trans-ultra-sup er-preter — 
 Natural suits both truth and metre. 
 
 There is an Island, I won't say where, 
 For some yet live who mightn't care 
 To have the address too widely known; 
 Suffice it to say : South Temperate Zone. 
 In that same Isle thus precisely set down, 
 There's a certain township, and also a town — 
 (For, to ears colonial, I need not state 
 That the two do not always homologate). — 
 And in that same town there's a certain street : 
 And in that same street the locale to complete, 
 There's a certain Surgery, trim and neat, 
 
 Kept by well, perhaps it were rash 
 
 To call him other than Doctor Dash. 
 
 At midnight, then, in the month of June 
 (And don't forget the full of the moon), 
 
80 KING BILLY'S SKULL. 
 
 I sat in that Surgery, writhing with pain, 
 Having waited fully two hours in vain 
 For Doctor Dash, who, I understood, 
 Was engaged in the questionable good 
 Of adding one to the sum of woe 
 That includes all creatures here below, — 
 Especially those whose particular dolour, 
 As mine was then, is a rotten molar ! 
 
 Have you noted that midnight's final stroke 
 Has a way of solemnising folk ? 
 Though, goodness knows, in my special case 
 With a cheek that was quite a three-quarter face, 
 There needed no solemnising power, 
 No eerie vibration of midnight hour, 
 Chilling through heart, and thrilling through limb, 
 To put me en rapport with all things grim, 
 With all things dreary and dismal and dim, 
 The whole Night side of Nature (see Crow — not Jim). 
 
 Hardly was tolled the day's decease 
 From the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, 
 When a running fire of perplexing knocks 
 Seemed to proceed from a rosewood box, 
 That stood on a table whereon were laid 
 The horrible tools of the surgical trade. 
 Somewhat slowly the notes began 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 8 1 
 
 With minims, and then into crotchets ran, — 
 
 From crotchets to quavers, then faster they grew, 
 
 Galloping, galloping, thirty-two 
 
 Beats to the semibreve — doubling once more 
 
 To a semibreve split into sixty-four, 
 
 Till failing to follow so rapid a rate, 
 
 I gave in at a hundred and twenty-eight. 
 
 I was scared, I confess, but the wish to know 
 Was stronger than terror of ghostly foe ; 
 And stealthily, stealthily nearing the knocks, 
 I pressed my ear on the rosewood box, 
 And fancied I could discern beneath 
 The peculiar rattle of chattering teeth ; 
 Which, as need hardly be said or penned, 
 Set each particular hair on end, 
 Froze all my young blood in a moment of time, 
 And curdled my bile, and my chyle, and my chyme ! 
 
 But though terror undoubtedly gained the day, 
 Yet curiosity too had its way, 
 And the first had no sooner sung out Avaunt ! 
 When the second cried Stay ! what the deuce do you want ? 
 
 Often as I have told the tale, 
 This particular part is so " like a whale," 
 That I always feel an apology due 
 For insisting upon it as perfectly true. 
 
82 KING BILLY'S SKULL. 
 
 This is what followed, — a grinding noise, 
 
 A friction of bones that grew to a voice ; 
 
 And I heard these words (on my honour, I did), 
 
 "Hi ! . . . Cooey ! . . . You fella . . . Open 'im lid!" 
 
 Trembling all over from foot to head, 
 " How shall I open it, Spirit? " I said : — 
 " Lies there, oh lies there no key about ? 
 For how can I open the coffer without ? " 
 
 A kind of an audible ossified grin, 
 A gnashing of laughter, came from within, 
 And little by little I understood, 
 " You fella .... new chum .... You no good ; 
 White fella .... crawler .... you no go, 
 Key in 'im lock .... my word .... 'tis so." 
 
 It was so indeed. I opened, and lo ! 
 An afrit ? A goblin ? A bottle-imp ? .... No ; 
 Simply a Human Skull, enshrined 
 In rosewood, padded and velvet-lined, — 
 A low type of skull, as one could see 
 From the brutish depression where forehead should be ; 
 Yet surely precious in some degree 
 To judge from the case, not to mention the key 
 And the lock by a well-known patentee. 
 
 All was still for three minutes at least ; 
 Knocks and voices alike had ceased ; 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 83 
 
 There lay the skull as silent and dumb 
 As Lot's wife's salted cranium. 
 Had it been all a gross mistake 
 In the frenzy begotten of molar-ache ? 
 Was the whole affair but a fancy-freak, 
 Forged in the heat of a throbbing cheek ? 
 Was it all — but rather than wait the event, 
 I determined to make the experiment. 
 So summoning courage a query to frame, 
 I boldly inquired, "You there, w T hat name?" 
 Which, to supply explanation due, 
 Is the Lingua-Nigra for "Who are you?" 
 
 This is what followed — a grinding noise, 
 A friction of bones that grew to a voice ; 
 And a slight elevation I certainly saw 
 Of the skull as if raised on the under jaw; 
 And this time beyond the chance of mistake, 
 My senses about me, and wide-awake, 
 No victim of frenzy, no fancy's gull, 
 I heard the words— "Me King Billy's Skull ! " 
 
 Alas, poor Billy, I knew him well, 
 In his full corporeal personnel, 
 But a man might give his own father the go-by, 
 Were there only his brain-pan left to know by. 
 And this was Billy ! the last of his race ! 
 That sightless mask was his regal face ! 
 
84 king billy's skull. 
 
 How oft from the cavity within 
 
 Those fangs now set in ghastly grin, 
 
 Had I seen the curling smoke proceed 
 
 Of the eleemosynary weed — 
 
 A cavity even now displayed 
 
 Through a gap for his pipe expressly made I 
 
 Here, where the Kingly glance shot through, 
 
 Two eyeless sockets appal the view ; 
 
 And where flourished the fibre of Cocoa-nut 
 
 Is an utterly towless occiput ! — 
 
 But scant was the time to moralize, 
 
 For soon a light in the place of the eyes, 
 
 A wild looking, diabolical spark, 
 
 Like the eye of an angry cat in the dark, 
 
 Came and went, and went and came — 
 
 The spirit of Billy, perhaps, a flame : 
 
 And deeming it such, " What would you, pray ?" 
 
 I asked in a stammering, tremulous way ; 
 
 "What is your will, oh, William, say? 
 
 William, rex dei gratia !" 
 
 This is what followed, — a grinding noise, 
 A friction of bones that grew to a voice ; 
 " You take me out .... go long o'street . . . . 
 You come place where three road meet .... 
 .S'pos'n keep middle till come to bridge .... 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 85 
 
 Cross over creek, an' go up ridge .... 
 
 Up on 'im top lie down hollow tree .... 
 
 Lift up big sheet o' bark .... you see 
 
 Bones of brother belongin' to me ... . 
 
 Take 'im up head .... put mine fella down .... 
 
 You fetch 'im brother head back to town .... 
 
 Put 'im in box .... lock 'im up like o' here .... 
 
 Dash no do me I . . . my oath ! . . . . No fear ! " 
 
 What COULD it all mean? — Three days ago 
 I had seen this monarch in earth laid low : 
 How had his fleshless skull returned 
 From the grave where I saw him so "quietly inurned?" 
 And what upon earth was the drift of the dark 
 Allusion to Dash in his closing remark ? 
 And what could import a mission so strange — 
 This visit to death, this mysterious exchange ? 
 And wherefore of all men should / be selected 
 To ... . pending an answer I did as directed, 
 And in less than an hour the exchange was effected. 
 King Billy supplanted, the box closed once more, 
 And myself fleeing forth from the surgery door ! 
 
 Time and the hour, as Shakespeare says, 
 Run through the very roughest of days : — 
 (Forgive misquotation — the letter kills ; 
 The spirit, at all events, is Will's) 
 Time and the hour having run their race, 
 
86 KING billy's skull. 
 
 I found myself back in the self-same place, 
 
 Dash standing by with a smiling face, 
 
 Wiping his weapon with dainty grace, 
 
 Myself no longer a surgical case, 
 
 But relieved (to the tune of twenty bob), 
 
 With the molar transferred to my trouser fob. 
 
 I could now look around me ; the box was there, 
 
 Done up in canvas, and labelled "with care; " 
 
 And Dash, beholding my steadfast stare, 
 
 Said with Mephistophelian grin, 
 
 That looked like the very triumph of gin, 
 
 "Bet you twenty to one in gold, 
 
 You never will guess what that box doth hold . . 
 
 Not bet ? . . . Well, listen while I unfold 
 
 A neat little tale of a neat little prank, 
 
 Played by myself upon Doctor Blank, 
 
 The Hospital Surgeon, who, as you know, 
 
 Is my open friend, but my secret foe. 
 
 Well, to begin ab initio, 
 
 King Billy whom we saw laid low 
 
 In his mother earth some days ago, 
 
 The last of the Aborigines, 
 
 Had long been dying of lung disease. 
 
 The melancholy fact was known 
 
 To Doctor Blank and myself alone, 
 
 And each of us watched with wary eye, 
 
 Patiently waiting till Billy should die." 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 87 
 
 (Here I ventured to ask him the reason why.) 
 " Why ? Don't you see ? this man, as the last 
 Of a great island race of the perished past — 
 (Save one old gin, from whom can be 
 No further scion, as all can see) 
 Is a wonderful curiosity : 
 And Blank and myself had sworn an oath, 
 Secret from each, yet known to both, 
 To achieve some scientific note 
 In catalogue or anecdote, 
 By the munificent presentation 
 Of King Billy's Skull to the British Nation ! 
 Fancy the honour, the kudos, the fame ! 
 A whole museum athrill with one's name. 
 Fancy the thousands all crowding to see 
 * Skull of the last Aborigine, 
 Presented by Asterisk Dash, M.D.M ! 
 A couple of men not sufficing to fix 
 The numbers on all the umbrellas and sticks, 
 And every voice in the eager crowd 
 Pronouncing the name of Dash aloud ! 
 Fancy the honour, the kudos, the fame ! 
 But fancy the everlasting shame, 
 If in place of Dash the name should be Blank ! 
 The Quack ! the Charlatan ! Mountebank ! 
 
 But to proceed. To daily view 
 Weaker and weaker His Majesty grew. 
 

 88 KING billy's skull. 
 
 I tended him kindly, went out of my way 
 
 To see how he fared from day to day : 
 
 But all my kindness, in pill or potion, 
 
 Showed small by the side of Blank's devotion • 
 
 All my kindness in potion and pill 
 
 Only made Blank show kinder still. 
 
 Well, one dark day (which ill betide) 
 
 Returning home from a country ride, 
 
 I found, to my sore astonishment, 
 
 That Blank had had the patient sent 
 
 To the Hospital Nigger-ward — to die 
 
 Beneath my antagonist's very eye ! 
 
 (Knew you ever such treachery !) — 
 
 I owe him one, to myself I said ; 
 
 Let him have the body, I'll have the head, 
 
 By hook or by crook, let what will come — 
 
 By fair or by foul, I'll have my thumb 
 
 On that potentate's caput mortuum ! 
 
 I bribed a wardsman to let me know 
 
 When the patient should be in articulo ; 
 
 And, accordingly, one afternoon I got 
 
 A letter to say King Billy was not. 
 
 I suddenly found I had been remiss 
 
 In my social duties to Blank, and this 
 
 Induced me to write him to give us to tea 
 
 The pleasure of his company. 
 
 Blank took the bait, came, found — not me, 
 
KING BILLY'S SKULL. 89 
 
 But himself alone with Mrs. D., 
 Who very much regretted to say- 
 How the Doctor was suddenly called away, 
 Much, to be sure, against his will, 
 But Mrs. . . . a . . . Harris was very ill : — 
 In an hour or so he would return : — 
 Edith, tell Mary to bring the urn. 
 
 Ere Blank sat down with my woman-kind, 
 I had slit Billy's head above and behind. 
 When Blank was requested to say a grace, 
 There was no skull behind Billy's face. 
 When Blank was just about to begin, 
 One skull was out and another skull in. 
 Ere Blank had buttered a morsel of toast, 
 The job was three-quarters through almost. 
 Ere Blank had sipped of his second cup, 
 The flesh was spliced, and the head tied up : 
 And before he had drunk it to the dregs, 
 I had done him, as sure as eggs are eggs ! 
 
 And he knows it too ; but, all the same, 
 He hasn't blown it as yet for shame. 
 Let him publish it now as soon as he may, 
 He will find himself rather late in the day, 
 For this very night the treasure will be 
 Severed from Blank by leagues of sea. 
 
90 KING BILLY'S SKULL. 
 
 Think of it, Sir, and congratulate me — 
 1 Skull of the last Aborigine, 
 Presented by Asterisk Dash, M.D.M !" 
 
 In a certain Museum, I won't say where, 
 But it's not very far from Russell Square, 
 Should the gentle Reader e'er happen to see 
 * l Skull of the last Aborigine,"— 
 And find, perchance, some poetical gull 
 Crooning the theme of a Monarch's skull, 
 Tell him to lay his theme on a shelf, 
 On peril of being a numskull himself; 
 Or to modulate his Parnassian whim 
 To the tune of " Brother belongin' to him."! ! 
 
 MACAULAY'S NEW ,ZEALANDER. 
 
 IT little profits that, an idle man, 
 On this worn arch, in sight of wasted halls, 
 I mope, a solitary pelican, 
 
 And glower and glower for ever on Saint Paul's 
 Will no soft-hearted mortal be so very 
 Obliging as to row me o'er the ferry ? 
 
macaulay's new zealander. 91 
 
 Here three-and-thirty years* I've stood estranged, 
 A dream of ruin all around me stretching ; 
 
 And centuries shall see me yet unchanged, 
 Ever in act to sketch, but nothing sketching ; 
 
 Mutely immutable, constrainedly still, 
 
 With nought to stand against, except my will. 
 
 A wondrous lot is mine ; ye bide your doom 
 Till men say Vixit : mine begins ere birth ; 
 
 A lonely ghost projected from the womb 
 Of Time-to-come, I linger now on earth. 
 
 Ye vertebrates date back, while I commence 
 
 My weary present in the future tense. 
 
 A weird eidolon ; a born paradox \ 
 
 A fixture framed of incorporeal particles ; 
 
 Yet dropped in many an Editorial box, 
 
 Blown thence in squibs, or hurled in Leading Articles ; 
 
 A Nomad, though my permanent address is 
 
 In Volume Second of Macaulay's Essays. 
 
 I was not born of woman (see Macduff — 
 Nor stare to hear my lore so far extends ; 
 
 The sire who bore me trafficked in such stuff, 
 And had his Shakespeare at his finger-ends : 
 
 The quitch is in the blood — such blood as ghost has ; 
 
 I know as much as he ; at least, almost as). 
 
 * Macaulay's New Zealander dates from 1840. 
 
92 MACAULATS NEW ZEALANDER. 
 
 I was not born of woman • gave no pain ; 
 
 Through no preliminary stage did pass ; 
 But sprang, a Pallas, from Macaulay's brain, 
 
 Though not, like her, with spear and helm of brass ; 
 My spear, a pencil of Queensland plumbago ; 
 My casque, a felt one — latest from Otago. 
 
 And therein lies the sting of all I bear — 
 That after brooding ages on mine arch, 
 
 And treasuring what the centuries prepare, 
 And noting what ye proudly term the March 
 
 Of Progress, and assimilating all 
 
 " The long result of Time," from Locksley-hall ; — 
 
 That after seeing all that mortal can, 
 
 That after learning all that man can learn, 
 
 This forecast shade, already more than man, 
 Must go and be a baby in its turn ! 
 
 Fve got to go and be a little kid, 
 
 When old perhaps as Cheops' Pyramid ! 
 
 I've got to wear a little purfled cap ; 
 
 Pass through, perchance, some brutal mode ol 
 swaddling ; 
 To gather tissue from a bowl of pap ; 
 
 To undergo no end of molly-coddling ; 
 To be brought up by hand, or, worse and worse, 
 To be a parasite upon a nurse. 
 
macaulay's new zealander. 93 
 
 And in due course this cultured soul of mine 
 Must learn its Catechism by easy stages ; 
 
 And sundry rods shall yet be steeped in brine, 
 To stimulate the heir of all the ages ; 
 
 And men shall file away with prose and rhyme 
 
 To sharpen me, the foremost file of time. 
 
 I pray you, purist, faint not at the word ; 
 
 For in the distant day whereof I speak, 
 Your chastened phrases shall be held absurd ; 
 
 What you call slang shall be our Attic Greek ; 
 And every man be file, or bloke, or cove ; 
 And bloods make oath by Gum, instead of Jove ! 
 
 For standing here, immovable and dumb, 
 An arch-Stylites, birth, not death, awaiting, 
 
 Faint inklings reach me of the time to come, 
 Beneath the loud To-day reverberating ; 
 
 And I could tell of things so strange and wild, 
 
 Your wisest don would feel himself a child ; — 
 
 Could show up many a now-belauded quackery ; 
 
 Could play the deuce with half your saints and sages : 
 Could settle for you whether Boz or Thackeray 
 
 Shall be the admiration of the ages ; 
 And whether Morris, Swinburne, and Rossetti 
 Shall number with the great, or with the petty ; — 
 
94 macaulay's new zealander. 
 
 Could tell how empire shall have changed its place, 
 But must not " blow, " although an Australasian ; 
 
 Could tell you which shall be the ruling race, 
 But may not shock the orthodox Caucasian, 
 
 Nor dare your curiosity assuage, 
 
 Lest I should make half-castes become the rage ; — 
 
 Could tell you quite a fairy tale of science, 
 
 And wonders in Political Economy, 
 That set your time-worn statutes at defiance, 
 
 And hold them out of date as Deuteronomy : 
 The darky, boss ; the trashy white, a " brudder ; " 
 Man at the prow, and woman at the rudder ; — 
 
 How all shall go by natural selection ; 
 
 No man allowed to live unless good-looking ; 
 How love shall vent itself in vivisection, 
 
 And charms be rated subsequent to cooking ; 
 How girls, instead of knitting sofa-covers, 
 Shall spend their leisure in tattooing lovers ; 
 
 And how magnetic belts with dazzling hues 
 Shall draw unwilling arms around the waist ; 
 
 How damsels to enhance their lips shall use 
 Odyllic force condensed into a paste ; 
 
 And woo the bashful from his slow simplicity 
 
 With cakes of desiccated electricity ; — 
 
macaulay's new zealander. 95 
 
 How education, as a" general rule, 
 
 Shall be conducted by familiar spirits ; 
 
 How " circles" shall be formed in every school, 
 And rappings shall reward superior merits ; 
 
 And how the spectroscope, applied to spectres, 
 Shall re-enact all history, on reflectors ; — 
 
 And how your vaunted patents and inventions 
 Shall be for playthings to the great hereafter ; 
 
 And all your philosophical pretensions 
 Be themes of inextinguishable laughter ; 
 
 Your engineering form for future times 
 The droll machinery of pantomimes. 
 
 Tour steam — your boast ! What is it but a vapour ? 
 
 Or what more fleeting simile will do : 
 'Twill be effete as — let me see — what paper? 
 
 Eureka! — say, the "Saturday Review!" 
 Whose name, indeed, shall live — simply because 
 
 These lines give token such a paper was. 
 
 For there be those whose memory shall rot, 
 And pass, and be as it had never been ; 
 
 Of such my famed progenitor's is not ; 
 Valhalla holds him in the high serene : — 
 
 My Prospero ! Oh may he prosper where he is, 
 Untouched by that unenviable caries ! 
 
g6 macaulay's new zealander. 
 
 For though I dumbly execrate the day 
 
 When first he chained me here, a lorn eidolon, 
 
 To be a literary popinjay, 
 
 And market-stock for every sucking Solon, 
 
 Be Hyperborean calm his long reward ! 
 
 I'm proud of him ; you know, he was a lord. 
 
 Mundanes, I say Good-bye, as on ye march ; 
 
 I fain would shake your hands, but can't get at you,- 
 My prison-ruin waiting in the arch, 
 
 As in the marble waits the future statue. 
 I hate you, London-bridge ! And if Saint Paul is 
 A name I loathe, the fault is Lord Macauley's. 
 
 Witlings, a word : bring me no more to book ; 
 
 And take not any more my name in vain ; 
 Cast, if ye will, one final, loving look, 
 
 As upon one ye ne'er shall see again. 
 Behold me — let it be the last occasion — 
 Served up in verses for "The Australasian." 
 
 Walker, May, & Co., Printers, Melbourne. 
 
Melbourne, January, 1874. 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF 
 
 NEW & POPULAR BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 GEORGE ROBERTSON, 
 
 33 and 35 LITTLE COLLINS STREET WEST. 
 
 MR. TROLLOPE IN AUSTRALIA. 
 
 AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, by Anthony 
 Trollope, demy 8vo, cloth. 18s. 
 
 LORD LYTTON'S LAST WORK. 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY : His Adventures and 
 Opinions, by Lord Lytton, crown 8vo, cloth. 5s. 
 
 Ditto, picture boards. 3s. 6d. 
 
 THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK: An Epic 
 Poem, by G. G. McCrae, crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications 
 
 NOVELS BY OUIDA. 
 
 Crown 8vo, picture boards, each 2s. 6d. ; cloth, 3 j\ 6d. 
 
 1. 
 lUCK: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DOG. 
 
 p 
 
 T 
 
 H 
 
 II. 
 
 RICOTRIN : THE STORY OF A WAIF AND 
 STRAY. 
 
 III. 
 
 ELD IN BONDAGE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 T TNDER TWO FLAGS. 
 
 v. 
 QTRATHMORE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 DALIA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 1 
 
 A 
 
 VIII. 
 
 T^OLLE-FARINE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 /"-*ECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE. 
 
 X XI 
 
 ^HANDOS. T)ASCAREL. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 MARCUS CLARKE'S WORKS. 
 
 I. 
 
 IS NATURAL LIFE : a Novel, crown 8vo. 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 H 
 
 II. 
 
 T T OLIDAY PEAK AND OTHER TALES, 
 
 fcap. 8vo, picture wrapper, is 
 III. 
 
 THE PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHER, by " Q," 
 crown 8vo, boards. 2s. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN SERIES of NOVELS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE GOLDEN LION OF GRANPERE, by 
 Anthony Trollope, with illustrations, royal 8vo, 
 picture wrapper, is. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER, by George 
 MACDONALD, with illustrations, royal 8vo, picture 
 wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 M 
 A 
 
 III. 
 
 ARGARET, by Miss C. C. Fraser Tytler, with 
 illustrations, royal 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 IV. 
 
 T HIS GATES, by Mrs. Oliphant, with illus- 
 trations, royal 8vo, picture wrapper. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ABOVE FOUR WORKS IN ONE VOLUME, 
 handsome cloth, Js. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 FLY LEAVES : Parodies of Modern Poets, by C 
 S. Calverley, fcap. 8vo, cloth, gilt edges. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Ditto, picture wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 s 1 
 
 PARKS AND SOUNDS FROM A COLONIAL 
 
 kJJ ANVIL : Poems by John Wh item an, M.L. A., illustrated, 
 crown 8vo. ios. 6d. 
 
 MARK TWAIN'S HUMOROUS WORKS. 
 I. 
 >HE INNOCENTS ABROAD; or, The New 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 3s. 
 Ditto, picture boards. 2s. 
 
 T 
 
 II. 
 
 T 
 
 HE INNOCENTS AT HOME— ROUGHING 
 
 IT, fcap. 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE INNOCENTS AT HOME— THE PACIFIC 
 COAST, fcap. 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE INNOCENTS AT HOME, complete, 
 fcap. Svo, cloth. 3s. 
 Ditto, picture boards. 2s. 
 
 THE JUMPING FROG and other Sketches, fcap. 
 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 THE BLACK GIN, AND OTHER POEMS, by 
 J. Brunton Stephens, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 2s. 
 
 Ditto, fancy wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 L 
 T 
 
 EAVES FROM AUSTRALIAN FORESTS: 
 
 Poems by Henry Kendall, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 3s. 
 
 HE POETICAL WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN 
 
 POE, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 2s. 6d. 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS, by Mrs. Harriette Kerr, 
 fcap. 8vo, limp cloth, is. 
 
 HANS BREITMANN'S " BARTY," WITH 
 OTHER BALLADS, by C. G. LELAND, fcap. 8vo, 
 wrapper. 6d. 
 
 THE BOOK OF RECITATIONS : a Collection of 
 Passages from the Works of the Best Poets and Dramatists, 
 Adapted for Recitation, by Charles William Smith, fourth 
 edition, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 2s. 6d. 
 
 THE MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES AND 
 RARE CONCEITS OF MASTER TYLL OWLGLASS, 
 newly collected, chronicled, and set forth in our English tongue, by 
 Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and adorned with many most 
 diverting and cunning devices (plain and coloured) by Alfred 
 Crowquill, crown 8vo, gilt edges. 5s. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 BRET HARTE'S HUMOROUS WORKS. 
 
 T 
 
 HAT HEATHEN CHINEE, and other Poems 
 
 fcap. 8vo, wrapper, is. 
 
 II. 
 
 C 
 
 ONDENSED NOVELS, after Eminent Authors, 
 fcap. 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, and Other 
 Sketches, fcap. 8vo, wrapper, is. 
 
 IV. 
 
 OEMS AND TALES, being the above three Works 
 in one Volume, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 3s. 
 
 Ditto, picture boards. 2s. 
 
 P 
 
 B 
 F 
 C 
 
 ETSY JANE WARD : her Book of Goaks, fcap. 
 8vo, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 ALSE, AND OTHER AUSTRALIAN 
 SKETCHES, by J. M. Conroy, fcap. 8vo, wrapper, is. 
 
 OMMUNICATIONS FROM ANOTHER 
 
 WORLD, by Epes Sargent, crown 8vo, cloth. 2s. 
 
 ^ and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 REV. JAMES MARTIN'S WORKS. 
 
 T 
 
 I. 
 
 *HE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE NEW 
 
 TESTAMENT, by the Rev. James Martin, B.A., 
 fcap. 8vo, cloth. 2s. 6d. 
 
 II. 
 
 *HE MELBOURNE CHRISTIAN RECORD: 
 
 Twelve Sermons by the Rev. James Martin, 8vo, 
 boards. 3s. 
 
 T 
 
 REV. JOHN COOPER'S WORKS. 
 I. 
 HE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE, 8vo, 
 cloth. 7s. 6d. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE TRUTH IN ITS OWN LIGHT; or, 
 Christianity Shown from Itself to be a Divine Revelation 
 to Man, 8vo, cloth. 6s. 
 
 T 
 
 III. 
 
 A 
 
 CATECHISM \ for the use of Sunday Schools, 
 Bible Classes, &c, fcap. 8vo, cloth, is. 
 
 THE NEW MELODEON : a Collection of Hymns 
 and Tunes, Original and Selected, by the Rev. J. W. 
 Dadmun, crown 8vo, cloth. 3s. 
 
 LEAVES FROM THE TREE OF LIFE : Original 
 Outline Discourses, fcap. 8vo, cloth, limp. is. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West, 
 
George Robertsoiis Publications. 
 
 THE ORATORICAL TRAINER: a System of 
 Vocal Culture, by T. P. Hill, with Selections for Recita- 
 tion, seventh edition, illustrated, crown 8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d. 
 
 O 
 
 UTLINES OF GENERAL GEOGRAPHY, by 
 
 James Smith, crown 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. 
 
 OUTLINES OF AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHY, 
 by James Smith, i8mo, wrapper. 3d. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR, 
 by R. S. Bradley, 181110, cloth. 6d. 
 
 CHRONOLOGY OF GREECE AND ROME, for 
 Young Students, 181110. cloth. 6d. 
 
 THE CAPTIVES, Translated from Plautus, by 
 H. A. Strong, M.A., Professor Melbourne University, 
 crown 8vo, cloth. 3s, 6d. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS ; or, Practical Observa- 
 tions on the Intellectual and Moral Training of Youth, by 
 S. Skinner, M.R.C.P., 8vo, cloth. 4s. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robert sorts Publications. 
 
 PROFESSOR HEARN'S WORKS. 
 
 I. 
 
 iLUTOLOGY; or, The Theory of the Efforts to 
 Satisfy Human Wants, 8vo, cloth. 16s. 
 
 II. 
 
 T 
 
 HE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND: Its 
 
 Structure and its Development, 8vo, cloth. 1 6s. 
 
 T 
 
 *HE DISCOVERY, SURVEY, AND SETTLE- 
 MENT OF PORT PHILLIP, by G. W. Rusden, 8vo, 
 wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 T 
 
 HE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF 
 
 PORT PHILLIP: being a History of the Country now 
 called Victoria, up to 1839, by James Bonwick, with map, 
 crown 8vo, wrapper, is. 6d. 
 
 THE EARLY DAYS OF MELBOURNE, by 
 James Bonwick, fcap. 8vo, limp cloth. 6d. 
 
 URE SADDLE HORSES, AND HOW TO 
 
 BREED THEM IN AUSTRALIA, by E. M. Curr, 
 
 P 
 
 crown 8vo, half-bound. 2s. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
io George Robertson! s Publications. 
 
 THE PIONEER MISSIONARY : Life of the Rev. 
 Nathaniel Turner, Missionary in New Zealand, Tonga, and 
 Australia, by his Son, the Rev. J. G. Turner, with portrait, crown 
 8vo. 5s. 
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS STORY 
 BOOK, by Cyrus Mason, 4 coloured illustrations, 
 small 4to, picture wrapper, is. 
 
 N BOTH WORLDS : The Story of Lazarus of 
 Bethany, by W. H. Holcombe, crown 8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d. 
 
 I 
 
 Ditto, fancy boards. 2s. 6d. 
 
 THE CRITIC IN CHURCH : Papers Descriptive 
 of the More Prominent Occupants of Melbourne Pulpits, 
 with portraits, crown 8vo, boards. 2s. 
 
 ON THE REDUCTION OF GOLD ORES, by 
 H. A. Thompson, crown 8vo, wrapper. 2s. 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP AND 
 STATIONS, by James C. Jordan, illustrated, crown 
 8vo, boards. 4s. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 
George Robertson's Publications. 1 1 
 
 SOUTH SEA BUBBLES : a Book of Travel among 
 the South Sea Islands, by the Earl of Pembroke and Dr. 
 Kixgsley, fcap. 8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Ditto, fancy boards. 2s. 6d. 
 
 TALES OF SCOTTISH CHIVALRY AND THE 
 SCOTTISH WARS, with illustrations, crown 8vo, 
 cloth. 3s. 6d. 
 
 ANEW MAP OF VICTORIA, revised to 1873, 
 by Henry Venables, 66 in. x 42 in., coloured, mounted, 
 and varnished. 21s. 
 
 THE TWO POWERS, and other Original Pieces 
 in Prose and Verse, by E. M. MoONEY, crown 8vo, 
 cloth. 5s. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF DORKING: Reminiscences 
 of a Volunteer (re-printed from '"'Blackwood's Magazine"), 
 8vo, sewed, is. 
 
 A THEORY OF THE CAUSATION AND 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF 
 DVS ENTER Y, together with Hypotheses on the Causation and 
 Views as to the Prevention of Typhoid, Cholera, Diphtheria, &c., 
 by " MUCOR," crown 8vo, cloth. 7s. 6d. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins Street West. 
 

 12 George Robertson's Publications. 
 
 T 
 
 HE MAGISTRATES' MANUAL FOR THE 
 
 COLONY OF VICTORIA, containing Practical Direc- 
 tions to Justices of the Peace, by Sir William a'Beckett, 
 8vo, cloth, ios. 6d. 
 
 D ! 
 
 JVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES 
 
 ACT OF VICTORIA, with Rules, Forms, &c, by 
 James M'Kean, 8vo, cloth. 5s. 
 
 A 
 
 TREATISE ON THE LAW OF DIVORCE 
 AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES IN THE COLONY 
 OF VICTORIA, by James M'Kean, 8vo, cloth. 12s. 6d. 
 
 R 
 
 EAL PROPERTY ACT OF VICTORIA, with 
 Copious Index, by James M'Kean, 8vo, cloth. 5s. 
 
 JUSTICE OF THE PEACE AND POLICE 
 CONSOLIDATION ACTS OF VICTORIA, fcap. 8vo, 
 cloth. 5s. 
 
 NOTES ON THE MANAGEMENT OF MINING 
 COMPANIES, by H. A. Thompson, crown 8vo, 
 wrapper, is. 
 
 33 and 35 Little Collins' Street West. 
 
SHraH