Note 42 — V.
Reading edition
Page 25.—The Canadian reader can profitably and easily compare his own poets with those of Australia by reading Slade's "Australian Poets, 1788–1883, being a selection of poems upon all subjects written in Australia and New Zealand during the first century of the British colonization, with brief notes on their authors, etc." (London and Sydney, 1889.) It will be seen, however, that nearly all the so-called "Australian" poets are English born, while with one or two exceptions, those of Canada best known to fame are the product of Canadian life and thought. Henry Clarence Kendall, "the poet of New South Wales," was born at Ulladulla, on the coast of that colony, in 1842. He is the one Australian poet of reputation, except his forerunner, Charles Harpur, who was actually born under the Southern Cross. Kendall's verses on "Coogee," a striking natural feature of Australian scenery, show true poetic instinct and rhythmical ease:
"Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee-Coogee in the distance white, With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light; Haunt of gledes and restless plovers of the melancholy wail, Ever lending deeper pathos to the melancholy gale. There, my brothers, down the fissures, chasms deep and wan and wild, Grows the sea-bloom, one that blushes like a shrinking, fair, blind child, And amongst the oozing forelands many a glad green rockvine runs, Getting ease on earthy ledges sheltered from December suns."
But among the many spirited poems written in Australia since its settlement not one can equal the "Sick Stock-rider," by Adam Lindsay Gordon, who came to South Australia in his early manhood, and attempted sheep-farming, with the result of "owning nothing but a love for horsemanship and a head full of Browning and Shelley." This is a quotation from an introduction to his book by Marcus Clarke, himself a novelist and poet. One can see in the mind's eye the scenes described in the following verses, so full of real life and genuine poetry:
"'Twas merry in the glowing morn, among the gleaming grass, To wander as we've wandered many a mile, And blow the cool tobacco cloud and watch the white wreaths pass, Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while; 'Twas merry 'mid the backwoods, when we spied the station roofs, To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard, With a running fire of stockwhips and a fiery run of hoofs. Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard! "Aye! we had a glorious gallop after 'Starlight' and his gang, When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat; How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges rang To the strokes of 'Mountaineer' and 'Acrobat'; Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath, Close behind them through the tea-tree scrub we dashed; And the golden-tinted fern-leaves, how they rustled underneath! And the honeysuckle osiers, how they crash'd!"
The best known novels of Australian life are these: "For the Term of His Natural Life," by Marcus Clarke, who was an Englishman born and educated; "The Miner's Right," "The Squatter's Dream," "A Colonial Reformer," and "Robbery Under Arms," by Thomas A. Browne ("Rolf Boldrewood"), who was also English born: "Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill," by Madame Couvreur ("Tasma"), who is of Belgian descent, and is now a resident of Belgium, though she was born in Australia and there studied its social conditions; "The Australian Girl" and "A Silent Sea," by Mrs. Alick McLeod. Mrs. Campbell Praed, who is colonial born, has, in addition to several novels, written "Australian Life," which is described by Sir Charles Dilke ("Problems of Greater Britain," i., 374) as "a vivid autobiographical picture of the early days of Queensland." Copies of these and other Australian books the writer owes to the thoughtfulness of Chief Justice Way, D.C.L., Oxon., of Adelaide, South Australia. For many years he has been the recipient of these graceful attentions from friends in that fair land of the Southern Cross, and though it looks very much as if he will never meet some of them face to face—for the time is passing rapidly with us all—he takes this opportunity of now sending them his thanks across the seas.