A Reward

Because a steadfast flame of clear intent
Gave force and beauty to full-actioned life;
Because his way was one of firm ascent,
Whose stepping-stones were hewn of change and strife;
Because as husband loveth noble wife
He loved fair Truth; because the thing he meant
To do, that thing he did, nor paused, nor bent
In face of poor and pale conclusions; yea!
Because of this, how fares the Leader dead?
What kind of mourners weep for him to-day?
What golden shroud is at his funeral spread?
Upon his brow what leaves of laurel, say?
About his breast is tied a sackcloth grey,
And knots of thorns deface his lordly head.

Henry Kendall

Henry Kendall was an Australian poet born on April 18, 1839, known for his lyrical and descriptive poetry reflecting the natural world and the colonial experience of Australia. He faced personal and financial difficulties throughout his life, which deeply influenced his works. His poetry collections include 'Leaves from Australian Forests' and 'Songs from the Mountains'. Kendall passed away on August 1, 1882, leaving a lasting impact on Australian literature.

Henry Kendall

In Memory of John Fairfax

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

Mountains

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

Ned the Larrikin

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

The Glen of Arrawatta

Henry Kendall, Simple Poetry

English

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In Memoriam - Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse

Shall he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus,
Turned gracious eyes and countenance of shine,
Be left to lie without a wreath from us,
To sleep without a flower upon his shrine?

Shall he, the son of that resplendent Muse,
Who gleams, high priestess of sweet scholarship,
Still slumber on, and every bard refuse
To touch a harp or move a tuneful lip?

No! let us speak, though feeble be our speech,
And let us sing, though faltering be our strain,
And haply echoes of the song may reach
And please the soul we cannot see again.

We sing the beautiful, the radiant life
That shone amongst us like the quiet moon,
A fine exception in this sphere of strife,
Whose time went by us like a hallowed tune.

Yon tomb, whereon the moonlit grasses sigh,
Hide...

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John Bede Polding

With reverent eyes and bowed, uncovered head,
A son of sorrow kneels by fanes you knew;
But cannot say the words that should be said
To crowned and winged divinities like you.

The perfect speech of superhuman spheres
Man has not heard since He of Nazareth,
Slain for the sins of twice two thousand years,
Saw Godship gleaming through the gates of Death.

And therefore he who in these latter days
Has lost a Father falling by the shrine,
Can only use the worlds ephemeral phrase,
Not, Lord, the faultless language that is Thine.

But he, Thy son upon whose shoulders shone
So long Elishas gleaming garments, may
Be pleased to hear a pleading human tone
To sift the spirit of the words I say.

O, Master, since the gentle Stenhouse died
And le...

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Robert Parkes

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.

Henry Kendall

William Bede Dalley

That love of letters which is as the light
Of deathless verse, intense, ineffable,
Hath made this scholars nature like the white,
Pure Roman soul of whom the poets tell.

He having lived so long with lords of thought,
The grand hierophants of speech and song,
Hath from the high, august communion caught
Some portion of their inspiration strong.

The clear, bright atmosphere through which he looks
Is one by no dim, close horizon bound;
The power shed as flame from noble books
Hath made for him a larger world around.

And he, thus strengthened with the fourfold force
Which scholarship to genius gives, is one
That liberal thinkers, pausing in their course,
With fine esteem are glad to look upon.

He, with the faultless intuition born
Of s...

Henry Kendall

In Memory of John Fairfax

Because this man fulfilled his days,
Like one who walks with steadfast gaze
Averted from forbidden ways
With lures of fair, false flowerage deep,
Behold the Lord whose throne is dim
With fires of flaming seraphim
The Christ that suffered sent for him:
He giveth His beloved sleep.

Think not that souls whose deeds august
Put sin to shame and make men just
Become at last the helpless dust
That wintering winds through waste-lands sweep!
The higher life within us cries,
Like some fine spirit from the skies,
The Fathers blessing on us lies
He giveth His beloved sleep.

Not human sleep the fitful rest
With evil shapes of dreams distressed,
But perfect quiet, unexpressed
By any worldly word we keep.
The dim Hereafter framed in cre...

Henry Kendall

In Memoriam. - A. L. Gordon.

At rest! Hard by the margin of that sea
Whose sounds are mingled with his noble verse,
Now lies the shell that never more will house
The fine, strong spirit of my gifted friend.
Yea, he who flashed upon us suddenly,
A shining soul with syllables of fire,
Who sang the first great songs these lands can claim
To be their own; the one who did not seem
To know what royal place awaited him
Within the Temple of the Beautiful,
Has passed away; and we who knew him, sit
Aghast in darkness, dumb with that great grief,
Whose stature yet we cannot comprehend;
While over yonder churchyard, hearsed with pines,
The night-wind sings its immemorial hymn,
And sobs above a newly-covered grave.
The bard, the scholar, and the man who lived
That frank, that open-hearted life wh...

Henry Kendall