Rebel Hearts

An outcry in the bush below,
A crash, and boughs that sway,
And shouts of laughter let me know
Where my two ruffians play.

Barelegged, bareheaded, brown and free,
They lurk and prowl and spring;
Like tiger-cubs they disagree,
Like honeysuckers sing.

For in their hearts are echoes yet
From ages when they knew
The caves of green they now forget,
Though there they climbed or flew.

No cage set limits to their pace;
They held the hunt at bay;
And in their careless mien I trace
The savage mood to-day.

Theyll take no tidal drift, nor lie
And rot like souls of mud,
For sullen lip and flashing eye
Betray the rebel blood.

Go, flout the law your hearts disdain
Your foes are well arrayed
And take for guerdon love and pain,
And triumph unafraid.

In jungles where the night imparts
Her secret lore to you,
Lie still and listen to your hearts.
Be true, my sons, be true!

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic, and professor of English who was born on September 2, 1871, and died on February 2, 1933. He is best known for his association with the Bulletin school of Australian poetry and for promoting Australian literature. Brereton's contributions to poetry and literary criticism made him a significant figure in early 20th-century Australian literature. His academic career also included a long tenure at the University of Sydney.

John Le Gay Brereton

The Patriot

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Clay

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

Maxims

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Wounded

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

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A timid child with heart oppressed
By images of sin,
I slunk into the bush for rest,
And found my fairy kin.

The fire I carried kept me warm:
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The laggards of the lowing storm
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I watched the crawling monsters melt
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The sunlight was a golden beer,
I drank a magic draught;
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I stood erect and laughed.

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Wilfred

What of these tender feet
That have never toddled yet?
What dances shall they beat,
With what red vintage wet?
In what wild way will they march or stray, by what sly paynims met?

The toil of it none may share;
By yourself must the way be won
Through fervid or frozen air
Till the overland journeys done;
And I would not take, for your own dear sake, one thorn from your track, my son.

Go forth to your hill and dale,
Yet take in your hand from me
A staff when your footsteps fail,
A weapon if need there be;
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In the desert of dusty death
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The War After The War

I.
Yonder, with eyes that tears, not distance, dim,
With ears the wide worlds thickness cannot daunt,
We see tumultuous miseries that haunt
The nights dead watches, hear the battle hymn
Of ruin shrieking through the music grim,
Where the red spectre straddles, long and gaunt,
Spitting across the seas his hideous taunt
At those who nurse at home the unwounded limb.

What shall we say, who, drawing indolent breath,
Mark the quick pant of those who, full of hate,
Drive home the steel or loose the shrieking shell,
Heroes or Huns, who smite the grin of death
And laugh or curse beneath the blows of fate,
Swept madly to the thudding heart of hell?



II.
O peace, be still! Let no drear whirlwind sweep
Our souls about the vault, that groans ...

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The Dirge

Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire
To glimmering fire the watchword leaps,
The dirge floats up from those who build the pyre
High and still higher
That yet shall blaze across the verminous deeps.

Farewell, O brother-heart,
Yet we shall not forget;
Though hand from hand must part,
Your hope is with us yet.
The clank of the swaggerers sword
And clink of the graspers gold
Are not so loud as the lovers word
In a thousand echoes rolled.

The lords of the tottering order sit and plot,
With cunning courtesy haggling still:
The insistent chorus cannot be forgot
Its words are shot
Like summoning rockets from the eastern hill.

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The Faun

When I was but a little boy
Who hunted in the wood
To scare or mangle or destroy
A freakish elemental joy
That tasted life and found it good

I hardly heard the awful ban
That mutters round the free,
But followed where the waters ran,
And wondered when the pipe of Pan
Shook silence with its minstrelsy.

Where sun-spray glittered on my limbs
I danced, and laughed, and trilled
My happy incoherent hymns,
Sped only by the whirling whims
With which my eager heart was filled.

The wind was glad and so was I;
My soul lay open wide,
Reflecting all the starry sky;
The swallows called to me to fly;
I dreamed of how the fishes glide.

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The Domain

The bulging cloud mounts lazily
In shade where sunlight glances through,
And sweeping lightly from the tree
Melts indolently in the blue.

The scanty grass-blades yonder shake,
A tremulous flurry takes the smoke,
And ancient memories start awake
At pungent scent of fig and oak.

For here of old an urchin strayed
And gloomed in lonely pride the while,
An outlaw in a forest glade
Or pirate on a tropic isle.

Here where a staid policeman strolls
Ned Kelly in his armour stood,
And underneath the roadway rolls
The river of the Haunted Wood.

And yonder, couched in phantom fern,
Not far from Nelsons rolling ship,
I spied the antlerd head of Herne
And saw the startled rabbit skip.

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