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;
Twill hum in your ear when the foemans near, athirst for the victory.

In the desert of dusty death
It will point to the hidden spring;
Should you weary and fail for breath,
It will burgeon and branch and swing
Till you sink to sleep in its shadow deep to the sound of its murmuring.

.        .        .        .        .

You must face the general foe
A phantom pale and grim.
If you flinch at his glare, hell grow
And gather your strength to him;
But your power will rise if you laugh in his eyes and away in a mist hell swim.

To your freeborn soul be true
Fling parchment in the fire;
Mens laws are null for you,
For a word of Love is higher,
And can you do aught, when He rules your thought, but follow your own desire?

You will dread no pinching dearth
In the home where you love to lie,
For your floor will be good brown earth
And your roof the open sky.
Therell be room for all at your festival when the heart-red wine runs high.

.        .        .        .        .

Joy to you, joy and strife
And a golden East before,
And the sound of the sea of life
In your ears when you reach the shore,
And a hope that still with as good a will you may fight as you fought of yore.

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 War After The War

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Guest House

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Peace Of God

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

The Carillon

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

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Dedication

Grant me a moment of peace,
Let me but open mine eyes,
Forgetting the empire of lies
And warfares majestic increase
Of national folly and hate;
Ere I return to my fate,
Grant me a moment of peace.

To what is I would turn from what seems
From a world where men fall and adore
The god that Fear shuddering bore
To Greed in the desert of dreams,
Unholy, inhuman, impure;
From the State to the loves that endure,
To what is I would turn from what seems.

No man has been richer than I,
Though he staggered with infinite gold
And bought of whatever is sold
Of the beauty that money can buy.
In the wealth that is lost in the mart
And is stored in the innermost heart
No man has been richer than I.

Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood,
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The Fires Of God

I

Time gathers to my name;
Along the ways wheredown my feet have passed
I see the years with little triumph crowned,
Exulting not for perils dared, downcast
And weary-eyed and desolate for shame
Of having been unstirred of all the sound
Of the deep music of the men that move
Through the world's days in suffering and love.

Poor barren years that brooded over-much
On your own burden, pale and stricken years,
Go down to your oblivion, we part
With no reproach or ceremonial tears.
Henceforth my hands are lifted to the touch
Of hands that labour with me, and my heart
Hereafter to the world's heart shall be set
And its own pain forget.
Time gathers to my name,
Days dead are dark; the days to be, a flame
Of wonder and of promise, and great ...

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Middle Harbour

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.

Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.

Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.

Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.

Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbo...

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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.

But while my errant feet were set
On mosses cool and sweet,
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Locksley Hall

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries beh...

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November, 1851

    What dost thou here, O soul,
Beyond thy own control,
Under the strange wild sky?
0 stars, reach down your hands,
And clasp me in your silver bands,
I tremble with this mystery!--
Flung hither by a chance
Of restless circumstance,
Thou art but here, and wast not sent;
Yet once more mayest thou draw
By thy own mystic law
To the centre of thy wonderment.

    Why wilt thou stop and start?
Draw nearer, oh my heart,
And I will question thee most wistfully;
Gather thy last clear resolution
To look upon thy dissolution.

    The great God's life throbs far and free,
And thou art but a spark
Known only in thy dark,
Or a foam-fleck upon the awful ocean,
Thyself thy slender dignity,
Thy own thy vexing mystery,
In the vast...

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