UPON a rounded hill at Wollongong,
A silent hill which hears by night and day
The never-ceasing voices of the waves,
An ancient wide-girthed eucalyptus stands,
Erect and many-branched, alone and dead.
Alone and dead ; yet not alone, not dead,
To one who hears its lingering shade breathe forth
Its memories of the past, and all the hill
Is covered once again with native bush,
And graceful ferns, and patriarchal trees.
One day I stood and saw its fire-scarred bole,
And marked its lofty stem in lifeless state,
When lo, in tones as if the air had voice,
The while I listened wonderingly, it spoke
To me, and said –
” Above my roots, where you
Are standing now, a fire was made by blacks,
Who ate their food and strewed the ground with shells.
They laughed and chattered there, until a boy
Came running breathless up, and pointed back,
And gasped : ‘ A great white fish, a giant bird,’
He knew not what, was on the sea ; and all
The camp sprang up, and looking, ran and saw
A white-sailed ship of white men sailing by.
” For many days no change was seen ; the sun
In ruby splendour came from Eastern seas,
And ran his royal course, and often, ere
Below the mountain range he passed from sight,
Full glorious were the scenes about his path :
Sometimes one looked upon a golden sea,
A sea of sky so peaceful, clear, and deep,
One rested in its depths ; and lo, a shore
Dazzling with silver fire, and islands red
As flames that burn by night, and continents
Whose crimson mountains tower to meet the heavens.
The gorgeous aspect lessens into grey,
The sun has set, and now there gleams a star ;
And other stars hang out their lamps, in twos,
And tens, and scores, and many tens of scores,
As darkness quickly settles o’er the land.
” So days went on in uneventful course,
Until to yonder meadows white men came,
The hardy pioneers who tilled the land ;
And you would hear their axe-strokes through the day,
As trees fell crashing down, and lay along
The ground, and changed their form to smoke and flame ;
And through the gaps you saw the settler’s home,
Where little children played, and helped their sires,
And where the trees had grown came fields of green.
” It chanced one day a man approached and said,
‘ A noble tree ! ’twere wrong to cut it down ‘ ;
And seeing at my feet the shells remain,
‘ Poor blacks,’ he said, and seemed as if he spoke
His thoughts unto himself: ‘ Poor helpless blacks,
Through all your generations leaving nought,
And doomed to die before the white man’s rule.
No archives have ye, nor the skill to trace
The gradual way whereby men grow in Art ;
And that dear Faith, the spring of all that makes
A people great, to you has never come.’
” He seemed a man who lived in sympathy
With seas and trees and all created things,
“It spoke no more, but stood in stillness there,
Erect, but broken-branched, alone, and dead.”
And Nature seemed to listen as he spoke ;
And when he ceased and rested in my shade,
The wind came lightly, going through the trees,
And on the air there came the peaceful sound
Of summer wavelets playing on the shore.
” He spoke again ; and ‘ O ye hills,’ he said,
‘ Ye wooded hills that shield the meadow land
When winter winds blow chill, soon must ye give
Your hidden wealth, your sable mineral,
For man’s enrichment, toil, and enterprise :
Soon on the lands that gently slope beneath
Your towering cliffs shall villages be seen,
The homes of men who work in constant night,
Or tend the herd and till the fertile field ;
And to that bay where those five islands stand
And bear their witness of the ocean’s power,
Shall world-wide commerce come, the busy streets
And homes for miles extend, and plenteous peace
And gladness dwell in this well-dowered scene.'”
It ceased to speak ; and though I lingered long,
It spoke no more, but stood in stillness there,
Erect, but broken-branched, alone, and dead.
(Gerard Addington D Arcy Irvine)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Night Poems, Nature Poems, War & Peace Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Fire Poems, Home Poems, Art Poems, Birds Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Belief & Faith PoemsBased on Keywords: lessens, wonderingly, uneventful, enrichment, wollongong, white-sailed, many-branched, fire-scarred