Dungog
Here, pent about by office wallsAnd barren eyes all day,’Tis sweet to think of waterfallsTwo hundred miles away!
I would not ask you, friends, to brookAn old, old truth from me,If I could shut a Poet’s bookWhich haunts me like the Sea!
He saith to me, this Poet saith,So many things of light,That I have found a fourfold faith,And gained a twofold sight.
He telleth me, this Poet tells,How much of God is seenAmongst the deep-mossed English dells,And miles of gleaming green.
From many a black Gethsemane,He leads my bleeding feetTo where I hear the Morning SeaRound shining spaces beat!
To where I feel the wind, which bringsA sound of running creeks,And blows those dark, unpleasant things,The sorrows, from my cheeks.
I’ll shut mine eyes, my Poet choice,And spend the day with thee;I’ll dream thou art a fountain voiceWhich God hath sent to me!
And far beyond these office wallsMy thoughts shall even stray,And watch the wilful waterfalls,Two hundred miles away.
For, if I know not of thy deeds,And darling Kentish downs,I’ve seen the deep, wild Dungog fells,And hate the heart of towns!
Then, ho! for beaming bank and brake,Far-folded hills among,Where Williams,* like a silver snake,Draws winding lengths along!
— * A tributary of the river Hunter, after Hunter, on which Dungog stands. —
And ho! for stormy mountain cones,Where headlong Winter leaps,What time the gloomy swamp-oak groans,And weeps and wails and weeps.
There, friends, are spots of sleepy green,Where one may hear afar,O’er fifteen leagues of waste, I ween,A moaning harbour bar!
(The sea that breaks, and beats and shakesThe caverns, howling loud,Beyond the midnight Myall Lakes,**And half-awakened Stroud!)**
—* A chain of lakes near Port Stephens, N.S.W.** A town on the Karuah, which flows into Port Stephens.—
There, through the fretful autumn days,Beneath a cloudy sun,Comes rolling down rain-rutted ways,The wind, Euroclydon!
While rattles over riven rocksThe thunder, harsh and dry;And blustering gum and brooding boxAre threshing at the sky!
And then the gloom doth vex the sightWith crude, unshapely formsWhich hold throughout the yelling nightA fellowship with storms!
But here are shady tufts and turns,Where sumptuous Summer lies(By reaches brave with flags and ferns)With large, luxuriant eyes.
And here, another getteth ease—Our Spring, so rarely seen,Who shows us in the cedar treesA glimpse of golden green.
What time the flapping bats have troopedAway like ghosts to graves,And darker growths than Night are coopedIn silent, hillside caves.
Ah, Dungog, dream of darling days,’Tis better thou should’st beA far-off thing to love and praise—A boon from Heaven to me!
For, let me say that when I lookWith wearied eyes on men,I think of one unchanging nook,And find my faith again.