Our Jack
Twelve years ago our Jack was lost. All night,Twelve years ago, the Spirit of the StormSobbed round our camp. A wind of northern hillsThat hold a cold companionship with cloudsCame down, and wrestled like a giant withThe iron-featured woods; and fall and ford,The night our Jack was lost, sent forth a cryOf baffled waters, where the Murray suckedThe rain-replenished torrents at his source,And gathered strength, and started for the sea.
We took our Jack from Melbourne just two weeksBefore this day twelve years ago. He leftA home where Love upon the threshold paused,And wept across the shoulder of the lad,And blest us when we said we’d take good careTo keep the idol of the house from harm.We were a band of three. We started thenceTo look for watered lands and pastures new,With faces set towards the down beyondWhere cool Monaro’s topmost mountain breaksThe wings of many a seaward-going storm,And shapes them into wreaths of subtle fire.We were, I say, a band of three in all,With brother Tom for leader. Bright-eyed Jack,Who thought himself as big a man as Tom,Was self-elected second in command,And I was cook and groom. A week slipt by,Brimful of life—of health, and happiness;For though our progress northward had been slow,Because the country on the track was rough,No one amongst us let his spirits flag;Moreover, being young, and at the stageWhen all things novel wear a fine romance,We found in ridge and glen, and wood and rockAnd waterfall, and everything that dwellsOutside with nature, pleasure of that kindWhich only lives for those whose hearts are tiredOf noisy cities, and are fain to feelThe peace and power of the mighty hills.
The second week we crossed the upper forkWhere Murray meets a river from the east;And there one evening dark with coming storm,We camped a furlong from the bank. Our Jack,The little man that used to sing and shoutAnd start the merry echoes of the cliffs,And gravely help me to put up the tent,And try a thousand tricks and offices,That made me scold and laugh by turns—the petOf sisters, and the youngest hope of oneWho grew years older in a single night—Our Jack, I say, strayed off into the dusk,Lured by the noises of a waterfall;And though we hunted, shouting right and left,The whole night long, through wind and rain, and searchedFor five days afterwards, we never sawThe lad again.
I turned to Tom and said,That wild fifth evening, “Which of us has heartEnough to put the saddle on our swiftest horse,And post away to Melbourne, there to meetAnd tell his mother we have lost her son?Or which of us can bear to stand and seeThe white affliction of a faded face,Made old by you and me? O, Tom, my boy,Her heart will break!” Tom moaned, but did not speakA word. He saddled horse, and galloped off.O, Jack! Jack! Jack! When bright-haired BenjaminWas sent to Egypt with his father’s sons,Those rough half-brothers took more care of himThan we of you! But shall we never seeYour happy face, my brave lad, any more?Nor hear you whistling in the fields at eve?Nor catch you up to mischief with your knifeAmongst the apple trees? Nor find you outA truant playing on the road to school?Nor meet you, boy, in any other guiseYou used to take? Is this worn cap I holdThe only thing you’ve left us of yourself?Are we to sit from night to night deceivedThrough rainy seasons by presentimentsThat make us start at shadows on the pane,And fancy that we hear you in the dark,And wonder that your step has grown so slow,And listen for your hand upon the door?