To these depressing influences, and the hardships occasioned by
a meagre and uncertain income, was added a new grief -- the loss of
his first-born, Araluen, whose memory he enshrined years afterwards
in a poem of pathetic tenderness. He returned to Sydney early in 1871,
broken in health and spirit. The next two years were a time of tribulation,
during which, as he said later on, he passed into the shadow,
and emerged only through the devotion of his wife and the help
of the brothers Fagan, timber merchants, of Brisbane Water.
Kendall was the Fagans' guest at Narrara Creek, near Gosford,
and afterwards filled a clerical position in the business
which one of the brothers established at Camden Haven.
There he spent seven tranquil years with his wife and family,
and wrote the best of his poems. In some of these he said
all that need be said against himself, for he was always frankly critical
of his conduct and work.
In his later years Kendall tasted some of the sweets of success.
He wrote the words of the opening Cantata sung at
the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879, and won a prize
of one hundred pounds offered by `The Sydney Morning Herald' for a poem
on the Exhibition.
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