Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,
And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
But it was many years ago,
When each, you know, was loved of each.
The Glen of Arrawatta
A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts
Are beating round the windows in the cold,
With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape
A settler's story of the wild old times:
One told by camp-fires when the station drays
Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;
While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,
And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame
That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves,
And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.
A tale of Love and Death. And shall I say
A tale of love ~in~ death -- for all the patient eyes
That gathered darkness, watching for a son
And brother, never dreaming of the fate --
The fearful fate he met alone, unknown,
Within the ruthless Australasian wastes?
For in a far-off, sultry summer, rimmed
With thundercloud and red with forest fires,
All day, by ways uncouth and ledges rude,
The wild men held upon a stranger's trail,
Which ran against the rivers and athwart
The gorges of the deep blue western hills.
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