Part 12

Day of ending for beginnings! Ocean hath another innings, Ocean hath another score; And the surges sing his winnings, And the surges shout his winnings, And the surges shriek his winnings, All along the sullen shore.

Sing another dirge in wailing, For another vessel sailing With the shadow-ships at sea; Shadow-ships for ever sinking -- Shadow-ships whose pumps are clinking, And whose thirsty holds are drinking Pledges to Eternity.

Pray for souls of ghastly, sodden Corpses, floating round untrodden Cliffs, where nought but sea-drift strays; Souls of dead men, in whose faces Of humanity no trace is -- Not a mark to show their races -- Floating round for days and days.

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Ocean's salty tongues are licking Round the faces of the drowned, And a cruel blade seems sticking Through my heart and turning round.

Heaven! shall HIS ghastly, sodden Corpse float round for days and days? Shall it dash 'neath cliffs untrodden, Rocks where nought but sea-drift strays?

God in heaven! hide the floating, Falling, rising, face from me; God in heaven! stay the gloating, Mocking singing of the sea!

Ben Duggan

Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began, And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man; Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head -- her daughter's grief was wild, And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child. But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far, To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.

By station home And shearing shed Ben Duggan cried, 'Jack Denver's dead! Roll up at Talbragar!'

He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve, And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave; He rode by lonely huts and farms, and when the day was done He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run. No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.

By diggers' camps Ben Duggan sped -- At each he cried, 'Jack Denver's dead! Roll up at Talbragar!'

That night he passed the humpies of the splitters on the ridge, And roused the bullock-drivers camped at Belinfante's Bridge; And as he climbed the ridge again the moon shone on the rise; The soft white moonbeams glistened in the tears that filled his eyes; He dashed the rebel drops away -- for blinding things they are -- But 'twas his best and truest friend who died on Talbragar.

At Blackman's Run Before the dawn, Ben Duggan cried, 'Poor Denver's gone! Roll up at Talbragar!'

At all the shanties round the place they'd heard his horse's tramp, He took the track to Wilson's Luck, and told the diggers' camp; But in the gorge by Deadman's Gap the mountain shades were black, And there a newly-fallen tree was lying on the track -- He saw too late, and then he heard the swift hoof's sudden jar, And big Ben Duggan ne'er again rode home to Talbragar.

'The wretch is drunk, And Denver's dead -- A burning shame!' the people said Next day at Talbragar.

For thirty miles round Talbragar the boys rolled up in strength, And Denver had a funeral a good long mile in length; Round Denver's grave that Christmas day rough bushmen's eyes were dim -- The western bushmen knew the way to bury dead like him; But some returning homeward found, by light of moon and star, Ben Duggan dying in the rocks, five miles from Talbragar.

They knelt around, He raised his head And faintly gasped, 'Jack Denver's dead, Roll up at Talbragar!'

But one short hour before he died he woke to understand, They told him, when he asked them, that the funeral was 'grand'; And then there came into his eyes a strange victorious light, He smiled on them in triumph, and his great soul took its flight. And still the careless bushmen tell by tent and shanty bar How Duggan raised a funeral years back on Talbragar.

And far and wide When Duggan died, The bushmen of the western side Rode in to Talbragar.

The Star of Australasia

We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime; Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time. From grander clouds in our 'peaceful skies' than ever were there before I tell you the Star of the South shall rise -- in the lurid clouds of war. It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase; For ever the nations rose in storm, to rot in a deadly peace. There comes a point that we will not yield, no matter if right or wrong, And man will fight on the battle-field while passion and pride are strong -- So long as he will not kiss the rod, and his stubborn spirit sours, And the scorn of Nature and curse of God are heavy on peace like ours.

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There are boys out there by the western creeks, who hurry away from school To climb the sides of the breezy peaks or dive in the shaded pool, Who'll stick to their guns when the mountains quake to the tread of a mighty war, And fight for Right or a Grand Mistake as men never fought before; When the peaks are scarred and the sea-walls crack till the furthest hills vibrate, And the world for a while goes rolling back in a storm of love and hate.

. . . . .

There are boys to-day in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride Who'll have one home when the storm is come, and fight for it side by side, Who'll hold the cliffs 'gainst the armoured hells that batter a coastal town, Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down. And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day, Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away -- Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun, And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, -- As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white, And pray to God in her darkened home for the 'men in the fort to-night'.

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But, oh! if the cavalry charge again as they did when the world was wide, 'Twill be grand in the ranks of a thousand men in that glorious race to ride And strike for all that is true and strong, for all that is grand and brave, And all that ever shall be, so long as man has a soul to save. He must lift the saddle, and close his 'wings', and shut his angels out, And steel his heart for the end of things, who'd ride with a stockman scout, When the race they ride on the battle track, and the waning distance hums, And the shelled sky shrieks or the rifles crack like stockwhip amongst the gums -- And the 'straight' is reached and the field is 'gapped' and the hoof-torn sward grows red With the blood of those who are handicapped with iron and steel and lead; And the gaps are filled, though unseen by eyes, with the spirit and with the shades Of the world-wide rebel dead who'll rise and rush with the Bush Brigades.