章节正文
Away in the gloomy ranges, at the foot of an ironbark,
The bonnie, winsome laddie was lying stiff and stark;
For the Reckless mare had smashed him against a leaning limb,
And his comely face was battered, and his merry eyes were dim.
And the thoroughbred chestnut filly, the saddle beneath her flanks,
Was away like fire through the ranges to join the wild mob's ranks;
And a broken-hearted woman and an old man worn and grey
Were searching all night in the ranges till the sunrise brought the day.
And the mother kept feeblycalling, with a hope that would not die,
`Willie! where are you, Willie?' But how can the dead reply;
And hope died out with the daylight, and the darkness brought despair,
God pity the stricken mother, and answer the widow's prayer!
Though far and wide they sought him, they found not where he fell;
For the ranges held him precious, and guarded their treasure well.
The wattle blooms above him, and the blue bells blow close by,
And the brown bees buzz the secret, and the wild birds sing reply.
But the mother pined and faded, and cried, and took no rest,
And rode each day to the ranges on her hopeless, weary quest.
Seeking her loved one ever, she faded and pined away,
But with strength of her great affection she still sought every day.
`I know that sooner or later I shall find my boy,' she said.
But she came not home one evening, and they found her lying dead,
And stamped on the poor pale features, as the spirit homeward pass'd,
Was an angel smile of gladness -- she had found the boy at last.
Over the Range
Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed,
Playing alone in the creek-bed dry,
In the small green flat on every side
Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high;
Tell us the tale of your lonely life,
'Mid the great grey forests that know no change.
`I never have left my home,' she said,
`I have never been over the Moonbi Range.
`Father and mother are both long dead,
And I live with granny in yon wee place.'
`Where are your father and mother?' we said.
She puzzled awhile with thoughtful face,
Then a light came into the shy brown eye,
And she smiled, for she thought the question strange
On a thing so certain -- `When people die
They go to the country over the range.'
`And what is this country like, my lass?'
`There are blossoming trees and pretty flowers,
And shining creeks where the golden grass
Is fresh and sweet from the summer showers.
They never need work, nor want, nor weep;
No troubles can come their hearts to estrange.
Some summer night I shall fall asleep,
And wake in the country over the range.'
Child, you are wise in your simple trust,
For the wisest man knows no more than you
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust:
Our views by a range are bounded too;
But we know that God hath this gift in store,
That when we come to the final change,
We shall meet with our loved ones gone before
To the beautiful country over the range.
Only a Jockey
`Richard Bennison, a jockey, aged 14, while riding William Tell
in his training, was thrown and killed. The horse is luckily uninjured.'
-- Melbourne Wire.
Out in the grey cheerless chill of the morning light,
Out on the track where the night shades still lurk;
Ere the first gleam of the sungod's returning light,
Round come the race-horses early at work.
Reefing and pulling and racing so readily,
Close sit the jockey-boys holding them hard,
`Steady the stallion there -- canter him steadily,
Don't let him gallop so much as a yard.'
Fiercely he fights while the others run wide of him,
Reefs at the bit that would hold him in thrall,
Plunges and bucks till the boy that's astride of him
Goes to the ground with a terrible fall.
`Stop him there! Block him there! Drive him in carefully,
Lead him about till he's quiet and cool.
Sound as a bell! though he's blown himself fearfully,
Now let us pick up this poor little fool.
`Stunned? Oh, by Jove, I'm afraid it's a case with him;
Ride for the doctor! keep bathing his head!
Send for a cart to go down to our place with him' --
No use! One long sigh and the little chap's dead.
Only a jockey-boy, foul-mouthed and bad you see,
Ignorant, heathenish, gone to his rest.
Parson or Presbyter, Pharisee, Sadducee,
What did you do for him? -- bad was the best.
Negroes and foreigners, all have a claim on you;
Yearly you send your well-advertised hoard,
But the poor jockey-boy -- shame on you, shame on you,
`Feed ye, my little ones' -- what said the Lord?
Him ye held less than the outer barbarian,
Left him to die in his ignorant sin;
Have you no principles, humanitarian?
Have you no precept -- `go gather them in?'
. . . . .
Knew he God's name? In his brutal profanity,
That name was an oath -- out of many but one --
What did he get from our famed Christianity?
Where has his soul -- if he had any -- gone?
Fourteen years old, and what was he taught of it?
What did he know of God's infinite grace?
Draw the dark curtain of shame o'er the thought of it,
Draw the shroud over the jockey-boy's face.
How M'Ginnis Went Missing
Let us cease our idle chatter,
Let the tears bedew our cheek,
For a man from Tallangatta
Has been missing for a week.
Where the roaring flooded Murray
Covered all the lower land,
There he started in a hurry,
With a bottle in his hand.
And his fate is hid for ever,
But the public seem to think
That he slumbered by the river,
'Neath the influence of drink.
And they scarcely seem to wonder
That the river, wide and deep,
Never woke him with its thunder,
Never stirred him in his sleep.
As the crashing logs came sweeping,
And their tumult filled the air,
Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping,
`'Tis a wake in ould Kildare.'
So the river rose and found him
Sleeping softly by the stream,
And the cruel waters drowned him
Ere he wakened from his dream.
And the blossom-tufted wattle,
Blooming brightly on the lea,
Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle
Going drifting out to sea.
A Voice from the Town
A sequel to [Mowbray Morris's] `A Voice from the Bush'
I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a lady again.
I am back into civilisation,
Once more in the stir and the strife,
But the old joys have lost their sensation --
The light has gone out of my life;
The men of my time they have married,
Made fortunes or gone to the wall;
Too long from the scene I have tarried,
And, somehow, I'm out of it all.
For I go to the balls and the races
A lonely companionless elf,
And the ladies bestow all their graces
On others less grey than myself;
While the talk goes around I'm a dumb one
'Midst youngsters that chatter and prate,
And they call me `the Man who was Someone
Way back in the year Sixty-eight.'
And I look, sour and old, at the dancers
That swing to the strains of the band,
And the ladies all give me the Lancers,
No waltzes -- I quite understand.
For matrons intent upon matching
Their daughters with infinite push,
Would scarce think him worthy the catching,
The broken-down man from the bush.
New partners have come and new faces,
And I, of the bygone brigade,
Sharply feel that oblivion my place is --
I must lie with the rest in the shade.
And the youngsters, fresh-featured and pleasant,
They live as we lived -- fairly fast;
But I doubt if the men of the present
Are as good as the men of the past.
Of excitement and praise they are chary,
There is nothing much good upon earth;
Their watchword is NIL ADMIRARI,
They are bored from the days of their birth.
Where the life that we led was a revel
They `wince and relent and refrain' --
I could show them the road -- to the devil,
Were I only a youngster again.
I could show them the road where the stumps are
The pleasures that end in remorse,
And the game where the Devil's three trumps are,
The woman, the card, and the horse.
Shall the blind lead the blind -- shall the sower
Of wind reap the storm as of yore?
Though they get to their goal somewhat slower,
They march where we hurried before.
For the world never learns -- just as we did,
They gallantly go to their fate,
Unheeded all warnings, unheeded
The maxims of elders sedate.
As the husbandman, patiently toiling,
Draws a harvest each year from the soil,
So the fools grow afresh for the spoiling,
And a new crop of thieves for the spoil.
But a truce to this dull moralising,
Let them drink while the drops are of gold,
I have tasted the dregs -- 'twere surprising
Were the new wine to me like the old;
The bonnie, winsome laddie was lying stiff and stark;
For the Reckless mare had smashed him against a leaning limb,
And his comely face was battered, and his merry eyes were dim.
And the thoroughbred chestnut filly, the saddle beneath her flanks,
Was away like fire through the ranges to join the wild mob's ranks;
And a broken-hearted woman and an old man worn and grey
Were searching all night in the ranges till the sunrise brought the day.
And the mother kept feeblycalling, with a hope that would not die,
`Willie! where are you, Willie?' But how can the dead reply;
And hope died out with the daylight, and the darkness brought despair,
God pity the stricken mother, and answer the widow's prayer!
Though far and wide they sought him, they found not where he fell;
For the ranges held him precious, and guarded their treasure well.
The wattle blooms above him, and the blue bells blow close by,
And the brown bees buzz the secret, and the wild birds sing reply.
But the mother pined and faded, and cried, and took no rest,
And rode each day to the ranges on her hopeless, weary quest.
Seeking her loved one ever, she faded and pined away,
But with strength of her great affection she still sought every day.
`I know that sooner or later I shall find my boy,' she said.
But she came not home one evening, and they found her lying dead,
And stamped on the poor pale features, as the spirit homeward pass'd,
Was an angel smile of gladness -- she had found the boy at last.
Over the Range
Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed,
Playing alone in the creek-bed dry,
In the small green flat on every side
Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high;
Tell us the tale of your lonely life,
'Mid the great grey forests that know no change.
`I never have left my home,' she said,
`I have never been over the Moonbi Range.
`Father and mother are both long dead,
And I live with granny in yon wee place.'
`Where are your father and mother?' we said.
She puzzled awhile with thoughtful face,
Then a light came into the shy brown eye,
And she smiled, for she thought the question strange
On a thing so certain -- `When people die
They go to the country over the range.'
`And what is this country like, my lass?'
`There are blossoming trees and pretty flowers,
And shining creeks where the golden grass
Is fresh and sweet from the summer showers.
They never need work, nor want, nor weep;
No troubles can come their hearts to estrange.
Some summer night I shall fall asleep,
And wake in the country over the range.'
Child, you are wise in your simple trust,
For the wisest man knows no more than you
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust:
Our views by a range are bounded too;
But we know that God hath this gift in store,
That when we come to the final change,
We shall meet with our loved ones gone before
To the beautiful country over the range.
Only a Jockey
`Richard Bennison, a jockey, aged 14, while riding William Tell
in his training, was thrown and killed. The horse is luckily uninjured.'
-- Melbourne Wire.
Out in the grey cheerless chill of the morning light,
Out on the track where the night shades still lurk;
Ere the first gleam of the sungod's returning light,
Round come the race-horses early at work.
Reefing and pulling and racing so readily,
Close sit the jockey-boys holding them hard,
`Steady the stallion there -- canter him steadily,
Don't let him gallop so much as a yard.'
Fiercely he fights while the others run wide of him,
Reefs at the bit that would hold him in thrall,
Plunges and bucks till the boy that's astride of him
Goes to the ground with a terrible fall.
`Stop him there! Block him there! Drive him in carefully,
Lead him about till he's quiet and cool.
Sound as a bell! though he's blown himself fearfully,
Now let us pick up this poor little fool.
`Stunned? Oh, by Jove, I'm afraid it's a case with him;
Ride for the doctor! keep bathing his head!
Send for a cart to go down to our place with him' --
No use! One long sigh and the little chap's dead.
Only a jockey-boy, foul-mouthed and bad you see,
Ignorant, heathenish, gone to his rest.
Parson or Presbyter, Pharisee, Sadducee,
What did you do for him? -- bad was the best.
Negroes and foreigners, all have a claim on you;
Yearly you send your well-advertised hoard,
But the poor jockey-boy -- shame on you, shame on you,
`Feed ye, my little ones' -- what said the Lord?
Him ye held less than the outer barbarian,
Left him to die in his ignorant sin;
Have you no principles, humanitarian?
Have you no precept -- `go gather them in?'
. . . . .
Knew he God's name? In his brutal profanity,
That name was an oath -- out of many but one --
What did he get from our famed Christianity?
Where has his soul -- if he had any -- gone?
Fourteen years old, and what was he taught of it?
What did he know of God's infinite grace?
Draw the dark curtain of shame o'er the thought of it,
Draw the shroud over the jockey-boy's face.
How M'Ginnis Went Missing
Let us cease our idle chatter,
Let the tears bedew our cheek,
For a man from Tallangatta
Has been missing for a week.
Where the roaring flooded Murray
Covered all the lower land,
There he started in a hurry,
With a bottle in his hand.
And his fate is hid for ever,
But the public seem to think
That he slumbered by the river,
'Neath the influence of drink.
And they scarcely seem to wonder
That the river, wide and deep,
Never woke him with its thunder,
Never stirred him in his sleep.
As the crashing logs came sweeping,
And their tumult filled the air,
Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping,
`'Tis a wake in ould Kildare.'
So the river rose and found him
Sleeping softly by the stream,
And the cruel waters drowned him
Ere he wakened from his dream.
And the blossom-tufted wattle,
Blooming brightly on the lea,
Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle
Going drifting out to sea.
A Voice from the Town
A sequel to [Mowbray Morris's] `A Voice from the Bush'
I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a lady again.
I am back into civilisation,
Once more in the stir and the strife,
But the old joys have lost their sensation --
The light has gone out of my life;
The men of my time they have married,
Made fortunes or gone to the wall;
Too long from the scene I have tarried,
And, somehow, I'm out of it all.
For I go to the balls and the races
A lonely companionless elf,
And the ladies bestow all their graces
On others less grey than myself;
While the talk goes around I'm a dumb one
'Midst youngsters that chatter and prate,
And they call me `the Man who was Someone
Way back in the year Sixty-eight.'
And I look, sour and old, at the dancers
That swing to the strains of the band,
And the ladies all give me the Lancers,
No waltzes -- I quite understand.
For matrons intent upon matching
Their daughters with infinite push,
Would scarce think him worthy the catching,
The broken-down man from the bush.
New partners have come and new faces,
And I, of the bygone brigade,
Sharply feel that oblivion my place is --
I must lie with the rest in the shade.
And the youngsters, fresh-featured and pleasant,
They live as we lived -- fairly fast;
But I doubt if the men of the present
Are as good as the men of the past.
Of excitement and praise they are chary,
There is nothing much good upon earth;
Their watchword is NIL ADMIRARI,
They are bored from the days of their birth.
Where the life that we led was a revel
They `wince and relent and refrain' --
I could show them the road -- to the devil,
Were I only a youngster again.
I could show them the road where the stumps are
The pleasures that end in remorse,
And the game where the Devil's three trumps are,
The woman, the card, and the horse.
Shall the blind lead the blind -- shall the sower
Of wind reap the storm as of yore?
Though they get to their goal somewhat slower,
They march where we hurried before.
For the world never learns -- just as we did,
They gallantly go to their fate,
Unheeded all warnings, unheeded
The maxims of elders sedate.
As the husbandman, patiently toiling,
Draws a harvest each year from the soil,
So the fools grow afresh for the spoiling,
And a new crop of thieves for the spoil.
But a truce to this dull moralising,
Let them drink while the drops are of gold,
I have tasted the dregs -- 'twere surprising
Were the new wine to me like the old;
- saddle [´sædl]
n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词) - daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- gallop [´gæləp] n.&v.奔驰；急速行进 (初中英语单词)
- ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- sensation [sen´seiʃən] n.感觉；轰动；轰动一时 (初中英语单词)
- bestow [bi´stəu] vt.(把...)赠给；使用 (初中英语单词)
- chatter [´tʃætə] vi.&n.饶舌；闲聊 (初中英语单词)
- intent [in´tent] a.专心致志的 n.意图 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- youngster [´jʌŋstə] n.年轻人；小伙子；少年 (初中英语单词)
- harvest [´hɑ:vist] n.&v.收获；收割 (初中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- reckless [´rekləs] a.不注意的；鲁莽的 (高中英语单词)
- chestnut [´tʃesnʌt] n.栗子；栗树；栗色(马) (高中英语单词)
- sunrise [´sʌnraiz] n.日出，黎明 (高中英语单词)
- stricken [´strikən] strike的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- homeward [´həumwəd] ad.&a.回家(的) (高中英语单词)
- granny [´græni] n.奶奶；外婆 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtful [´θɔ:tfəl] a.深思的；体贴的 (高中英语单词)
- infinite [´infinit] a.无限的，无穷的 (高中英语单词)
- tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
- brightly [´braitli] ad.明亮地；聪明地 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
- comely [´kʌmli] a.秀丽的；文雅的 (英语四级单词)
- feebly [´fi:bli] ad.虚弱地；贫乏地 (英语四级单词)
- gladness [´glædnis] n.愉快，高兴，喜悦 (英语四级单词)
- precept [´pri:sept] n.箴言；教训；规则 (英语四级单词)
- brutal [´bru:tl] a.兽性的；残暴的 (英语四级单词)
- shroud [ʃraud] n.尸衣；覆盖物；罩 (英语四级单词)
- thieves [θi:vz] thief的复数 (英语四级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- oblivion [ə´bliviən] n.(被)忘却；漠视 (英语六级单词)
- relent [ri´lent] vi.发慈悲心；怜悯 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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