The Song of Many
Spoken through the world in kindness — through the universe in thunder!
When the world-folk would not listen, while the world was growing grey:
" Those whom God or Fate hath mated, let no mortal put asunder! "
And the Thousand seek to do it, spite of Satan, every day.
Perish by the Sword, or Slander! They shall feel it, they shall know it,
Who, when from a sky of azure that dread thunderbolt was hurled,
Made me drunkard who was sober, made me devil who was poet,
Made the Girl-wife and Boy-husband, Man and Woman of the World!
In an interval of Business, read, or do not read it, Annie,
(Annie Ward and Harry Lawrence were but names — and what are names?)
Not alone the Song of Us Two — 'tis the song of very many,
And maybe a song that comforts, and, maybe, a song that shames.
Born of different States — no matter. We were bred amongst the wattles,
But the single room in lodgings was to us a house and grounds
With no fear for any future, spite of sowing hop-beer bottles
To get pennies to make shillings when the baker came his rounds.
So we struggled, and were happy, till, the pennies growing fewer,
One true Friend of Both assisted, and we knew not what he spent,
So we emigrated gaily from a new land to a newer
Where a harder class of people had a kinder government.
And a Native School they gave us, with but few white people near us
Save the minister and doctor, and a woman who was strong:
We grew nearer to each other with our daily work to cheer us,
Children teaching native babies till our baby came along.
To our own land, town and people, and in quest of an Ideal,
Children still — the People's children — from a brighter Bush we came
And I wrote about our Dreamland — which to me was very real,
Till, in place of love and pennies, came the curse of pounds and fame.
Talk of faults on one, or both sides — of life stories and their morals!
Of the changes wrought by Sorrow — we had never sipped the cup.
We were children! and our elders should have hushed our childish quarrels
Or have left you to your fierce little makings-of-it-up!
To the little three-roomed cottage that to Us Three was a palace
Came the Friend of Both and neither, came the Mother and the Aunt,
Came the twisted mind of envy and the crooked smile of malice,
Came the white face and stooped shoulders of the Want-to-write-and-can't!
So we parted as our mothers and our fathers did before us —
As our little son and daughter may be married yet and part
While adown the road to ruin runs the fiendish cackling chorus
Of a Land without a Purpose and a town without a heart.
They shall feel it — I am bitter! They are married and they carry
All the burden of a sorrow that they could not let alone.
They were friends of Henry Lawrence — not the dear old chums of Harry —
And the sexless and self-seeking hearts of poison-coated stone.
" Tempers too antagonistic! " Every day the Sneak discovers
New excuses for old actions. We have said all to be said;
In the Islands, seen in Sunset, we may meet again as lovers,
And, till that time, let all bitterness be dead as love is dead.
When the world-folk would not listen, while the world was growing grey:
" Those whom God or Fate hath mated, let no mortal put asunder! "
And the Thousand seek to do it, spite of Satan, every day.
Perish by the Sword, or Slander! They shall feel it, they shall know it,
Who, when from a sky of azure that dread thunderbolt was hurled,
Made me drunkard who was sober, made me devil who was poet,
Made the Girl-wife and Boy-husband, Man and Woman of the World!
In an interval of Business, read, or do not read it, Annie,
(Annie Ward and Harry Lawrence were but names — and what are names?)
Not alone the Song of Us Two — 'tis the song of very many,
And maybe a song that comforts, and, maybe, a song that shames.
Born of different States — no matter. We were bred amongst the wattles,
But the single room in lodgings was to us a house and grounds
With no fear for any future, spite of sowing hop-beer bottles
To get pennies to make shillings when the baker came his rounds.
So we struggled, and were happy, till, the pennies growing fewer,
One true Friend of Both assisted, and we knew not what he spent,
So we emigrated gaily from a new land to a newer
Where a harder class of people had a kinder government.
And a Native School they gave us, with but few white people near us
Save the minister and doctor, and a woman who was strong:
We grew nearer to each other with our daily work to cheer us,
Children teaching native babies till our baby came along.
To our own land, town and people, and in quest of an Ideal,
Children still — the People's children — from a brighter Bush we came
And I wrote about our Dreamland — which to me was very real,
Till, in place of love and pennies, came the curse of pounds and fame.
Talk of faults on one, or both sides — of life stories and their morals!
Of the changes wrought by Sorrow — we had never sipped the cup.
We were children! and our elders should have hushed our childish quarrels
Or have left you to your fierce little makings-of-it-up!
To the little three-roomed cottage that to Us Three was a palace
Came the Friend of Both and neither, came the Mother and the Aunt,
Came the twisted mind of envy and the crooked smile of malice,
Came the white face and stooped shoulders of the Want-to-write-and-can't!
So we parted as our mothers and our fathers did before us —
As our little son and daughter may be married yet and part
While adown the road to ruin runs the fiendish cackling chorus
Of a Land without a Purpose and a town without a heart.
They shall feel it — I am bitter! They are married and they carry
All the burden of a sorrow that they could not let alone.
They were friends of Henry Lawrence — not the dear old chums of Harry —
And the sexless and self-seeking hearts of poison-coated stone.
" Tempers too antagonistic! " Every day the Sneak discovers
New excuses for old actions. We have said all to be said;
In the Islands, seen in Sunset, we may meet again as lovers,
And, till that time, let all bitterness be dead as love is dead.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.