Lie down -- lie down! -- my noble hound,
That joyful bark give o'er;
It wakes the lonely echoes round,
But rouses me no more --
Thy lifted ears, thy swelling chest,
Thy eyes so keenly bright,
No longer kindle in my breast
The thrill of fierce delight;
When following thee on foaming steed
My eager soul outstripped thy speed --

Lie down -- lie down -- my faithful hound!
And watch this night by me,
For thee again the horn shall sound
By mountain, stream, and tree;
And thou along the forest glade,
Shall track the flying deer

Lie down -- lie down! -- my noble hound,
That joyful bark give o'er;
It wakes the lonely echoes round,
But rouses me no more --
Thy lifted ears, thy swelling chest,
Thy eyes so keenly bright,
No longer kindle in my breast
The thrill of fierce delight;
When following thee on foaming steed
My eager soul outstripped thy speed --

Lie down -- lie down -- my faithful hound!
And watch this night by me,

When the grass was closely mown,
Walking on the lawn alone,
In the turf a hole I found
And hid a soldier underground.

Spring and daisies came apace;
Grasses hid my hiding-place;
Grasses run like a green sea
O'er the lawn up to my knee.

Under grass alone he lies,
Looking up with leaden eyes,
Scarlet coat and pointed gun,
To the stars and to the sun.

When the grass is ripe like grain,
When the scythe is stoned again,
When the lawn is shaven clear,
Then my hole shall reappear.

Over the plains of the whitening grass
and the stunted mulga the drovers pass,
and in the red dust cloud, each side
of the cattle, the native stockmen ride.

And day after day lays bare the same
endless plains as the way they came,
and ever the cloven ranges lie
at the end of the land and the opal sky.

With creak of pack and saddle leather,
and chink of chain and bit together,
with moan of the herd with hobble and bell
they come to the tanks at the tea-tree well.

And through corroding blood-red hills

WHO seeks the shore where dreams outpour
Their floods in Slumber Seas
Lives all night long within a song
Of murmuring mysteries.

Where stars are lit above the pit
That holds the hollow dark,
Into their dawn he shall sail on
In an enchanted barque.

He shall not fear tho’ in his ear
The thrusting cranks of Time,
Thro’ blaze and gloom, with crash and boom,
Ring in tremendous rhyme,

Beyond the cloud that doth enshroud
Saturn with beauteous bands,

THE MERCHANT Abu Khan shunned the customs of his race,
And sought the cultured wisdom of the West.
His daughter fair Leola had the desert’s supple grace,
With an English education of the best.
The suitors for her hand were as grains of desert sand
But the merchant bade the Arab swarm begone:
And he swore a mighty oath, she should only make troth
With an Englishman an Englishman or none!

The chieftain Ben Kamir, tho’ rejected, stayed to plead,
But Abu Khan replied, ‘Thy suit is vain.
I cast aside my kinsmen and I scorn the prophet’s creed;

Thought-weary and sad, I reclined by a fountain
At the head of a white-cedar-shaded ravine,
And the breeze that fell over the high glooming mountain
Sang a lullaby low as I gazed o’er the scene.
Long I’d reclined not till slumber came o’er me,
Grateful as balm to a suffering child:
When a glorious maiden seemed standing before me
With a lyre in her hand—O so sounding and wild!

Bright was her brow, not the morning’s brow brighter,
But her eyes were two midnights of passionate thought;

1 Trim the sails the weird stars under—
2 Past the iron hail and thunder,
3 Past the mystery and the wonder,
4 Sails our fated bark;
5 Past the myriad voices hailing,
6 Past the moaning and the wailing,
7 The far voices failing, failing,
8 Drive we to the dark.

9 Past the headlands grim and sombre,
10 Past the shores of mist and slumber,
11 Leagues on leagues no man may number,
12 Soundings none can mark;
13 While the olden voices calling,
14 One by one behind are falling;

Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King's daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.

Red roses are at her feet,
(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)
And O where her bosom and girdle meet
Red roses are hidden there.

Fair is the knight who lieth slain
Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead men to feed.

Sweet is the page that lieth there,
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
Black, O black as the night are they.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;