Freedom in Faith

A heavy and desolate sense of life
    Is all the Past makes mine—and still
A cold contempt of Fortune’s strife,
    Despite the dread
    Of want of bread,
’Numbs, clogs like ice, my weary will.

How little is there on the earth
    That I at length can venerate?
I see at most one world-wide dearth
    Of wisdom free,
    True piety,
Of noble love, of honest hate.

With little hope of higher good
    For Man, for me, of earthly bliss,
Yet I withstand as I’ve withstood,
    The evil plan
    Man teaches man
Of valuing all things amiss.

There’s nothing under the godlike sun—|
    Worth loving to be bought or sold!—~
The only wealth by labour won
    Besides the food
    Supplying blood,
Is human excellence—not gold!

All other things designed or done
    Their only real value miss,
But in so far as this—each one
    And all sustain,
    Adorn, explain,
Secure and enter into this.

Beauty itself were nothing—no,
    But for Love’s golden heart and eye;
Nay Truth were dead but for the glow
    Around its shrine
    Of minds divine,
Of martyr minds that may not die,
Why pile we stone on stone to raise
    Jail, fane, or public hall—why plan
Fortress or tower for future days,
    Yet leave unbuilt
    To wrong or guilt
That nobler pile—the Mind of Man?

With finer wool the land to dower,
    Behold how strongly we are moved—
Hyen while a Nation’s thinking power
    Unvalued, yet
    Unnamed, we let
All bestial grow, being unimprov’d!

Can then the seed in God’s right hand
    Of Happiness, when shed below,
Find fitting nurture in a land
    Of wilding soil
    And selfish toil?—
I tell ye Time shall answer, No!

I tell ye that all public good,
    All individual worth and peace,
All youthful nobleness of mood,
    Like rose-leaves thin
    Must wither in
The sordid breath of days like these.

0 for a prophet’s tongue to teach
    The truths I cannot else reveal,
O for a conqueror’s power to reach
    The holy aim
    That doth inflame
And nerve me with a martyr’s zeal

’Tis vain—the sacred wish is vain!
    Men but renew the strifes of old =
But value with a greed insane
    All devilish skill,
    All splendid ill
That fetters Truth with chains of gold!

Mine heart is heavy with an ancient sorrow,
    My brain is aching with a clinging grief,
And if I seek to smooth away the furrow
    It plougheth in my soul, in the relief
    And balminess of Song, the cheat is brief!
One feeling still from which the Past did borrow
Exceeding light, reminds me that the morrow
    Must drag me farther from its lost belief.
    For solace therefore would I dive with Truth
Into the depths of her remotest lore:
    Somewhere in Nature’s motherly breast there’s ruth
Yet for her child though wounded to the core,
Though Life’s first objects may beguile no more
    And Misery clothe her with the dreams of youth!

O I would further fly, my child, to make thee safer yet
From the unsparing White Man’s dread hand all murder

Yet bear thee on as I have borne so stealthily and fleet,
But darkness shuts the forest and thorns are in my feet.
O moan not—I would give this braid that once bound
    Ilibbi’s brow,
But for a single palmful of water for thee now!

Ah! spring not to his name, no more to glad us may
    he come!—
Afar his ashes smoulder beneath the blasted gum,
All charred and blasted by the fire the White Man
    kindled there,
To burn our murder’d kindred and scorch us to despair.
O moan not—I would give this braid that once bound
    Hibbi’s brow,
But for a single palmful of water for thee now!

And but for thee I would their fire had eaten me as fast:
Hark, do I hear his death-cry yet lengthening up the
    blast?
But no, when his bound hands had signed the way that
    we should fly,
Thrown on the pyre fresh bleeding I saw thy father die.
O moan not—I would give this braid, his first fond gift
    to me,
But for a single palmful of water now for thee!

No more shall his loud tomahawk be plied for our relief,
The streams have lost for ever the shadow of a Chief,
The fading track of his fleet foot may guide not as before,
And the echo of the mountains shall answer him no more!
O moan not—I would give this braid, thy father’s gift
    to me,
But for a single palmful of water now for thee!

O Liberty, yet build thee an august
    And best abode in this most virgin clime;
The Old World yet, power-trampled to the dust,
    Hath never known thee in thy perfect prime!
    Seeing all Rule which at a given time
Expires not, as reposed in Public Trust,
And thence renewable but by Suffrage, must
    Against thee in its nature be a crime!
    Seeing that all not privileged to name
Their governors—and more, to govern too,
    Choosing or chosen, but live unto thy blame!
That all are slaves in act who may not do
Whate’er is virtuous and in spirit who
    Believing aught dare not avow the same!

Shall we sing of Loyalty
    To the far South’s fiery youth?
Yea—but let the pean be
    Of loyalty to God and Truth:
To Man, to progress, and to all
    The free things, nobly free,
Of which their loved Australia shall
The golden cradle be.
    Hark! her star-eyed Destinies
    Pour their voices o’er the seas—
    Hither, to the Land of Gold,
    All who would be free!
    Here a diadem behold
    For immortal Liberty!
    Not for Old World queens and kings,
    Villain Slavery’s outworn things!

Shall we sing of Loyalty
    In this new and genial Land?
Yea—but let the paean be
    Of loyalty to Love’s command,
To Thought, to Beauty, and to all
    The glorious Arts that yet
In golden Australasia shall
    Like chrysolites be set.

We’ll plant a Tree of Liberty
    In the centre of the land,
And round it ranged as guardians be,
    A vowed and trusty band;
And sages bold and mighty soul’d
    Shall dress it day by day:
But woe unto the traitor who
    Would break one branch away.

Then sing the Tree of Liberty
    For the vow that we have made;
May it so flourish that when we
    Are buried in its shade,
Fair Womanhood and Love and Good,
    All pilgrims pure shall go
Its growth to bless for happiness—
    O may it flourish so!
Till felled by gold as bards have told,
    In the Old World once it grew,
But there its fruits were ever sold
    And only to the Few:
But here at last, uncurs’d by caste,
    Each man at Nature’s call
Shall pluck as well what none may sell,
    The fruit that blooms for All.

By gold ’twas felled as bards have held
    In the Old World where it grew,
But here the power that there dispelled
    Its life shall be its dew:
The evil bout of Time is out,
    And gold no more a thrall,
Shall here but build for Truth and gild
    The fruit that blooms for All.

Then sing the Tree of Liberty,
    And the men who shall defend
Its glorious future righteously
    For this all-glorious end—
That happiness all men to bless
    Out with its growth may grow—
Our Southern Tree of Liberty
    Shall flourish even so!

My own wild Burns! these rude-wrought rhymes of
    thine
In golden worth are like the unshapely coin
Of some new realm, yet pure as from the mine—
And Art may well be spared with such alloy
As dims the bullion to improve the die!

    I love the truths of Art but more indeed
The simplest truths of Nature; and I read
To find her visibly enthroned on all
His muse hath builded like a fiery wall
Round national faith and patriotic pride
And Love and Valour both at Beauty’s side.
Yea, more his outward rudeness, doth impress
Upon me still his innate strengthiness*
Even as imperfect features oft enhance
Th’ intrinsic power of some fine countenance.

    How various too the spirit of his lyre—
How many-hued his soul’s poetic fire!
In his one Muse such qualities we find
Mingled, as most are several in their kind:
Mirth like a billow brightening up before
The blasts of Grief—to die on Misery’s shore,
Humour and Scorn and Pathos, with a reach
Above all effort, each exalting each!
Yea, Terror wedding its own sense of evil
To mother Pity—even for the Devil!

    But best he moves to tears, or wakes such sighs
As fan the vital fire in Beauty’s lustrous eyes.
Hark! when the winding Nith, the Afton, Clyde,
Rave downward or in gleaming quiet glide,
How Passion’s very soul keeps burning by
In his wild verse from every covert nigh!
Or by the “bonnie Doon” or “gurgling Ayr,”
What heart-sweet memories like perfumes there
Re-breathe of bloomy joys untimely shed
And Love that followed the beloved dead
To Heaven!—and then while Pity weeps aloud
Clad in the pale ideal of a shroud,
Who would exchange the luxury of her woe
For all the pleasures that the heartless know!

    * At first sight, it may appear that strength would be here the
only proper word, and that the two added syllables are tacked on
to it merely for the sake of the metre and rhyme; but the reader
will perceive, by the context, that strength is not so much meant
as the indication of it; namely, strengthiness.
    But should we need relief—another page
Shall blow the trumpet of his warlike rage!
And vilest of the villain herd is he
Who to his battle-dirge can listener be
Nor feel that he could die for Liberty!
Or who, while volleys forth the charging lay
Revoicing Bannockburn’s all-glorious day,
From his exalted manhood then not spurns
Whate’er is traitorous, with a shout for Burns!

    And now in thought I track with steps of fear
The noble peasant in his wild career.
The haven of his youth is left: the sea
Of Life is loudening all around; and she,
Who ‘mid its perilous breakers might have stood
’Twixt him and evil influencing for good,
His first sweet love—she is not! Heaven looks bright
Still, and the hills laugh round him for delight,
But, ah! beneath the sun he finds no more
The Eden where his genius dwelt before!
And does he wander by his native Ayr?
The spirit of gladness hath gone up even there—
Up like the blithe notes of the lark when they
Have faded heavenward utterly away.
The more he mixes with his kind in mirth
The more he feels the homelessness of earth,
Till Life’s lost charm seems beckoning him afar
In the white beauty of each lovely star!
She zs not!—only sweeter is the tone
Of his wild lyre for the wild loss thus known.

    But storying thus with love his native streams,
Thus by the life of his poetic dreams
Breathing suggestions that exalt and thrill
Into the spirit of each warrior hill;
Yea lighting Scotia’s universal face
With mental beauty and affectionate grace,
Yet, did he die the victim of excess?
Alas! even Poesy by her mute distress
Admits the blot, nor could she save her son,
Her star-bright Rob, her love-anointed one!
    Whilst yet the bard by Fortune unsubdued
Had only like a wild bird of the wood
Sung his own simple joys, then happy being good—
Ere he had sounded the world’s heart and spurned
The soulless tone its hollowness returned,
His habitudes how temperate we find
From a self-pleasing tunefulness of mind.

    But afterwards, that such a being so
Alive to joy and sensitive to woe,
With all in sympathy of rich and rare
Flushing his soul, as in the evening air
A western cloud grows grateful to the sense
With all the sun’s unspeakable affluence
Of golden glory—mightily endowed
By genius too, with motives nobly proud
And full-summ’d wings of spiritual flame
Wherewith to mount against the burning eye of Fame;
Yet ‘bounded in a nutshell,” or but wooed
By Fortune from a barren solitude,
Just to be stared at by her minions vain—
A sort of mental monster newly ta’en!
That such a being should resort at length
To whatsoever might repair the strength
Of ruined Joy a moment or inspire
The heart of dying Hope though with fallacious fire,
Was I believe, howe’er the truth appal,
Almost inevitably natural.

    Ah, Scotia! it behoved thee then to guard
The worldly welfare of thy peasant bard!
But no, thou wouldst not—and thy gifted son
So placed, again the like career should run—
Again be naked left to Fortune’s slurs,
A hound-like spirit in a land of curs!

    But ah! if such may always be the fate
Of Genius native to a low estate,
For mercy’s sake, nay for the sake of Burns,
Whose spirit methinks tow’rds each poor brother yearns,
Away the mask of kindred let us fling
At once, and brand it as an outcast thing!
Above communion with the rude, by mind
Exalted, and yet shunned by the refined!
Yea, let this warning in its face be hurl’d
As the collective verdict of the world:—

    “Enrich the age with beauty if you will,
But you must do so at your peril still!
The sole reward’s a life-long lack of bread,
And lastly a most desolate death-bed,
And then some century after, when the loss
And agony of Genius on the cross
Of Passion, shall have spread into a tale
Wherewith to spice the tavern lounger’s ale,
Then shall your lowly grave, long grass o’ergrown,
Become a national sentiment in stone!
Yes, then a costly monument shall grace
And guard it in the land, a sacred place!”

    Oh, must not Scorn have reeled with laughter—yes,
Even until shocked at her own bitterness,
To see by Scotland such a work up-piled
In honour of its so neglected child
Of grace and glory beautifully wild?
But there it stands—a type (at least to me)
Of intellectual hypocrisy!
Sad Poesy beholding, from it turns
And murmurs—What, a monument to Burns?
No: ’tis a sordid scoff perpetual made—
A final insult to his injured Shade!
The thankless country that denied him bread,
Now gives this stone—for he is safely dead!