he land,
And the face of a chieftain lies buried in sand--
Oh, the light that was quenched with Kooroora!
To-morrow the Wanneroo dogs will rejoice,
And feast in this desolate valley;
But where are his brothers--the friends of his choice,
And why art thou absent, Ewalli?
Now silence draws back to the forest again,
And the wind, like a wayfarer, sleeps on the plain,
But the cheeks of a warrior bleach in the rain.
Oh! where are thy mourners, Kooroora?
Fainting by the Way
Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away,
Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay;
Lurid wastelands, pent in silence, thick with hot and thirsty sighs,
Where the scanty thorn-leaves twinkle with their haggard, hopeless eyes;
Furnaced wastelands, hunched with hillocks, like to stony billows rolled,
Where the naked flats lie swirling, like a sea of darkened gold;
Burning wastelands, glancing upward with a weird and vacant stare,
Where the languid heavens quiver o'er red depths of stirless air!
"Oh, my brother, I am weary of this wildering waste of sand;
In the noontide we can never travel to the promised land!
Lo! the desert broadens round us, glaring wildly in my face,
With long leagues of sunflame on it,--oh! the barren, barren place!
See, behind us gleams a green plot, shall we thither turn and rest
Till a cold wind flutters over, till the day is down the west?
I would follow, but I cannot! Brother, let me here remain,
For the heart is dead within me, and I may not rise again."
"Wherefore stay to talk of fainting?--rouse thee for awhile, my friend;
Evening hurries on our footsteps, and this journey soon will end.
Wherefore stay to talk of fainting, when the sun, with sinking fire,
Smites the blocks of broken thunder, blackening yonder craggy spire?
Even now the far-off landscape broods and fills with coming change,
And a withered moon grows brighter bending o'er that shadowed range;
At the feet of grassy summits sleeps a water calm and clear--
There is surely rest beyond it! Comrade, wherefore tarry here?
"Yet a little longer struggle; we have walked a wilder plain,
And have met more troubles, trust me, than we e'er shall meet again!
Can you think of all the dangers you and I are living through
With a soul so weak and fearful, with the doubts _I_ never knew?
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