lls
And barren eyes all day,
'Tis sweet to think of waterfalls
Two hundred miles away!

I would not ask you, friends, to brook
An old, old truth from me,
If I could shut a Poet's book
Which haunts me like the Sea!

He saith to me, this Poet saith,
So many things of light,
That I have found a fourfold faith,
And gained a twofold sight.

He telleth me, this Poet tells,
How much of God is seen
Amongst the deep-mossed English dells,
And miles of gleaming green.

From many a black Gethsemane,
He leads my bleeding feet
To where I hear the Morning Sea
Round shining spaces beat!

To where I feel the wind, which brings
A sound of running creeks,
And blows those dark, unpleasant things,
The sorrows, from my cheeks.

I'll shut mine eyes, my Poet choice,
And spend the day with thee;
I'll dream thou art a fountain voice
Which God hath sent to me!

And far beyond these office walls
My thoughts shall even stray,
And watch the wilful waterfalls,
Two hundred miles away.

For, if I know not of thy deeds,
And darling Kentish downs,
I've seen the deep, wild Dungog fells,
And _hate_ the heart of towns!

Then, ho! for beaming bank and brake,
Far-folded hills among,
Where Williams,* like a silver snake,
Draws winding lengths along!

--
* A tributary of the river Hunter, after Hunter, on which Dungog stands.
--

And ho! for stormy mountain cones,
Where headlong Winter leaps,
What time the gloomy swamp-oak groans,
And weeps and wails and weeps.

_There_, friends, are spots of sleepy green,
Where one may hear afar,
O'er fifteen leagues of waste, I ween,
A moaning harbour bar!

(The sea that breaks, and beats and shakes
The caverns, howling loud,
Beyond the midnight Myall Lakes,*
And half-awakened Stroud!)**

--
* A chain of lakes near Port Stephens, N.S.W.
** A town on the Karuah, which flows into Port Stephens.
--

There, through the fretful autumn days,
Beneath a cloudy sun,
Comes rolling down rain-rutted ways,
The wind, Euroclydon!

While rattles over riven rocks
The thunder, harsh and dry;
And blustering gum and brooding box
Are threshing at the sky!

And then the gloom doth vex the sight
With crude, unshapely forms
Which hold throughout the yelling night
A f