Poem by Henry Kendall

Other Poems (1871-82). Robert Parkes

High travelling winds by royal hill
 Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
 The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
 A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
 Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith—
 Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
 Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
 I hear a sound I know—
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
 Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
 Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
 And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
 And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
 Within a lonely range.

The halo of the beautiful
 Is round the quiet spot;
The grass is deep and green and cool,
 Where sound of life is not.

Here in this lovely lap of bloom,
 The grace of glen and glade,
That tender days and nights illume,
 My gentle friend was laid.

I do not mark the shell that lies
 Beneath the touching flowers;
I only see the radiant eyes
 Of other scenes and hours.

I only turn, by grief inspired,
 Like some forsaken thing,
To look upon a life retired
 As hushed Bethesda's spring.

The glory of unblemished days
 Is on the silent mound—
The light of years, too pure for praise;
 I kneel on holy ground!

Here is the clay of one whose mind
 Was fairer than the dew,
The sweetest nature of his kind
 I haply ever knew.

This Christian, walking on the white
 Clear paths apart from strife,
Kept far from all the heat and light
 That fills his father's life.

The clamour and exceeding flame
 Were never in his days:
A higher object was his aim
 Than thrones of shine and praise.

Ah! like an English April psalm,
 That floats by sea and strand,
He passed away into the calm
 Of the Eternal Land.

The chair he filled is set aside
 Upon his father's floor;
In morning hours, at eventide,
 His step is heard no more.

No more his face the forest knows;
 His voice is of the past;
But from his life of beauty flows
 A radiance that will last.

Yea, from the hours that heard his speech
 High shining mem'ries give
That fine example which will teach
 Our children how to live.

Here, kneeling in the body, far
 From grave of flower and dew,
My friend beyond the path of star,
 I say these words to you.

Though you were as a fleeting flame
 Across my road austere,
The memory of your face became
 A thing for ever dear.

I never have forgotten yet
 The Christian's gentle touch;
And, since the time when last we met,
 You know I've suffered much.

I feel that I have given pain
 By certain words and deeds,
But stricken here with Sorrow's rain,
 My contrite spirit bleeds.

For your sole sake I rue the blow,
 But this assurance send:
I smote, in noon, the public foe,
 But not the private friend.

I know that once I wronged your sire,
 But since that awful day
My soul has passed through blood and fire,
 My head is very grey.

Here let me pause!  From years like yours
 There ever flows and thrives
The splendid blessing which endures
 Beyond our little lives.

From lonely lands across the wave
 Is sent to-night by me
This rose of reverence for the grave
 Beside the mountain lea.

Robert Parkes - Son of Sir Henry Parkes.

1. Early Poems (1859-70). In Memoriam—Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse
2. Other Poems (1871-82). How the Melbourne Cup was Won
3. Early Poems (1859-70). Cui Bono?
4. Other Poems (1871-82). Aboriginal Death-Song
5. Other Poems (1871-82). Sydney Exhibition Cantata

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