Poem by Henry Kendall

Early Poems (1859-70). The Song of Arda

           (From "Annatanam")

   Low as a lute, my love, beneath the call
   Of storm, I hear a melancholy wind;
   The memorably mournful wind of yore
   Which is the very brother of the one
   That wanders, like a hermit, by the mound
   Of Death, in lone Annatanam.  A song
   Was shaped for this, what time we heard outside
   The gentle falling of the faded leaf
   In quiet noons:  a song whose theme doth turn
   On gaps of Ruin and the gay-green clifts
   Beneath the summits haunted by the moon.
   Yea, much it travels to the dens of dole;
   And in the midst of this strange rhyme, my lords,
   Our Desolation like a phantom sits
   With wasted cheeks and eyes that cannot weep
   And fastened lips crampt up in marvellous pain.

   A song in whose voice is the voice of the foam
      And the rhyme of the wintering wave,
   And the tongue of the things that eternally roam
      In forest, in fell or in cave;
   But mostly 'tis like to the Wind without home
      In the glen of a desolate grave—
       Of a deep and desolate grave.

   The torrent flies over the thunder-struck clift
      With many and many a call;
   The leaves are swept down, and a dolorous drift
      Is hurried away with the fall.
   But mostly 'tis like the Wind without home
      In the glen of a desolate grave—
       Of a deep and desolate grave.

   Whoever goes thither by night or by day
      Must mutter, O Father, to Thee,
   For the shadows that startle, the sounds that waylay
      Are heavy to hear and to see;
   And a step and a moan and a whisper for aye
      Have made it a sorrow to be—
       A sorrow of sorrows to be.

   Oh! cover your faces and shudder, and turn
      And hide in the dark of your hair,
   Nor look to the Glen in the Mountains, to learn
      Of the mystery mouldering there;
   But rather sit low in the ashes and urn
      Dead hopes in your mighty despair—
       In the depths of your mighty despair.

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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