Poem by Henry Lawson

The Three Kings

Three sea-girt pinnacles off North Cape, New Zealand.

The East is dead and the West is done, and again our course lies thus:--
South-east by Fate and the Rising Sun where the Three Kings wait for us.
When our hearts are young and the world is wide, and the heights seem grand
   to climb--
We are off and away to the Sydney-side; but the Three Kings bide their
   time.

‘I’ve been to the West,’ the digger said: he was bearded, bronzed and old;
‘Ah, the smothering curse of the East is wool, and the curse of the West is
   gold.
‘I went to the West in the golden boom, with Hope and a life-long mate,
‘They sleep in the sand by the Boulder Soak, and long may the Three Kings
   wait.’

‘I’ve had my fling on the Sydney-side,’ said a black-sheep to the sea,
‘Let the young fool learn when he can’t be taught: I’ve learnt what’s good
   for me.’
And he gazed ahead on the sea-line dim--grown dim in his softened eyes--
With a pain in his heart that was good for him--as he saw the Three Kings
   rise.

A pale girl sits on the foc’sle head--she is back, Three Kings! so soon;
But it seems to her like a life-time dead since she fled with him ‘saloon.’
There is refuge still in the old folks’ arms for the child that loved too
   well;
They will hide her shame on the Southern farm--and the Three Kings will not
   tell.

’Twas a restless heart on the tide of life, and a false star in the skies
That led me on to the deadly strife where the Southern London lies;
But I dream in peace of a home for me, by a glorious southern sound,
As the sunset fades from a moonlit sea, and the Three Kings show us round.

Our hearts are young and the old hearts old, and life on the farms is
slow,
And away in the world there is fame and gold--and the Three Kings watch us
   go.
Our heads seem wise and the world seems wide, and its heights are ours to
   climb,
So it’s off and away in our youthful pride--but the Three Kings bide our
   time.

1. When the Bush Begins to Speak
2. On the Wallaby
3. The Poets of the Tomb
4. The Days When We Went Swimming
5. The Uncultured Rhymer to His Cultured Critics

Henry Longfellow The Three Kings ("Three Kings came riding from far away")

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