Two very different poems from this Australian poet.
Beauty of the World
Frank Wilmot
Not what men see,
Not what they draw from the spread
Of hills looming in cloud -
Not this makes them proud;
But what they can hold in fee
With difficulty and dread
To tell to their hearts in pain
Over and over again.
The terror of Beauty is this:
That something may find the abyss,
Some fact of miracle would mean.
The spacious suns
Flow through the heart as water runs,
Known and not held,
Leaving no trace.
O'er Earth's wind-ruffled face
Goes the sun-shuddering air...
Of all the Beauty that rides
Violent or velvet-footed everywhere,
So little abides -
The hunger of life's unquelled!
Languid upon their slopes of silvery death
Dead giants sway to the noon breezes' breath;
How these things torture the soul!
Moonlight that loiters on a mossy bole;
Sunglow that makes a pillow of a stone;
The drifts of forest light;
Trees in a stormy night;
Bush echoes; ocean's unresolving tone;
Or groups of falling chords melting to one;
The softness of a kookaburra's crown
The wind puts softly up and softly down;
His eyes of love that almost humanly speak
Peering in softness o'er that murderous beak!
Gardens will blossom forever, breaking the spirit,
All your endeavour be guerdonless, trammelled with dross;
Vain the accomplishing ardours the races inherit
Till true men open their mouths, confessing their loss.
Beauty strides like a warrior, tortures the passions,
Troubles the soul with its mountainous loveliness;
Vain what we yearn toward, vain all the deft hand fashions,
Till, turning toward the ranges, men confess
That they shall trouble overmuch
For things they'll never touch;
That forests they move among
Shall always elude their yearning
And all their passion be as the returning
Silence when the thrush has sung.
When, folded on gully and crown,
The west light spreads the shadows down
And daylight dies on unapproachable hills,
The breathing silence storms us, the heart fills,
We're sated with sublimity...
But, having tramped those tracks and crossed those rills
Nearing their slopes, the mountains cease to be.
Full well we know
Must pass, must pass away
This joy, that woe;
And learn full well in quiet dismay
That Beauty cannot stay.
But this content for which we vainly grope,
This desperate reach for miracle may give place,
Through an intenser waiting, a more passionate hope,
To nobleness in small things, acts of grace.
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Nursery Rhyme
Frank WilmotOne year, two year, three year, four,
Comes a khaki gentleman knocking at the door.
"Any little boys at home, send them out to me
To train them and brain them in battles yet to be."
When a little boy is born feed him, train him so.
Put him in a cattle pen and wait for him to grow.
When he's nice and plump and dear, and sensible and sweet,
Throw him in the trenches for the great grey rats to eat.
Toss him in the cannon's mouth, cannons fancy best
Tender little boys' flesh that's easy to digest.
Mother rears her family on two pounds ten a week.
Teaches them to wash themselves, teaches them to speak.
Rears them with a heart's love, rears them to be men.
Grinds her fingers to the bone, and then... what then?
But parents who must rear the boys the cannons love to slay,
Also pay for cannons that blow other boys away.
Parsons tell them that their sons have just been blown to bits.
Patriotic parents must all laugh like fits.
Rear the boys for honest men and send them out to die!
Where's the coward father who would dare raise a cry?
Any gentleman's aware folk rear their children for
Blunderers and plunderers to mangle in a war!
Five year, six year, seven year, eight.
"Hurry up you little chaps, the captain's at the gate!"
