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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Loraine</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the story of one man’s soul.<br>The paths are stony and passion is blind,<br>And feet must bleed ere the light we find.<br>The cypher is writ on Life’s mighty scroll,<br>And the key is in each man’s mind.<br>But who read aright, ye have won release,<br>Ye have touched the joy in the heart of Peace. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">PART I</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">THERE’S a bend of the river on Glenbar run<br>Which the wild duck haunt at the set of sun,<br>And the song of the waters is softened so<br>That scarcely its current is heard to flow;<br>And the blackfish hide by the shady bank<br>’Neath the sunken logs where the reeds are rank,<br>And the halcyon’s mail is an azure gleam<br>O’er the shifting shoals of the silver bream,<br>And the magpies chatter their idle whim,<br>And the wagtails flitter along the brim,<br>And tiny martins with breasts of snow<br>Keep fluttering restlessly to and fro,<br>And the weeping willows have framed the scene<br>With the trailing fall of their curtains green,<br>And the grass grows lush on the level leas<br>’Neath the low gnarled boughs of the apple trees,<br>Where the drowsy cattle dream away<br>The noon-tide hours of the summer day.<br>There’s a shady nook by the old tree where<br>The track comes winding from Bendemeer.<br>So faint are the marks of the bridle track,<br>From the old slip-rails on the ridge’s back,<br>That few can follow the lines I know—<br>But I ride with the shadows of long ago!<br>I am gaunt and gray, I am old and worn,<br>But my heart goes back to a radiant morn<br>When someone waited and watched for me<br>In the friendly shade of that grand old tree.<br>The winter of Memory brings again<br>The summer rapture of passionate pain,<br>And she comes to me with the morning grace<br>On her sun-gold hair and her lily face,<br>And her blue eyes soft with the dreamy light<br>She stole from the stars of the Southern night,<br>And her slender form like a springtide flower<br>That sprang from the earth in a magic hour,<br>With the trembling smile and the tender tone<br>And the welcome glance—that were mine alone.<br>And we sit once more as we sat of old<br>When the future lay in a haze of gold—<br>In the fairy days when the gods have lent<br>To our lips the silence of heart’s content.<br>Ah! those were the days of youth’s perfect spring,<br>When each wandering wind had a song to sing,<br>When the touch of care and the shade of woe<br>Were but empty words we could never know<br>As we rode ’neath the gum and the box trees high,<br>And our idle laughter went floating by,<br>As we rode o’er the leagues of the billowy plain<br>Where the grass grew green ’neath the summer rain,<br>And over the hills in the range’s heart<br>To the fern-decked glen where the waters dart,<br>And we railed at time and the laggard year<br>Ere a bride would be mistress of Bendemeer. <br>Now the old-time feud that was first begun<br>When the Gordons settled on Glenbar run,<br>It had passed away, it was buried deep<br>In the quiet graves where our fathers sleep,<br>And sweet Mary Gordon was left alone<br>In the quaint old station of rough-hewn stone,<br>The maiden whom lovers sought near and far—<br>The stately lily of old Glenbar.<br>Our kinsfolk had hated, from year to year,<br>Since the first Loraine came to Bendemeer<br>They have passed where none can cavil and strive;<br>How could she and I keep the feud alive!<br>I, James Loraine, who were better dead<br>Than harm one hair of her gentle head!<br>So we made the bond that would bind, one day,<br>Glenbar and Bendemeer for aye. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For at last, though it left me with saddened face,<br>I was master of all in my father’s place.<br>Of the gray old dwelling, rambling and wide,<br>With the homestead paddocks on either side,<br>And the deep verandahs and porches tall<br>Where the vine climbs high on the trellised wall,<br>Where the pine and cypress their dark crowns rear<br>O’er the garden—the glory of Bendemeer—<br>From whence you can dream o’er the tranquil scene<br>Of the scattered sheep on the lucerne green,<br>And the mighty plain in the sunlight spread,<br>With the brown hawk motionless overhead,<br>And the stockmen’s cottages clustering still<br>On the gentle slope of the station hill,<br>And the woolshed gray on the swelling rise<br>Where the creek winds blue ’neath the bluer skies. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And here in the days when our hearts were light<br>We lived life joyously day and night.<br>For the friend of my soul, who was dear to me<br>As no friend hath been or again can be,<br>Was Oliver Douglas. In cloud or shine<br>My heart was his and his heart was mine,<br>And we lived like brothers from year to year,<br>And toiled for the honour of Bendemeer,<br>And my life moved on thro’ a golden haze<br>The splendid glamour of fortunate days.<br>What more to a man can the high God send<br>Than the fairest maid and the firmest friend!<br>I have read in some poet how Friendship may<br>Stand strong as a tower in the darkest day,<br>When the lips of Love that were quick to vow<br>Have failed ’neath the frown upon Fortune’s brow.<br>What a friend was he, without fear or guile,<br>With his careless ways and his ready smile,<br>With the voice to cheer, and the eye to praise,<br>And the heart to toil through the hardest days!<br>How he won all hearts, were they high or low,<br>By the easy charm that I envied so! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For they say in jest I am true to race—<br>The dark Loraines of the haughty face—<br>Awkward, and shy, and unbending when<br>I am full of love for my fellow-men.<br>But I caught at the sunshine he flung about—<br>The man to whom all my heart went out.<br>Ah! how oft at dusk ’neath the evening star<br>Have we reined our horses at old Glenbar,<br>And sat in the quaint familiar room<br>Made sweet with the scent of the jasmine bloom,<br>Where my soul first saw in her dreamy eyes<br>The lights of the gateways of Paradise!<br>How we lingered over our hopes and fears<br>As we planned the course of the coming years<br>Whilst Oliver chatted with easy flow<br>To Margaret Bruce with the hair of snow—<br>The proud old dame of a proud old race<br>Who lived for the child with her sister’s face. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O the joyous days! O the morning air!<br>When the blood was young and the world was air!<br>When from Tara and Westmere and Boradaile,<br>And from Snowdon Hills and from Lilyvale,<br>And from Tallaran and the plains of Scar<br>All sent down their horses to old Glenbar.<br>From many a station for miles away<br>Came the happy faces on racing day,<br>Came the big bush buggies fast rolling in<br>With the four-in-hands and the merry din.<br>And if strife was keen in those days of old<br>’Twas for love of sport, not for lust of gold;<br>For then each man rode as a man should ride<br>With his honour at stake and the station’s pride,<br>When every racehorse was sent to race<br>And each run had a crack for the steeplechase.<br>And I see the last timber loom big and bare<br>As we held the field with a length to spare,<br>And Douglas crashed past me on Charioteer,<br>The big gray gelding from Bendemeer.<br>But I rode the bay with the tiny star<br>That had carried the Lily of old Glenbar.<br>And I rode for all that I cared for most<br>And I collared the gray ere he passed the post.<br>Ah! how gaily and lightly our pulses beat<br>As the night went out to the trip of feet!<br>And though all men sought her with hope and praise<br>It was I she loved—with my awkward ways—<br>It was I she loved in the golden days! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The drought came down upon Bendemeer,<br>And the grass grew yellow, and scant, and sere,<br>And the lucerne paddocks were eaten brown,<br>And half the trees on the run cut down,<br>And we toiled all day ’midst the dying sheep,<br>The tottering frames that could scarcely creep,<br>And the dead by scores lay over the plain,<br>But God seemed deaf—for He sent no rain.<br>And whilst Hope stood sounding her funeral knells<br>Who had heart to talk about wedding bells?<br>And the drought held on for a three-year span,<br>And I woke one morning a ruined man.<br>Yet Fate smote harder—a deadlier blow—<br>For on old Glenbar there was word to go.<br>For the mortgage hung over Glenbar run,<br>And their stock were dead and their credit done,<br>And the bank foreclosed. We were cast aside<br>From the homes where our fathers had lived and died. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So we said good-bye—ah! the bitter end—<br>At the trysting place on the river bend.<br>But the ground lay sullen and bare below,<br>And most of the river had ceased to flow,<br>And the springs of Hope in our souls were dried,<br>And in silence we stood there side by side,<br>And a leaden fear held my brain and heart,<br>And we strove to go, but we could not part.<br>O sweet is the dawn of Love’s perfect spring,<br>When the white arms clasp and the soft lips cling;<br>But fierce is the passion that fires the blood<br>When Love stands baulked in its summer flood! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In her dark-ringed eyes shone the sad unrest<br>That spoke in the heave of her troubled breast,<br>And her face was white as the chiselled stone,<br>And her lips pressed madly against my own,<br>And her heart beat wildly against my heart,<br>And we strove to go, but we could not part. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But these were the words she said to me—<br>“Whatever the fate of the years may be,<br>Hope and my heart will wait for thee.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">PART II</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">’TWAS a long last look and a mute farewell<br>To the homes where our fathers had loved to dwell,<br>And our faces turned to the wild north-west,<br>And we rode away on a roving quest.<br>But our hearts were young and we cheered the way<br>With the golden dreams of a coming day,<br>When Fate should lead ’neath a happier star<br>Back to Bendemeer and to old Glenbar.<br>And a vision rose of one bearded and brown,<br>A wanderer hasting to Melbourne town,<br>To the faithful eyes now with sorrow dim<br>That had suffered and waited and watched for him.<br>For the new home lay midst the city’s roar<br>And the Station’s calm would be her’s no more;<br>And from Douglas’ lips came the story strange<br>Of the wondrous wealth in a northern range.<br>The weeks grew months and the months were spent,<br>As we overlanded a continent—<br>A thousand miles over scrub and plain<br>In the sun’s fierce glare and the tropic rain.<br>But we laughed at hardships to undergo<br>As we smoked in the ring of the campfire’s glow<br>And we pushed ahead till, in tracks grown blind,<br>The last station fence had been left behind;<br>And the land of the mighty runs spread wide,<br>Unfenced and virgin on every side,<br>Where you move—a ship that has lost the strand—<br>O’er the grassy ocean of one man’s land,<br>Where a score of beasts or a mile the less<br>Are of little count in the wilderness,<br>But men count their grass and cattle instead<br>By the hundred miles and the thousand head. <br>I have seen the plains lying baked and bare<br>When drought and famine hold revel there,<br>And the cattle sink where the rotting shoals<br>Of the fish float dead in the waterholes. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I have seen the plains when the flood brings down<br>The leagues of its waters, sullen and brown,<br>When only the tops of the swaying trees<br>Mark the creek that wound thro’ the level leas,<br>And all is a sea to the straining eyes<br>Save some lonely hut on a distant rise. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I have seen the plains in the mad delight<br>Of the racing flames in their crimson flight,<br>When the whip of the wind will not stay or spare,<br>And woe to the rider who lingers there! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But, O! the plains when their beauty burst<br>On our wondering eyes as we crossed them first!<br>When the sun shone bright and a soft wind blew,<br>And the sky was clear with a fairy hue,<br>And afar, like an isle in a sea of mist,<br>Rose a mountain-cap, as of amethyst.<br>And the big-horned cattle, knee-deep in grass,<br>Wheeled scattered legions to watch us pass,<br>As we drifted onward from group to group,<br>And swift as a bolt came the wild hawk’s swoop<br>When the brown quail whirled ’neath our horses’ feet,<br>Or the bronzewing1 broke from his ground retreat;<br>And the lazy bustard on laggard wing<br>Out of easy gunshot was loitering;<br>And for miles around us, at daylight’s close,<br>The little flock pigeons in coveys rose,<br>And the squadrons flew, with a gathering force,<br>Till an army darkened the watercourse. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thus we crossed the plains to their utmost rim,<br>To the timbered belts round the mountains grim,<br>Chain upon chain, to the north and west,<br>Rose the swelling ridge and the purple crest,<br>And the gorges hid from the light of God<br>Where the foot of a white man had never trod. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There’s a tiny flat where the grass grows green,<br>Like a bay it lies two dark hills between.<br>And a stream comes down through a narrow cleft:<br>Here the camp was fixed and the horses left.<br>’Twas the last sweet grass, and no man could ride<br>O’er the beetling fastness on either side.<br>Thence into the heart of the hills we bore,<br>Rich with ironstone masses and copper ore,<br>And once or twice in the gorges old<br>We found a trace of the colour of gold. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In a deep ravine, walled by rugged heights,<br>Through the toiling days and the restless nights<br>I felt, ’neath the spell of that gloomy place,<br>That a change had come o’er my comrade’s face;<br>Felt, rather than saw, as it seemed to me,<br>That all was not quite as it used to be;<br>The laughter and jest, and the glance and tone,<br>Were not of the man that I once had known,<br>And it seemed to me that he shunned to hear<br>Of Mary and Glenbar and Bendemeer.<br>And there rose a sense I could not define,<br>Like a widening stream ’twixt his soul and mine.<br>Then the light of the Past like a star shone out,<br>And I turned in scorn from my evil doubt. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But the passions that rule since the world began<br>Were working there in the heart of man,<br>And a breast that had guarded its secret well<br>Was burning then with the fires of hell.<br>’Tis the old, old tale of a woman’s face<br>More strong than the shadow of foul disgrace.<br>The old mad lust for the mastery<br>To pluck the flower that is not for thee.<br>For the dreamy light of a woman’s eyes<br>It can lead on to hell or to paradise. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ah! little I dreamt in the days now done<br>That the eyes I loved were as dear to one<br>Whose heart had been eaten with jealous pride<br>Through the years of our brotherhood, side by side!<br>For once it chanced as I moved alone<br>That I stumbled and fell on the ironstone—<br>A stumble that might have been made in blood,<br>For a bullet hummed where my feet had stood.<br>And I turned and saw from my vantage place<br>The look that was written across his face. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">“He had fired at a bird but too low by half,”<br>And he turned it off with an awkward laugh.<br>For as yet no shadow of what might be<br>The power ’neath the surface had come to me.<br>Yet a shadow crossed, and it left behind<br>A doubt that rankled within my mind;<br>And for weeks we played at the duel hard<br>Of an open candour but secret guard;<br>And the seeds of discord were subtly sown<br>When the fever seized me and struck me down;<br>And days there were when the blood coursed free,<br>To be followed by morrows of misery. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But the fever heightened, and day by day<br>I could feel the cords of my life give way.<br>And my strength went out like an ebbing sea,<br>Yet daily he tended and cared for me.<br>It may be some touch of the days of old<br>Made his hand draw back, made his heart cry “Hold.”<br>But I saw in his eyes, with all anguish dumb,<br>That he waited and hoped for the end to come.<br>Then I lost the power to move hand and head,<br>And at last I lay in a trance as dead,<br>Awake yet a-dream, for a day and night<br>Then I woke with a start—and the moon shone bright<br>But the tent and the tools and the guns were gone,<br>And all save the blanket I lay upon!<br>Not a sound came down from the mountains lone<br>Where the shadows huge by the moon were thrown.<br>In the gloomy gorge not a soul was near,<br>And I called his name with a bitter fear.<br>But no answer came to my feeble cry—<br>And I knew he had left me alone to die. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>PART III</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They speak the truth and they judge me well,<br>Who call me “the Man who has been in Hell.”<br>Though the sky be clear and the sun shine bright,<br>Men have walked on earth through that awful night,<br>Whose ears have heard and whose eyes have seen<br>The infernal shades, like the Florentine,<br>When the veil is rent and we see unroll<br>The heights and depths of the human soul;<br>And with whitened locks and with pallid cheek<br>Have known and felt what we may not speak.<br>My life had gone out like a brief light’s breath<br>Had no help come into that fight with death,<br>But the hands of Fate that are swift and strange<br>Brought a people down from the Western range,<br>Brought a wild black tribe down the gorges dark<br>Who had seen the prints of an unknown mark,<br>And quickly around me were clustering<br>Dark faces and spears in a bristling ring;<br>And I lay there still in a helpless shrift<br>With a silent prayer that the end be swift.<br>But a man spoke forth with a threatening spear<br>That I was the God of the mountains drear,<br>And accursed be he and his kin and wife,<br>Who should lay a hand on a sacred life! <br>So they succoured me. And I lay as a king<br>Who has dusky daughters to fetch and bring,<br>Boughs to shelter, and water and food,<br>And berries to temper the burning blood.<br>And they made me a shade from the tropic sun<br>Till the fire of the fever its course had run.<br>And at last new life, after weeks of pain,<br>Came stealing gently through every vein;<br>And I moved with the tribe, but I pondered long<br>Why Douglas had worked me this bitter wrong.<br>For as yet no word of the truth was told,<br>And I held that the motive was lust of gold.<br>We moved for the plain, and we passed between<br>The walls of the flat where the camp had been.<br>No sign of a horse in that grassy bay,<br>And Oliver Douglas was far away<br>Across the plains where the red sun dips,<br>A sin on his soul and a lie on his lips.<br>But, O! the joy when I found and knelt<br>By a full revolver and cartridge belt<br>Marked with his name, and a mark of the mind<br>In whose guilty haste they were left behind,<br>To be sacred things till the morn should rise<br>When men pay in full for their treacheries.<br>These gave me power and a stronger claim.<br>They called me, “The Lord of the Thunder and Flame.”<br>But they watched me close with a sleepless care:<br>Three years in the mountains still found me there.<br>But I learnt by heart all the gorges old,<br>And I found the granite and found the gold:<br>Wealth beyond dreams—to a savage man<br>As wild as the myalls with whom he ran!<br>Ah, God! Could ever my lot have been<br>To have lived and loved in a different scene,<br>To have seen love shine like a splendid star<br>In the eyes of the Lily of old Glenbar? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Five years had passed, and another year,<br>Since we turned our horses from Bendemeer.<br>And a bushman, wrinkled, and aged, and brown,<br>Had worked his passage to Melbourne town.<br>Let it matter not through what evil stress<br>He had battled out of the wilderness,<br>For the joy that was thrilling him through and through<br>With a secret music that no man knew—<br>The last sweet words that she said to me:<br>“Whatever the fate of the years may be,<br>Hope and my heart will wait for thee!” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Why do you tremble, and sob, and stare,<br>Old Margaret Bruce with the snowy hair,<br>And chatter of ghosts of the past to me?<br>I am here to claim what you hold in fee.<br>Give me back my own! I have done no wrong.<br>For the eyes I love I have suffered long.<br>Now the toil is over—the fierce unrest,<br>And the lily shall lie on the broad leaf’s breast.<br>And the heart that was faithful, and strong, and true,<br>Shall learn what the love of a man can do.<br>For the future calls both to her and me.<br>Thither Eden lies—and I hold the key.<br>Cease, woman, cease! I am waiting here<br>For a bride to be mistress of Bendemeer.<br>“Let be the past and this formless dread!<br>I am James Loraine who was long since dead.<br>Give me welcome now! Shall all things be vain<br>To the dead man come to his own again?<br>Have you naught of comfort for such as I?<br>The past is dead—let its memories die!<br>I am changed and worn, I am tired and old,<br>But I bring the secret of countless gold.<br>But a wish of hers, but a word of thine,<br>And Bendemeer and Glenbar are mine.<br>Bid her come to me that her eyes may see!<br>Bid her come to me! Bid her come to me! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then Margaret faced me with words of lead:—<br>“Peace, peace, Loraine!—the poor child is dead.<br>Married and dead! You are parted far,<br>Dear friend, from the Lily of old Glenbar.<br>The Bendemeer and the Glenbar lands,<br>They have passed long since to the Douglas hands.<br>She had waited long, she had waited true,<br>She had knelt in her sorrow and wept for you.<br>When he came, at last, with a grave, sad face<br>To tell the tale of your resting place.<br>His were the hands—they were clasped in ours—<br>That had soothed and tended your dying hours;<br>That had dug the grave and had piled the stone<br>In the dim blue range where you slept alone.<br>And he spoke your word in his own sad pain,<br>‘Not to mourn for you—we should meet again<br>But whatever the fate of the years might send,<br>The friend of your soul—let him be her friend. ’<br>But the starlight died in her eyes that day,<br>And with roses white on her cheeks she lay,<br>And the summer faded and came again<br>Ere her shadow rose from its bed of pain.<br>But he came and went with an anxious air<br>As one consecrated to watch and care,<br>And from oversea came the call of race<br>To title and wealth and an ancient place,<br>And when Bendemeer and Glenbar were sold,<br>They were his for the sake of the days of old.<br>And he pressed his claim till she came to see<br>That their lives could be lived to your memory.<br>She was wedded here. She lies buried far.<br>The ocean divides her from old Glenbar.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Married, and dead! Is it all a dream,<br>To melt away on the morning beam?<br>Some passing horror of night whose power<br>Still haunts the brain in its waking hour?<br>Can these trembling lips and these stony eyes,<br>And this heart grown numb in its agonies,<br>Be a man indeed? Do I see and hear?<br>Or roam a shade through some realm of fear?<br>“And of him?” I cried. “Shall no vengeance find<br>These soft lying lips and this double mind?<br>There are human snakes who have lived too long!”<br>But she said: “Loraine, let God judge the wrong.<br>For the man you seek—he is oversea<br>With ten thousand miles ’twixt his face and thee.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In the fevered night when the gas-lamps flare,<br>And the human river sweeps here and there,<br>By terrace and church, and long lines of street,<br>And by dim-lit parks where the shadows meet,<br>I am drifting down with the human flood:<br>The poison of madness is in my blood.<br>Are there hearts as bitter and dead as mine<br>Where the faces throng in the moving line—<br>Numb with the chill of a black despair<br>That no man guesses or wants to share?<br>Unto each man once shall the gage be thrown:<br>He must fight the fight with his soul alone,<br>When all ways are barred and he stands at bay<br>Face to face with truth in the naked day.<br>I have fought the fight with my soul alone.<br>I have won my laurel—a heart of stone. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O never again when the white stars shine<br>Shall the eyes I love look their love in mine!<br>And never again when the soft winds blow<br>Shall we ride by the river, or whisper low<br>By the shady nook ’neath the old tree where<br>The track comes winding from Bendemeer!<br>And no bridal bells for our joy shall ring<br>When Nature wakes to the voice of Spring.<br>And no tiny hands with a touch divine<br>Shall link for ever her soul and mine!<br>She is dead! My lily! My shy bush flower!<br>The summer has fled where she bloomed an hour.<br>Do her sweet eyes shine from some lonely star<br>O’er the bend of the river on old Glenbar? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Mine is selfish grief, mine is selfish pain;<br>But her sorrow is seared on my heart and brain.<br>What she heard, I hear; what she saw, I see;<br>What she felt is bare as a page to me<br>Shall such evil thrive? Shall she droop and die<br>And the man who loved her stand idly by?<br>Let God right the wrong! Will he give the dead<br>The sunshine and grace of the summers fled?<br>Has He solace here for the silent tears<br>Of the hopeless days, of the wasted years?<br>Let God right the wrong! He is deaf and blind<br>To the griefs and passions that shake mankind!<br>Who has eyes to see, let him use his sight:<br>Wrong is not righted, but might is right.<br>Then be might my right and my hate the rod,<br>And my hand in anger the hand of God<br>And the power is gold, which no power can bend—<br>I have learnt the means—I can see the end </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">To my mountains then: there to toil and wait.<br>I have lived for love: I can live for hate.<br>Till the power be mine, till the way be sure,<br>I can face the future and still endure.<br>With a wild fire flaming through all my blood<br>I have called to Evil “Be thou my Good!”<br>Love has patient been: love was strong and true;<br>But the heart of hate can be patient too<br>Can be strong to suffer and calm to wait,<br>But swift to strike in the hour of Fate—<br>To strike at the heart that has wrought her dole,<br>To strike at the man who has killed my soul! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">PART IV</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">THE mountains swarm like a human hive,<br>The picks are swinging in many a drive,<br>The axe is ringing on many a tree,<br>And the blast of a charge thunders sullenly;<br>And the growing heaps of the dull gray stone<br>And the tents of men stud the hillside lone,<br>And the moan of the windlass comes again,<br>With an eerie sound like a soul in pain.<br>And across the plains, lying baked and brown,<br>Where the long teams creep till the sun goes down,<br>Comes the curse, and the whip like a pistol crack,<br>As the bullocks strain on the burning track.<br>Soon the battery’s thunder will rend the sky<br>From the gorge where he left me alone to die.<br>They have felt the stir in the cities south,<br>And the “Comrade Field” is in every mouth,<br>And northward rushes the wave of greed,<br>For the whole world knows of “The Devil’s Lead.”<br>“Four jewelled walls—there are millions there!”<br>But one man’s hand is on every share—<br>One who knows the mountains from crest to glen,<br>A hater of women and feared of men,<br>Who has heart for nothing save gold and gain.<br>A power to be reckoned with—James Loraine! <br>As a miser handles and counts his gold,<br>So I hoard my hate with a joy untold.<br>Let the weaklings sink ’neath their dumb despair!<br>Shall I spare the coward who did not spare<br>O, the joy of hate! O, the liquid fire!<br>When the strong soul throbs to one fierce desire!<br>So I thirst for life as a hound for blood,<br>And woe to the hunters who cross my mood!<br>To strike hard and home! Then to watch him die<br>And to soothe his death with my memory!<br>This were joy indeed, worth a few years’ breath!<br>This were joy indeed, though the price were death!<br>Then what holds my heart, and what stays my hand,<br>Who can cross at will to the motherland?<br>’Tis a voice that floats through my dreams at night,<br>And a white hand ringed with a fairy light,<br>From the world unseen, that has drawn anear,<br>A tremulous whisper—“At Bendemeer.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I had planned the end in the mountains grim,<br>Where the dream of wealth would be lure to him.<br>Bound fast to a tree in some gloomy glen<br>Where no cry can reach to the ears of men,<br>And shot with the bullet he meant for me—<br>I have dug it out of the hardwood tree.<br>Then to loose his cords and to let him lie<br>With his false face turned to the smiling sky,<br>With his dying grip—in a death of shame—<br>On the pistol butt that still bears his name! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A fool I have been from my mother’s breast,<br>A fool who acted and thought for the best,<br>Made way for others and stood aside<br>And saw knaves feasted and deified.<br>With an open heart I have striven to do<br>“To men as ye would they would do to you.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And what have I gained by the Christian rule?<br>A smile and a sneer at the trusting fool!<br>And the generous wish to be fair and just<br>Has been deemed but weakness and self-distrust.<br>Now these things are over. My soul is free.<br>I will deal with men as they deal with me.<br>For I care not whither my purpose tend,<br>Let Hell find the means so I gain the end<br>And no guile too subtle or dark shall prove;<br>I have done with scruple, and done with love. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The thud of the stampers all night and day<br>Is loud in the gorge where the campfire lay.<br>From the big hotel where the lights shine long<br>Comes the broken snatch of a drinking song.<br>For the roofs go up as the shafts go down<br>In the fever and rush of a mining town. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I sit in my office with busy pen,<br>The saddest and richest of mining men.<br>I have sat like a spider and spun and spun<br>Till I hold the mortgage on many a run.<br>I have land and houses and shares and gold,<br>My stock increase by the thousandfold.<br>I am feared and courted with flattering breath<br>And all that I live for is one man’s death.<br>I have worked his ruin. I hold his fate.<br>I have woven a web round the man I hate.<br>I have crossed his schemes, I have won the fight,<br>For tools can be willing when gold is bright.<br>And the deeds of mortgage are in their hands<br>Over Bendemeer and the Glenbar lands. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">As I sleep at last on my bed of care<br>Comes the white hand floating upon the air,<br>And a woman’s whisper is in my ear,<br>“The man that you hate is at Bendemeer.” </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The last crimson streak in the West was dead,<br>And the white stars broke through the blue o’erhead,<br>And the hornèd moon like a sceptre pale<br>Cast its thin blue ray on the old sliprail,<br>As I crossed Glenbar by the big tree where<br>The track goes winding to Bendemeer. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">All the plain lay silent and silver-gray<br>Like a shroud for a bride on her bridal day.<br>I could feel the menace and the hand of Fate<br>As I stood once more at the garden gate.<br>With a passionate heart for a while I stood,<br>For the past came back like a rushing flood,<br>Then I moved the latch and I crept within—<br>A thief in the silence who fears his sin.<br>Like funeral plumes for some giant king<br>Rise the dark pine-crowns, and their shadows cling<br>Purple and solemn to path and lawn,<br>Like the shadow of murder that waits the dawn.<br>And the morepork’s call from the timbered knoll<br>Seems the hoot of fiends for a dead man’s soul. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I am creeping slow down the well-known way,<br>All round me is ruin and slow decay,<br>By the weed-choked beds and the paths o’ergrown,<br>And rank grass seeding on lawns unmown,<br>And a low fence matted with running vine,<br>In the home of my fathers that once was mine. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The old rambling pile and verandahs wide,<br>Like an isle half lost in some dim gray tide,<br>Seems to welcome me, seems to feel and know<br>That a ghost is here from the Long Ago!<br>And my fingers close, whilst my blood is flame,<br>Round the pistol-butt that still bears his name. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Creep, creep to the west where the ground is bare,<br>For a dim light shines from a window there.<br>I have toiled for this thro’ the gloomy past.<br>I have prayed for this—’tis my hour at last!<br>Hear, God of the Just, whilst I own Thy might<br>Who hast given this man to my hands this night!<br>Here I kneel and pray. Be my hand the rod,<br>Be my hand in anger the hand of God! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where the fold of the curtain falls, half drawn,<br>By the windows, wide to the western lawn,<br>From the shadows vague of the outer gloom<br>I have slipped—a shadow—within the room.<br>In the shaded light, on the low white bed,<br>I can see his face . . . he is lying . . . dead<br>The hand of Time has not marred its grace,<br>Though the lines are deep on the well-known face.<br>And the brow is placid and white and chill<br>With the peace that comes when the heart is still. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And the lamplight falls on the golden hair<br>Of a weeping child who is kneeling there. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O human vengeance and human hate!<br>See, thine altars scattered and desolate!<br>Poor paltry things of a passing breath,<br>Ye are silent here in the halls of Death! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Be his soul at rest. Though his sin was deep,<br>Yet bitter the harvest he lived to reap.<br>He has suffered long, he has worn the chain<br>Of a life’s remorse in his heart and brain.<br>He has known the terror of hidden sin<br>When the soul stands bare to the judge within.<br>Be his heart at rest in the peace divine!<br>Be Thy mercy, Lord, on his soul . . . and mine! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For the child looks up with her mother’s face,<br>With the sungold hair and the lily’s grace.<br>From the lashes wet with their pearly dew<br>Shine the dark-blue depths of the eyes I knew,<br>The sweet eyes soft with the dreamy light<br>And the mystic spell of the southern night. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=395980" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They have left me this—’tis the bond of Fate—<br>The woman I love and the man I hate!<br>Through the windows wide blows the gentle breeze,<br>And the wind-harp sighs in the shadowy trees,<br>And I see the rise of a splendid star<br>O’er the bend of the river on old Glenbar!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=George+Essex+Evans">George Essex Evans</a></strong></div>

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