COLONIAL POETS (INDIA AUSTRALASIA DOMINION OF CANADA) INDIA See TORU DUTt, Rudyard KiPLING, in the preceding division of this Anthology. See also, in the second division, SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, SIR ALFRED LYALL, poets of English birth, and sometime resident in India AUSTRALASIA (See also: A. DOMETT, R. H. HORNE, W. SHARP, D. W. B. SLADEN) Only there's a drowsy humming Every other thing is still, Oh, 't is easeful here to lie AN ABORIGINAL MOTHER'S LAMENT STILL farther would I fly, my child, To make thee safer yet From the unsparing white man, With his dread hand murder-wet! I'll bear thee on as I have borne With stealthy steps wind-fleet, O moan not! I would give this braid— Of water now for thee. Ah, spring not to his name -no more He is smouldering into ashes And but for thee, I would their fire Hark! Hark! I hear his death-cry But no-when his bound hands had signed On the roaring pyre flung bleeding - No more shall his loud tomahawk Beneath his shadowing spear; O moan not! I would give this braid Of water now for thee. That the creek that divided my station in two Showed that Nature designed that two fees should be due. Mr. Riddle assured me 't was paid but for show, But he kept it and spent it, that's all that I know. The commissioner fined me because I forgot To return an old ewe that was ill of the rot, And a poor wry-necked lamb that we kept for a pet; And he said it was treason such things to forget. The commissioner pounded my cattle be cause They had mumbled the scrub with their famishing jaws On the part of the run he had taken away, And he sold them by auction the costs to defray. The border police they were out all the day To look for some thieves who had ransacked my dray; But the thieves they continued in quiet and peace, For they'd robbed it themselves, had the border police! When the white thieves had left me the black thieves appeared, My shepherds they waddied, my cattle they speared; But from fear of my license I said not a word, |