SOURCE: Cox, P. B. “Charles Harpur and the Early Australian Poets, 1810-1860.” Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 25, no. 4 (1939): 249-67.

[In the following essay, Cox discusses several of the most significant Australian poets from the first half of the nineteenth century.]

I am privileged this evening to address you on the subject of “Charles Harpur and the Early Australian Poets.” My talk will cover a period of fifty years, and I propose to deal with all the principal poets within these limits. I shall, therefore, traverse the poetical work in New South Wales from the humble beginnings down to the period of which Gordon, Kendall and Brunton Stephens are the outstanding figures. Neither the quantity nor the quality of the work produced at this time is especially noteworthy, judged by the best standards. It may be, however, that it is remarkable that there was so much work done and that it did reach anything like reasonable standards, and it behoves us to approach it with sympathetic understanding at least of the conditions under which it was written. Fundamentally, of course, it could not be expected that a colony, commencing as a penal settlement, would be capable of promoting any of the Arts. The extreme sordidness of conditions during the first two or three decades of the colony's history must have suppressed any semblance of anything pertaining to culture. But with the passing of the years and the influx of a steady stream of free migrants something of the sordidness of early days began to give way to a more hopeful outlook, and this feeling of hope and well-being was promoted by the vastly improved economic position of the isolated community. The free migrants who came out to Australia were of the poorer middle class, and their one object in coming was to improve their material well-being, so that during the first fifty years of the colony's existence an intense materialism motivated every activity. The early colonists had to wage a stern battle with the various natural forces—drought, flood, fire. The most successful of them became the sturdy pioneers of their day; the weaker and the less fortunate either tried to return to Great Britain, or returned to the town to live a life as English as the amenities of the city would permit. In Macquarie's time the free migrants constituted one-fifth of the people in the colony, and the most worthy of them provided a solid, enduring middle-class, possessing qualities which gave strength to democratic aspirations. And this strength was very thoroughly put to the test in some of the great struggles which arose in rapid succession during those early decades of the colony's story. The battle between the Exclusives and the Emancipists affected all grades in the community, and for years was one of the most important problems of the community. As the flood of immigration increased the difficulties of the problem more or less abated, and a new colonial problem arose in subsequent years over the land troubles, when the land worker and the city dweller united forces against the squatters. Finally the discovery of gold roughly brushed aside most of the old problems and galvanized the community, rich and poor alike, into feverish activity for sordid material gain.

Notwithstanding the many problems that beset and agitated the colony in the first six or seven decades, the national character had begun to take shape. The successful fight for the freedom of the Press, for education, trial by jury, cessation of transportation, representative government and responsible government show that the people of the young colony lacked nothing in vigour, courage, and sane ideals. By their wisdom and foresight they laid the foundations for those liberties and privileges which we now cherish.

If the community in the early days was so deeply immersed in the problems of developing the young colony that it gave little thought to things cultural, let us not complain. Rather should we appreciate the fact that there was some achievement in literature, because, quite apart from the political and social currents which affected the members of the community, there were several factors which mitigated against its growth. Illiteracy was general, the opportunities for education were exceedingly limited, and the public was indifferent. Among the better equipped elements in the community the only literature worth reading was English. Nor was this unnatural—the immigrants were still English, only transplanted, and ever longing for the day when they might return Home.

The quantity of English newspapers and magazines imported into the country was enormous. Local newspapers had the greatest difficulty in existing. Out of nine newspapers started before 1850, only one remains. The more Australian they were the more certain they were to be doomed to failure. “Why,” said an American review in 1819, “should Americans write books when a six weeks' passage brings them in their own tongue, sense, science and genius in bales and hogsheads?” And what was true in America was quite true in the early days of the colony.

Our literature then has had to struggle on a stubborn soil, the more so because Australians have never made a special effort to encourage the growth of a literature of their own. In matters of thought and art Australia always has been swayed by Britain, because we are so closely related to British people, hold common interests, look to Britain largely for protection and for our trade. But there are hopeful signs that Australian literature is now receiving due recognition at the hands of its own people. In the story of its development we may not be greatly impressed by the standards of the early work. Remembering all the conditions under which it was produced, let us be grateful for the work that was done.

It is generally accepted that the honour of writing the first poetry in Australia belongs to Michael Massey Robinson, who came to the country in 1798, and, soon after having been granted a conditional pardon, he entered the Government service and filled various positions. He was at one time clerk to the Judge Advocate, and at the time of his death, in 1826, he was principal clerk to the Police Department. He wrote some twenty odes between 1810 and 1821 on the occasion of the birthdays of His Majesty King George III. and his Queen. The odes were all published in the Sydney Gazette in the issue after the date of the birthday. The odes were fervently patriotic; they were much about the same length, and displayed no literary merit. Governor Macquarie is said to have called Robinson the Poet Laureate of the colony, and on one occasion he received two cows from the Government in recognition of his services.

In 1819, Barron Field, F.L.S., published privately a small volume containing two poems entitled First Fruits of Australian Poetry, and four years later a second edition of the First Fruits was issued, with the addition of four more poems; and later all the verses were printed again as an appendix to Field's Geographical Memoirs in New South Wales, 1825.

Barron Field was born in 1786. He became the second Judge of the Supreme Court in 1817, a position he held until 1824. He died in 1846. Considering the exalted position held by the poet, his poems fall far short of reasonable poetic standards. The First Fruits comprise two poems, “Botany Bay Flowers” and “The Kangaroo,” both in blank verse, neither of which possesses any particular merit, and such notice as they have received is probably in great measure due to certain publicity which they received in England when Douglas Sladen published Australian Ballads and Rhymes, an anthology of Australian verse, for the following letter appeared in the Academy, February 18, 1888, under the caption “The First Australian Poet”:—

London, Feb. 14th, 1888.

I am a little surprised to find that in his Australian Ballads and Rhymes Mr. Sladen makes no mention of Charles Lamb's and Wordsworth's friend, Barron Field, and that your reviewer does not pull him up for the omission. On publication, the verses were reviewed by Lamb in Leigh Hunt's Examiner for January 16th, 1820.

The review is published in the popular editions of Lamb's works unfortunately without the quotation he made of the capital verses in “The Kangaroo.” … Mr. Field's verses are strictly Australian and deserved a place of honour in any collection such as Mr. Sladen's.

J. Dykes Campbell.

Mr Sladen's addendum reads:—

To enable the public to judge the First Fruits for themselves the two poems are here appended.

Dykes Campbell, quoted by Sladen, asks: “Was it a flash of Charles Lamb's delicious sly humour which made him detect some relish of the graceful hyperboles of our elder writers in ‘The Kangaroo’?” “Who,” asks Eildon Douglas in a subsequent issue, “that is interested in the history of Australian verse, will not blush to read the first few lines:—

‘Kangaroo! Kangaroo!
Thou spirit of Australia
That redeems from utter failure
From perfect desolation
And warrants the creation
Of this fifth part of the Earth’?”

There are, however, some lines in the poem which show poetic feeling perhaps, and similarly in “Botany Bay Flowers” there are some pleasing lines, but much of the work is little more than doggerel.

The sonnet (1825) entitled “On visiting the spot where Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks first landed in Botany Bay,” which has very moderate merit, is worth quoting, because it is the first sonnet published in Australia:—

Here fix the tablet—This must be the place
Where our Columbus of the South did land;
He saw the Indian village on that sand,
And on this rock first met the simple race
Of Austral Indians, who presumed to face
With lance and spear his musket. Close at hand
Is the clear stream from which this virtuous band
Refreshed their ship; and thence a little space
Lies Sutherland, their shipmate; for the sound
Of Christian burial better did proclaim
Possession, than the flag, in England's name.
These were the Commelinae Banks first found;
But where's the tree, with the ship's wood-carved frame?
Fix then the Ephesian brass—'tis classic ground.

If only from the historical point of view, this poem has some passing interest. Field, the B.F. of Mary Lamb's Distant Correspondents, apparently proud of what he had written, left the call for the next part when he wrote:—

I first adventure. Follow me who will
And be the second Austral Harmonist.

The mantle fell on William Charles Wentworth, the Australian patriot, who wrote a poem entitled “Australasia” (1823) while he was a fellow-commoner of St Peter's College, Cambridge. The ode was written in competition for the Chancellor's medal. Out of twenty-seven competitors Wentworth was placed second to W. M. Praed. The ode will always be of historical and literary interest, because it was written by the greatest of our early patriots, because of its measured dignity, and because of its prophetic value. It is not very remarkable poetry, though it is written in the forceful manner characteristic of its author. The poem contains nearly five hundred lines; the best known, because the most often quoted, are the last ten lines:—

Land of my birth! though now alas! no more.
Musing I wander on thy sea-girt shore
Or climb with eager haste thy barrier cliff
To catch a glimmer of the distant skiff
That ever and anon breaks into light
Till nearer seen she bends her foaming way
Majestic onward to yon placid bay
Where Sydney's infant turrets proudly rise.
The new born glory of the Southern skies,
Dear Australia, can I e'er forget thee!

There is another extract of special interest to us, in which he issues a call to a worthy Australian child of song:—

And tho' bright goddess. …
No child of song has yet invoked thy aid
Still gracious power, some kindling soul inspire,
To wake to life my country's unknown lyre.

Twenty-three years passed before the unknown lyre responded to Wentworth's inspiration, in the person of Charles Harpur.

Wentworth's most important literary effort, of course, was his Statistical, Historical and Political Description of New South Wales, written when he was twenty-nine years of age. It ran into three editions, and in the third edition Wentworth wrote an elaborate vindication of Lachlan Macquarie following on Bigge's report.

Charles Tompson, the first Australian-born poet to publish a collection of poems, was the eldest son of Charles Tompson, and lived during his youth at Clydesdale, near Marsden Park School, six miles from Windsor. He was born in 1806, and attended the seminary conducted by the Rev Henry Fulton at Castlereagh. He was the eldest of a family of five, four boys and one girl. His poems were published in 1826, when the poet was twenty years of age, under the title of Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel. The collection comprises one long poem in blank verse, entitled “Retrospect,” of 348 lines; eight odes, of which five are addressed to Sylvia; four elegies, and seven miscellaneous pieces. Ode 7, “To Spring,” was written when the poet was twelve years of age. The volume was published by the Albion Press, a quarto volume in clear type on excellent paper, with wide margins, in the best mode. There are seven known copies of the poems—one in the National Library at Canberra, one in the Mitchell Library, one in the Melbourne Public Library, and the other copies are privately owned. The poems are not of outstanding merit, though in form they reach a standard equal to much of the best poetry that has been written. There is evidence of definite imitation of English models, and generally they lack any originality of thought. They are in no sense wild; indeed they are so chaste that the term wild is out of place, and there is nothing characteristically Australian in the poetry at all. At the same time, bearing in mind the youthfulness of the poet, the poems are not without some merit, and suggest that had Tompson persevered he would have produced work of a commendable standard. It is stated that he did write some poetry and much prose during the next forty years, but none of it was collected. Members of his family know nothing of any unpublished work, and it has been suggested that, being highly sensitive to criticism, he refrained from further literary efforts. He entered the Public Service, and in 1860 he became the second clerk of the Legislative Assembly. He died in 1883 at the age of seventy-six, and was buried in the Waverley Cemetery. Three interesting criticisms of his work were made:—

1. Editorial, South Asian Register, No. 1, 1826.
2. Monitor (critique subscribed), No. 24, 1826.
3. Editorial critique, Sydney Gazette, November 1, 1826.

The critiques are most interesting. The South Asian Register says, inter alia:—

Mr. Tompson deserves credit, we conceive, for this literary attempt, and however inadequate its success may have been, as he is evidently a young man of warmth, candour and feeling (or no poet), he comes before us rather as a subject of mild emendation than of severe correction.

We present the following extract from Retrospect or A Review of My Scholastic Days, which extends over 18 pages:—

How pleasant was it, when the drowsy hum
Of study ended with the setting sun;
When, tired with application thro' the day,
We rushed at once with all our hearts to play!
In different sports engage the cheerful train—
Some urge the bounding ball across the plain;
Some whirl the top, or bid the arrow fly
Straight to the butt, or upward to the sky.
While other hearts, whom softer pleasures move,
Prefer the converse of the friend they love:
With him, how sweet to spend the leisure hours
To pluck unstained affection's early flow'rs!
To pour unasked within his faithful breast—
What griefs disturb you, or what thoughts molest?
To accept what consolation he would give,
'Twas happy thus, if happy here to live.

(Page 7)

After referring to other poems and tilting gently at the amatory effusions to Sylvia, the critic discusses the poet's calling at length, and concludes that few obtain riches and honour in their lifetime. They are praised by the selfish, who always give praise rather than money; they are scoffed at by the envious, the wanton, the ignorant, the malignant; their waking hours pass feverishly, and when they go to their final sleep they have seldom heard that applause for which their hearts have yearned.

The Sydney Gazette critic writes thus:—

Where people are accustomed to the sway of a Byron, a Scott, or a Moore, a commonplace votary of the Muse has little or no chance of being attended to, but when a young man offers modestly the offspring of his Muse to the world he has something like a claim on public notice, the more so when the production bears the stamp of genius … we find in the whole of his writings a great chasteness of expression. From the chaste style of this young man we expect he will furnish something of the elegance of a Pope. … The only fault we find with Mr. Tompson is that he follows too closely the style of others, borrows their images and embodies them in his own language—a fault we do not like because it looks like poverty of conception. … We should have our bard depend solely on his own Muse, to take a bolder and wider flight, when he will at once ascertain the strength of his own opinions. … We do not approve of the minor poems. … We do not think Mr. Tompson will ever become a writer of songs, but we look forward confidently to his success as a heroic writer. We beg Mr. Tompson to make his similes and metaphors purely Australian—for the purpose of freshness and originality. … Let Nature be his exclusive study, and Australia will have it in her power to boast of the productions of her bard.

However excellent and kindly these criticisms were, they did not inspire the young man to make further essays in the field of poetry.

Ode VII., “To Spring,” has the following footnote:—

This was written at Castlereagh Seminary in 1818 when I was but twelve years of age. My youth at that time may prove an excuse for my offering it to the public.

It will be readily conceded that the poem is a very creditable effort for a boy, and for that reason it is presented here:—

O Thou who, unexpected, steal'st serene
          Into the bosom of the fertile year,
Tell me of climates which I have never seen,
          And let me feel the fragrance thou dost bear!
For with thy presence, Nature is adorned,
          Clad in gay green, luxuriant and mild,
While yet the embryo blossom lies unformed,
          In sweet profusion scattered o'er the wild.
Till, by degrees, it, op'ning to the sun,
          Now spreads enamour'd, to his warmer ray;
At length, by aged infirmity o'ercome,
          'Twill, once more closing, droop and die away.
Thus, in the midst of pleasures, man's cut off,
          Struck by the never erring hand of death;
Tho' some, above their fellows, rise aloft,
          Yet fate at length will stop their vital breath.

A poem entitled “An Elegy on Black Town,” which was first published in the Sydney Monitor, has special interest in view of the recent suggestion that the name Blacktown should be changed. The original settlement was established during the Macquarie régime for the purpose of improving the lot of a number of aboriginal families in the district. Homes were provided, with small garden plots; a chapel was built, as well as a school. The Rev Mr Walker, of the Wesleyan Mission, formerly officiated at the chapel, and was entrusted with the care of the pupils and the establishment. Ultimately the settlement was abandoned. Charles Tompson visited the village, and wrote the elegy while standing on the chapel veranda. He writes:—

The Chapel and cottages were deserted, the latter in ruins, and the whole scene exhibited the strangest marks of desolation.

The second stanza is quoted, and illustrates the style of the poem:—

Ill-fated hamlet! from each tott'ring shed
Thy sable inmates p'raps for ever fled.
(Poor restless wand'rers of the woody plain,
The skies their covert—Nature their domain.)
Seek with the birds the casual dole of heav'n,
Pleased with their lot,—content with what is given.
Time was, and recent memory speaks it true,
When round each little cot a garden grew:
A field whose culture served a two-fold part,
Food and instruction in the rural art.
The lordling tenant and his sable wife
Here taught to prize the sweets of social life,
And send their offspring in the dawn of youth
To schools of learning and paths of truth.

Charles Harpur was the outstanding poet of the period preceding Kendall. He not only wrote more poetry and better poetry than any other poet who had preceded him, but in much of his work he showed himself to be the first true Australian poet. He was Australian by birth and Australian in sentiment, and the more carefully his poetry is read the more one realizes the high standard of his work and the value of his contribution to Australian literature. But such were the stern material times in which he lived that, outside a small circle of firm friends, he was practically unknown, and therefore he received little encouragement for his sterling efforts.

Harpur was born at Windsor, New South Wales, in 1817. He was the son of Joseph Harpur, master of the Government School and parish clerk at Windsor, 1813-1826. The father left some interesting records in the parish register, and was present when Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone of St Matthew's Church on October 11, 1817.

From the preface to the Collected Poems, 1883, we learn that Charles Harpur acquired a better education than was generally attainable by a majority of the native-born, yet he was mainly a self-taught man. He always acknowledged his deep indebtedness to the remarkable moral and intellectual qualities of both of his parents, but the father's position was such that he was early thrown upon his own resources for a livelihood. He was never out of his native country, and, as he says, the greater part of his mature life was passed in the solitude of the bush. The lessons thus taught by Nature are easily traceable in much of his poetry, and were as easily discernible in his character. He had a pure faith in God, superior to all creeds and dogmas, an exalted idea of liberty, and was a hopeful believer in humanity and the future of the race. He was by turns a hunter, a wood-cutter, an explorer and a farmer. In his twenties he secured a clerical position in the Sydney Post Office, devoting his leisure to literary pursuits. The principal advantage to himself accruing from his attempt at city life was the acquaintance he made with the few literary men of that day, among them Henry (afterwards Sir) Parkes, whose close friendship he enjoyed for thirty years. The sympathy and encouragement he received from this literary group was of the greatest value to him.

In 1843, at the age of twenty-six, Charles Harpur left Sydney and went to reside in the Hunter River district near Singleton, where he lived for a few years with his elder brother, Joseph J. Harpur (afterwards well known as a writer in the colonial Press). Here he was engaged in farming pursuits.

In 1850 Harpur married Mary Doyle, daughter of E. Doyle, of Eulengo, Jerry's Plains. The marriage was a very happy one, even through subsequent seasons of failure, hardships and sickness. There were five children to the marriage. For a year or two he worked a small sheep station for himself, but as this did not prove as profitable as he desired, in 1858 he accepted the position of Gold Commissioner at Araluen, which was offered to him by Sir John Robertson. He sacrificed his station and his stock and retained this appointment for eight years, having in the meantime established a farm at Eurobodalla. The farm turned out a bad speculation, for he was necessarily too much away from it to admit of proper management, and all his savings were wasted, so that when the office of Gold Commissioner was abolished he was ill-prepared to cope with the reverse of fortune and begin life anew. The great sorrow of the poet's life came on him shortly after in the loss of his second son, a thirteen-year-old lad of great promise, who was killed by the accidental discharge of his gun in March, 1867.

Harpur never recovered from the shock of this sad event, and the great floods and long wet winter of 1867, disastrous to his farming operations, assisted in bringing on a long and fatal illness. He died on June 10, 1868, at the age of fifty-one. If the choice he often had to make between the course which would tend towards his long-cherished aim and that which might have brought him more worldly advantages left him poor at last, let it not be supposed that his lot was without many and rich compensations, for the poet's mind is ever open to the natural sources of happiness. He found ever ready solace in the works of his favourite poets, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth and Shelley, and naturally their influence is discernible in much of his work.

Harpur's first publication, entitled Thoughts, was published in 1845, during his courtship. It is only a small volume of sixteen pages, and contains twenty-two sonnets, including five love sonnets. The volume of Thoughts in the Mitchell Library belonged to Sir Henry Parkes, and contains the following entries:—

Henry Parkes June 8th 1895.
Fifty years ago and it seems but yesterday.

On the next page is written in Sir Henry's handwriting:—

The entry in the first page of these sonnets was made by Charles Harpur who at the period very frequently visited my house. Some of the sonnets had been written at my house. I can well remember poor Charles reading the one on page 16 entitled “Absence” to me after he had composed it and going into raptures about the subject of it—Mary Doyle. “Rosa” is still living though the poet has been in his grave many years.

H. P. 8/6/95.

The book is inscribed in beautiful handwriting:—

Mrs. Clarinda Parkes

With the author's best wishes for the welfare of herself and family and in token of his gratitude for much kindness received at her hands.

Pyrmont 1st Nov. 1845.

This is the sonnet referred to:—

“ABSENCE.”

Nightly I watch the Moon with silvery sheen
Flaking the city house-tops, till I feel
Thy memory, Rosa, like a presence, steal
Down in her light: for ever in her mien
Thy Soul's Similitude my Soul hath seen!
And as she seemeth now a guardian seal
On Heaven's far bliss upon my future weal,
Even such thy Truth is—radiantly serene!
But long my fancy may not entertain
These bright resemblances, for lo! a Cloud
Blots her away! and in my breast the pain
Recurs of Absent Love, piercing and loud!
When shall I see thy sweet eyes again,
Rosa, when cheer thee, with like sadness bowed?

The specimens of love sonnets are preceded by a paragraph from an English periodical:—

Nothing in Polite Literature perhaps would do greater service to morality than a new school of pure and simple Love-poetry yet not deficient in ardour in imagination. This is highly desirable, not more on account of the social importance of the passion at all times than as an antidote to the impure extravagance with which our amatory poets with scarcely an exception have celebrated the triumphs of the fair.

The sonnets brim over with Harpur's sincere, pure love. They reveal the poet's character, his lofty idealism, his love of Nature, his unbounded faith, his manly emotion, and his sincerity of purpose. Sutherland, writing in the Melbourne Review, 1888, says of the sonnets that they are as elegant and finished as any in the English language.

In 1853 Harpur published The Bushrangers, a play in five acts, and other poems, including, perhaps, his best poem, “The Creek of the Four Graves.” The play is remarkable in that it is a piece of work so completely foreign to his nature. Some of the characters are coarse, the construction is weak, the poetry is crude, and one can not but regret that he wrote it. “The Creek of the Four Graves” is a long poem in blank verse, and tells the story of five men who went out into the wilds in search of new cattle country, and who were all killed save one while they were asleep at their camp. The poetry is of high standard and contains passages of fine descriptive power. It is a splendid piece of landscape painting, and deserves to be better known.

This is a typical example of Harpur's fine descriptive power, but the whole poem should be read to be fully appreciated:—

                                        Eastward at last!
The glow was wasted into formless gloom—
Night's front; then westward the high massing wood
Steeped in a swart but mellow Indian hue,
A deep dusk loveliness lay ridged and heaped,
Only the more distinctly for their shade,
Against the twilight heaven—a cloudless depth,
Yet luminous with sunset's fading glow;
And thus awhile in the lit dusk they seemed
To hang like mighty pictures of themselves
In the still chambers of some vaster world.

Two other poems of merit were “The Bush Fire” and “Ned Connor,” two typically Australian pieces of work. “Ned Connor” is a poem of thirty-five stanzas (six lines), and is so well executed as to make the reader wish that Harpur had written more ballads in the same style. The poem tells the story of a native who was murdered, and traces the Nemesis which slowly and surely overtook his slayer.

In 1862 “The Poet's Home” was published—a long lyric poem in which Harpur is delightfully at home. It pictures a day in the poet's happy home from early morning till late at night, and provides a beautiful picture of the joys of simple, homely, country life. The unaffected, graceful manner in which he portrays the successive activities of the daily round gives the poem great charm:—

Here in this lonely hill-engirdled spot,
The world forgetting, by the world forgot,
With one vowed to me with beloved lips,
How sweet to draw as hiddenly from time,
As from its rock yon shaded fountain slips,
          My yet remaining prime.

In the same volume is a shorter poem, entitled “The Poet.” It is in the same charming strain:—

Both great and bountiful is he
The Poet—he whose glorious gift
Free of the world and making free,
Heavenward on wings of melody
Can all things lift!
Yes well may we account him great
Who through his every living line
Doth elevated elevate
And throw into the mind's estate
A ray divine.

“The Tower of the Dream” appeared in 1865. It is a long poem, in no sense Australian, and, after opening with a panegyric on dreams, passes on to the fantastic story of a beautiful vision seen by the poet. In the opinion of Sutherland (Melbourne Review), something of Coleridge's weird exaltation evidences itself in Harpur. Indeed he claims that it is one of the most distinctly original of Harpur's qualities. The poem is quite unreal. It is written in blank verse, and, while it contains fine descriptive passages, none are drawn from Nature. However, there are some charming passages, as follows:—

                                        Oh how great worth
Is love within the world! By the fair spring
Of even the lowliest love, how many rich
And glorious things that could not else have been,
Grow up like flowers and breathe a perfume forth
That never leaves again the quickened sense
It once hath hit as with a fairy's wand.

In 1883 a fine collection of Harpur's poems was published, and this volume is to-day the only avenue to reach the poet's work. It contains a splendid range of poems, sonnets, lyrics, longer narrative and descriptive work. Coming as it did fifteen years after the poet's death, it aroused less interest than it should rightly have done. Considering his limited education, his sad life, his complete isolation and his restricted opportunities, Harpur was a prolific writer of more than average standard. Given the encouragement, inspiration and kindly guidance of cultured friends, he might have written less, but he would have written more—more of permanent value. His was a fine contribution to our literature, and he may yet attain to greater fame when time shall judge him fairly.

Following Charles Harpur there is an interesting group of poets, which includes Sir Henry Parkes, John Dunmore Lang, James Lionel Michael, and William Forster.

Sir Henry Parkes came to Australia in 1839 and, like his friend, W. C. Wentworth, made occasional incursions into the field of poetry. As Arthur Patchett Martin says in the preface to Sladen's Anthology:—

It is interesting to contemplate such a man as Sir Henry Parkes, known popularly only through the rush and strife, jar and clash, blaze and discord of party and public life, from the inner, gentler, peacefuller side—a side so unsuspected by the general public who like hate or despise him, but who never imagine that he has an existence, an individuality, beyond their ken, hidden away out of sight.

Sir Henry Parkes was not a poet of merit, but he loved poetry and loved to spend some of his leisure hours in writing verse. He poured out his feelings in song, untutored and unmetrical as it often was, from sheer force of circumstances. His verses were as rugged as his nature, but he was so thoroughly earnest and sincere in everything he wrote. In the preface to Stolen Moments he wrote:—

I feel acutely how feeble must be any effort of mine to serve the cause of Australian literature, the more acutely, because it would be my greatest happiness to do so.

He writes in the hope that his efforts might be stimulative to literary enterprise in New South Wales:—

The voice of praise would be doubly sweet to me if it were to encourage some Australian bard to seize in earnest the unstrung lyre of this beautiful country.

Sir Henry published six little volumes of poetry in all: Stolen Moments, 1842; Murmurs of the Stream, 1857; Studies in Rhyme, 1870; The Beauteous Terrorist and Other Poems, 1885; Fragmentary Thoughts, 1889; Sonnets and Other Verse Over Fifteen Years, 1895. Apart from expressions of sincere emotion, with occasional lines of superior worth, the great man's poetical efforts are only of passing interest.

In the same school comes John Dunmore Lang. He wrote a series of religious poems under the title Aurora Australis, published in 1826. In his contributions to the Press, Dr Lang wrote with great skill and power, but he did not display the same strength in poetry. The South Asian Register (No. 1) notices his poems, and says:—

The poems are submitted to the public in the hope of becoming instrumental in advancing the interests of true religion and promoting the practice of virtue throughout the colony.

There is no question of the utility of such publications when they are excellent, but there is, we take it, much question when they do not rise above mediocrity.

Most of the poems were written, it appears, on ship-board. We do not wonder at them having a certain qualminess every now and again which is so commonly felt in the motion of the sea. … We believe that Dr. Lang is capable of writing a better collection than what the present volume contains.

An example of Lang's work is quoted:—

AUSTRALIAN HYMN.

Fair on Creation's splendid page
Thy pencil sketched its wondrous plan;
Thine hand adorned it many an age
Ere it was known or trod by man,
When nought but Ocean's ceaseless roar
Was heard along its voiceless shore.
But still no grateful song of praise
Was heard along Australia's shore;
Her mountains, rivers, lakes, and bays
Saw no fond worshipper adore;
His devious path the savage trod,
But still he knew not, feared not, God.

And now we come to William Forster, who was born at Madras in 1818, and arrived in Australia in 1829. He was a squatter, journalist and politician. As a contributor to Sydney papers he was a powerful satirist, and his writings never failed to attract attention. He was one of the most distinguished Australian writers. His “Devil and the Governor,” almost his only Australian piece, is of historical success, but not as a poem; and he has therefore to be represented by “Midas,” a posthumous work in blank verse, which is of outstanding merit for its felicity and facility of expression. Another piece of work which attracted attention was “The Genius and the Ghost.” It appeared in Robert Lowe's magazine, The Atlas. The genius is the city of Sydney, and the ghost is the ghost of transportation. [Forster was Premier in 1860. Afterwards he became Colonial Secretary in the Martin Government.]

It is worthy of note in passing that three premiers and that famous politician, John Dunmore Lang, all wrote and published verse.

The last member of this group to be mentioned was that very brilliant man, James Lionel Michael, who was born in 1824, and who arrived, following the discovery of gold, in 1853. He was a solicitor by profession, and in the year 1861 he set up a practice at Grafton, on the Clarence River. Here he was introduced to young Henry Kendall by N. D. Stenhouse. He was immediately interested in the young poet, and gave him a clerical position in his office, placed his library at his disposal, and also instructed him in the art of versification. Probably Michael's greatest service to Australian literature was his practical assistance and sympathetic encouragement to Kendall, who ever afterwards testified with gratitude to the great kindness of his literary father. Kendall said of Michael that “he was the most accomplished man and talker of his day in New South Wales.” It was during his association with Michael that Kendall sent home the historic bundle of manuscripts which was accepted with such kindly comments by the editor of the Athenaeum.

Michael published two volumes of verse—Songs Without Music in 1857, and John Cumberland in 1860. His Songs Without Music indicate that he possessed great facility in expressing ideas poetically. His compositions are musical, there is little distinctiveness of thought, but here and there he displays glimpses of fine poetic feeling. His work lacks originality, though some of his poems are of sufficient merit as to be deemed worthy of a place in the various anthologies of Australian verse.

John Cumberland is a long autobiographical poem of some two hundred pages, in which almost every known form of metre is introduced. It is a tale of love—a kind of novel in verse—and often it is very mediocre verse, just rhymed prose. The theme of the story is very difficult to follow, and consequently the poem arouses little interest in the reader. In the simpler forms of lyric verse, however, Michael's work reaches a standard which entitles him to be numbered among the early Australian poets.

And thus we conclude our survey of the first half-century of poetic endeavour. It may be true that we have traversed the by-ways rather than the highways of Australian poetry. Unfortunately little of the work of these pioneers is readily available to readers. The anthologists have included perhaps less than a dozen examples of the poems of this period. It is a matter for regret that such an interesting phase of our literary development can receive such scant notice, but the anthologists cannot be blamed, for theirs is an unenviable task. The time may yet come when a collection of the best work of this pioneering group may be published. Then lovers of Australian poetry will be able to estimate for themselves the real cumulative worth of the work of our early poets.