Whose evil heart and venomed tongue
But poisons what it stings,
Who throws contempt on songs or lays
A humble poet sings.

I still sing on and half forgive
The venom and the gall,

For birds join chorus in my song,

The sun shines over all.

And loving hearts will beat with pride,

And gentle eyes will beam,

When love shall strike this harp of mine,
And honour be the theme.

FREDERICK SYDNEY WILSON.

[Of Sydney, New South Wales, author of Australian Songs and Poems (Gibbs, Shallard & Co., Sydney, 1870).]

WAITING FOR THE MAIL.

BREAKS a sun-streak through the casement-streams its glory on the floor,

And the crisp and matted leafage rustles round the cottage door;

Where the truant birds are climbing,

Tapping on the glass and chiming

With the sounding burst of billows breaking on the shingly shore!

Watching by the open casement where the starry blossoms cling,

Listening to the weary song the weeping waters ever sing

Sad and thoughtful sits a maiden,
For her peaceful breast is laden

With the wish for news of one whose memory makes the

teardrops spring.

So she watches where the sun is fading on a distant sailWhere the scattered sea-spray drifts and tosses in the summer gale,

And her girlish heart is throbbing,

Like the cold wave's ceaseless sobbing,

O for the weary youth and beauty-waiting-waiting for the mail!

Let us track the steps so longed for o'er the parched Australian plain—

Mark the spot that heard the raving death-call of his thirsty pain!

See the iron-bark, unaltered,

Sheds its leaves where footsteps faltered

Footfalls that shall never greet the watchful glance of love again!

When wild dreams of brattling creeks thrust in his ears their phantom tones,

Here he fell, and clutched for water at the burning sand

and stones

Till the tortured spirit wrestled

Forth its flight-then possums nestled.

In the branches, shyly wondering at the heap of brightening bones!

There he sleeps-and mouldering rags are wasting in the heated gale

Peering from the drifting sand, they flutter forth a fearful tale,

Love may watch and wait for ever,

But the wished-for voice will never

Tremble in the ear of her who watches-waiting for the mail!

TWO AUSTRALIAN PICTURES.

SCENE I.

The landing of Captain Cook, 1770.

FIERCELY sang the white-lipped surges, and the echoes of their thunder

Fled among the ragged caverns glaring on the restless

main,

And the craggy headlands, by the jealous waves, were kept asunder,

Like the gulf which parts for ever friends who may not meet again.

But the quiet bay those cliffs defended, sparkled in its splendour,

And the surf-drops spread their silvery network o'er the dazzling sand

Where, like loving speeches, formed of accents, oh so sweetly tender!

Came the pleasant sound of waters meeting with the willing land.

Shone the sun in noonday glory, while the white clouds hung between it

And the earth, where light and shade in fond embraces seemed to cling;

And a pleasing darkness fell athwart the scene, as if to screen it

With a chastened beauty-like the shadow of an

angel's wing.

From the gunyahs 'neath the headland curled the smoke, in circles drifting

Round the branches, where the gum-trees ghastly shadows downward threw

On the water's glassy bosom, where the idle sun-streaks

shifting,

Mirrored forth the dark-skinned native fishing in his bark canoe.

Scarce a sound disturbed the silence-only when the wild-dog creeping

Through the tangled thicket, roused the parrots' harsh discordant scream;

For the bay and beaches, in each other's arms were fondly sleeping,

And the pure Australian sky bent o'er the landscape's lovely dream.

Came a battered vessel thro' the harbour-portal, and the rattle

Of her web-like cordage mingled with the murmurs of

the breeze;

While her strained and creaking timbers told of many a hard-fought battle

With the wild and warring tempests, wandering over weary seas.

And her crew gazed from the bulwarks-but no hand in love extended,

Sought to give the grasp of friendship to the toiling way worn hand,

No dear voice, in pleasant whispers, spoke of pain and peril ended

As the rusty cable grated, and the anchor pierced the

sand.

No fond mother's grateful blessing hailed this "wanderer of the Ocean ".

No responsive feeling heightened beauty on a fair one's

cheek;

And the land contained no manly heart that throbbed with wild emotion,

At the sight of dear Old England's standard floating at her peak.

But the jealous natives fled, their bosoms filled with fear and wonder

Only two, with patriotic love, remained to guard the

strand;

And their fierce dissonant yells came wafted with the wild wave's thunder,

As the gallant leader placed his foot upon the unknown land.

SCENE II.

Botany Bay, 1870.

A century has passed-and merry footsteps twinkle on the sod;

But that hardy band of voyagers down a stranger path hath trod

Down a path whose mystic windings cross the future's viewless plain,

On whose waste the foot once planted never may return again.

True, the spot is little altered-Nature wears the look of

yore,

But the savage yell no longer echoes round the quiet shore. Where the wild man loved to urge his bark canoe amid

the spray,

Now a cloud of white-winged skiffs are darting o'er the placid bay

And the eager heart beats swifter as some loved one draweth near.