[Editor: This poem by “R.G.S.” — a pseudonym of John Neilson (1844-1922) — was published in The Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA), 28 September 1878.]
Found Dead.
(Composed on the remains lately found in the forest at Nangwarry.)
A little aside from the sandy road,
By nodding fern and heath o’ergrown,
They stumbled one day on a crumbling mass
Of mouldering rags and whitening bone.
A little aside from the sandy road,
Someone had laid down his weary load.
Poor relics of what was once a man,
How long exposed to the sun and dew?
Alone and unnoticed here hast thou lain,
And the roofs of the homestead here in view,
When the leaves are parted by the breeze,
And at night the lights gleam through the trees.
Perhaps there is someone waiting still,
With a heart and a home for thee reserved;
Counting the weary months that pass,
With a patient love that has never swerved!
Oft lying awake in the midnight watch,
Hoping thy hand might raise the latch.
Perhaps there has nestled beside thy knee
Some bright little face with its happy smile;
Or light little feet may have raced to meet
And welcome thee home from thy daily toil;
Or some little one may be asking in vain —
“When will my father come home again?”
Thank heaven, at least he perished not
In the waterless waste, as many have done,
With the maddening pangs of torturing thirst —
With the blackening lips and the dry parched tongue,
And mocked by dreams of murmuring brooks,
As tortured Reason her throne forsook.
And who shall say but his end was peace?
For his eye, unfettered by roofs or bars,
Could turn away from the blackened heath
And fix its gaze on the tranquil stars,
And see o’er the billows of death’s dark foam,
The lamps that shine in our Father’s home.
For heaven looks down with its starry eyes,
That fade not, nor change with the changing years.
Their luminous glance is the same that met
The heaven-bent gaze of the Chaldean seers;
As thousands of misty years gone by,
The star-gazers looked on the midnight sky.
Oh, then let us gather these relics up —
To some loving heart it may lessen the pain,
When they know that the last sad rites were paid
By kindly hearts and by Christian men
When all is o’er and the last words said
O’er him that was found in the forest dead.
R.G.S.
Penola.
Source:
The Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA), 28 September 1878, p. 6
Also published in:
The Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA), 9 October 1878, p. 6
Editor’s notes:
Chaldean seers = the seers of ancient Chaldea (located in the area of the Euphrates River, in the south of modern Iraq) were well-known as astrologers, fortune tellers, interpreters of dreams, and mystics, so much so that the word “Chaldean” was sometimes synonymous with “seer” (for example, in Daniel 4:7, 5:7, 5:11, and 5:30, in the Bible)
forsook = to abandon, to give up, to permanently leave, to reject, to renounce, to turn away from someone or something (the past tense of “forsake”)
hast = (archaic) have
o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)
o’ergrown = (archaic) overgrown
oft = (archaic) often
our Father’s home = Heaven
seer = someone who foretells the future; a mystic with supernatural insight into the future; a wise man; a prophet (in the modern sense, an expert who predicts the economic, political, or social future)
thee = (archaic) you
thou = (archaic) you
thy = (archaic) your
unfettered = unchained, unrestrained, unrestricted, without a fetter (a fetter is a chain, manacle, or shackle placed around a prisoner’s ankle)
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