• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

The Blind [poem by “Dryblower” Murphy, 1926]

7 June 2014 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by “Dryblower” Murphy was published in Dryblower’s Verses (1926).]

The Blind.

HELP ye the Blind that cannot help themselves,
His greatest blessing God from them withholds;
The deepest pit-slave in no darkness delves
Like that black bondage that the Blind enfolds.
Our world is sweet with sunshine and with smiles,
Theirs is a no-man’s-land of sorrowed shade;
We laugh along the glad and golden miles
The pools of nether night they weary wade.
Help ye the Blind, and unto Heaven pray
That He has showered sunlight on your way!

WORK for the Blind, let them not know the need
Of seeking for to-morrow’s urgent meal;
There is no class, partitioning nor creed
Where all their halting way for ever feel.
The splendour of the earth and sky is ours,
The dawn magnificent, the eventide;
The verdant valleys, summer streams and flow’rs,
The hills where light and loveliness abide.
And though their perfume wanders on the wind
All else is but a mockery to the Blind!

PITY the Blind, whose eyes may never see
The dear ones round about who laugh and love;
The curly-headed babes around their knee,
The star-worlds beaming in the blue above.
They touch the tiny hands and tiny heads
That alter through the long processing years;
But on through all their darkness and their dreads
They do not see their loved ones’ tender tears.
Towards the black abyss that lies behind
Go all the pains and pleasures of the Blind!

THINK for the Blind, and, when you’re thinking, think
If that same shadow came to yours and you,
And not a beam of light broke o’er the brink
To pierce the Stygian shadow through and through.
Picture yourself blind, friendless and alone,
Your loved ones’ voices echoes of the past,
The golden mem’ries you in youth had known
Into a black and bleak Avernus cast.
Hell is more happy, curses less unkind
Than a hard world towards the friendless Blind!

SEE for the Blind, lend them your precious sight,
Make one day glorious in those years of pain
And though you cannot lead them to the light,
Be you their beacon through th’ Unlightened Lane.
Do unto them as they to you would do
Had fate upon you set a sightless seal,
Let their poor useless eyes not turn to you
A mute and melancholy vain appeal.
May He who tortured died for human-kind
Plead to you through this Ballad of the Blind!



Source:
Edwin Greenslade Murphy, Dryblower’s Verses, Perth, W.A.: E. G. Murphy, 1926, pages 61-62

Previously published (with some differences) in:
The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 11 September 1921, p. 4

Editor’s notes:
Avernus = hell; a lake west of Naples (Italy), which, because of its sulfurous vapors, was regarded by the ancient Romans as an entrance to the underworld

Stygian = very dark, gloomy; forbidding, hellish, unpleasantly dark; of or pertaining to the river Styx (in Greek mythology, a river which formed the boundary between the land of the living and the underworld)

verdant = countryside covered with lush green grass or other plant life; may also refer to the colour green, or to someone who is “green” (i.e. lacking experience, judgment, or sophistication)

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Dryblower Murphy (1866-1939) (author), Dryblower’s Verses (Dryblower Murphy 1926), poem, SourceSLV, year1926

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, Kangaroo, Wattle, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Search this site

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Boy soldiers: Cadets fine physique [29 March 1911]
  • Military: Notes for senior cadets [1 March 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from “Little Red Riding Hood”, 11 February 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from “Mary…”, 11 February 1911]
  • Compulsory military training [letter to the editor, from the Rev. William Shaw, 11 February 1911]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Taking His Chance [poem by Henry Lawson]
  • Timeline of Australian history and culture
  • Australian slang
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

Archives

Categories

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Recent Comments

  • IAC on [Group of Australian soldiers, or soldier-cadets] [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]
  • Raymond on [Group of Australian soldiers, or soldier-cadets] [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]
  • IAC on Australia Shearing [postcard, 1907]
  • Raymond on Australia Shearing [postcard, 1907]
  • Raymond on Advance Australia [postcard, WW1 era (1914-1918)]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in