[Editor: This poem, by Barcroft Boake, was published in Australia (Sydney, NSW), 11 July 1907. Under the heading “Verses by Barcroft Boake” were printed three (supposedly) previously unpublished poems written by Barcroft Boake: 1) The Minstrel’s Curse, 2) A Bush School-Girl, and 3) “The Day When a Fellow Gets a Job”. However, the last poem had, in fact, been previously published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 3 December 1892, under the title of “Our Visitor”.]
Verses by Barcroft Boake
[The following verses by the lamented Barcroft Boake appear now, it is believed, for the first time in print. They were written while he was an assistant-survevor near Wagga, N.S.W., and though juvenile in type and lacking the merit of his later work, they are worth preserving for the sake of the personal interest that attaches to everything penned by the man who more strongly than any other has poetically embodied the characteristic spirit of Australia.]
The Minstrel’s Curse.
A dusky queen upon her throne
Reclined, in royal state alone,
And watched her court below,
While from her lips at whim’s behest
Fell many a quaint and cutting jest —
Barbed shafts to pierce the naked breast
Of absent friend and foe.
Like flash of light on windy leaves,
Or as a sunlit torrent heaves
Its foaming masses on, and cleaves
The air below, and slips
From rock to rock, with diamond light
Of flashing spray to left and right
In borrowed rainbow colours bright —
So fell her merry quips.
She jested gaily on, until
No good was left in aught, but ill
To all she did impute;
The scintillations of her wit
Like living sparks of fire lit
Upon fair names, to speck and pit
And blemish their repute.
The virgin was no longer chaste:
The beauty was but painted-faced,
Her form a work of art;
The wife had broke her vows: the youth
Forsworn his love: and even truth
Itself was but a lie, forsooth —
Not one escaped her dart.
It chanced, a strolling minstrel sought
To gain admission to the court
To chant his roundelay;
He lingered by the palace gate
Until the dusky potentate
Smiled slowly down, and sealed his fate
For ever and for aye.
O’erjoyed that she should favour him,
He seeks to gratify her whim,
Nor deems the task too hard;
But falters at the scorn that lies
In the abyss of deep, dark eyes
That blaze and glitter serpentwise
Upon the hapless bard.
“O Queen!” he murmured in his throat
“O Queen” — alas! the opening note
Fell harsh upon her ear;
His voice died from him in a wail;
He trembled, turning red and pale;
His senses seemed to reel and fail,
While all the courtiers jeer.
The Queen flew out: “This man, I wot,”
She said, “it seems, has quite forgot
The tale he sought to tell:
So that he may remember me
Take him and let him scourged be,
Thrust him with scantest courtesy
Within our deepest cell.”
He raised his eyes — alas, to glean
No pity from the irate queen:
Her heart was hard as stone
They stript him of his ragged coat:
Her name upon his back they wrote
In bloody letters; ’neath the moat
They fettered him alone.
But ere he died, it did befall
That high upon his dungeon wall
The minstrel carved a curse;
Its bright, satiric couplets chime
With bitter ring of rounded rhyme,
A song to last: as long as time
Shall live, so shall that verse.
The people came and read the song,
Laughing the while both loud and long,
And learnt it in a breath:
’Twas sung abroad by every clown,
The children piped it through the town,
And while it smirched the queen’s renown
Avenged the Minstrel’s death.
Source:
Australia (Sydney, NSW), 11 July 1907, p. 26
Editor’s notes:
The word “minstrel” was capitalized in the last stanza (“Minstrel”), but not in the 5th stanza (“minstrel”).
abroad = all around; at large; broadly; widely; over a wide space
aught = anything; anything at all, anything whatsoever
aye = always, forever
ere = (archaic) before (from the Middle English “er”, itself from the Old English “aer”, meaning early or soon)
fettered = chained, restrained, restricted, with a fetter attached (a fetter is a chain, manacle, or shackle placed around a prisoner’s ankle)
forsooth = (archaic) in truth, indeed (“forsooth” is sometimes used ironically, to imply the opposite of what is being said)
’neath = (vernacular) beneath
potentate = a ruler with great authority and power (such as a dictator, monarch, or sovereign)
o’erjoyed = (archaic) overjoyed
stript = (archaic) stripped
’twas = (archaic) a contraction of “it was”
wot = (archaic) know; to know
Leave a Reply