• 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 and booklets
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry and songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

The Quest of No Avail [poem by E. J. Brady]

29 December 2020 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by E. J. Brady was published in Bells and Hobbles (1911).]

The Quest of No Avail.

It was starlight on Euphrates, o’er a thousand years ago,
And a Dreamer by the River watched its silken, silver flow.
“Give,” he cried, “my Idol to me, from thy voiceless Night, O Death:
I would hold again her sweetness; breathe the perfume of her breath!”
Naught the Solemn River answered, and the Silent Stars shone on.

Now ’tis starlight on a River in the new Australian night,
And the countless flow’rs of Heaven bloom in endless fields of light.
“Give me back,” a Dreamer crieth to the silken silver stream —
“Give me back my shattered Idol; give me back my vanished Dream!”
Naught the Solemn River answered, and the Silent Stars shine on.



Source:
E. J. Brady, Bells and Hobbles, Melbourne: George Robertson & Co., 1911, p. 139

Editor’s notes:
crieth = (archaic) cries

Euphrates = the Euphrates River (a major river of Western Asia, which originates in eastern Turkey, flows through Syria and Iraq, and ends in the Persian Gulf)

flow’r = (vernacular) flower

o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)

’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”

thy = (archaic) your

Filed Under: poetry Tagged With: Bells and Hobbles (E. J. Brady 1911), E. J. Brady (author) (1869-1952), poem, SourceArchiveOrg, year1911

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Primary Sidebar

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

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

  • Mercenary Mum, by Neryl Joyce [book review]
  • The Year of the Angry Rabbit, by Russell Braddon [book review]
  • Western bush fire: Several crops burnt [5 January 1906]
  • Buy “Australian-Made” [by W. R. Bagnall, 22 June 1928]
  • The Bad Boy [poem regarding Henry Parkes, 12 May 1877]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Bard and the Lizard [poem by John Shaw Neilson]
  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • The drover’s wife [by Henry Lawson]
  • To a Blue Flower [poem by John Shaw Neilson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

Categories

Archives

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]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in