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<h2> Music in the Bush </h2>
<p>O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,<br/>
And in the west, all tremulous, a star;<br/>
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune<br/>
Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.<br/>
<br/>
Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,<br/>
She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,<br/>
And sends her love eternal with the sun<br/>
That goes to gild the land she'll see no more.<br/>
<br/>
The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze,<br/>
All still the sky and darkling drearily;<br/>
She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days<br/>
Come sifting through the alders eerily.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!<br/>
The curtains stir as with an ancient pain;<br/>
Her old piano gleams from out the gloom<br/>
And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.<br/>
<br/>
But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys<br/>
With velvet grace — melodious delight;<br/>
And now a sad refrain from over seas<br/>
Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night;<br/>
<br/>
And now she sings. (O! singer in the gloom,<br/>
Voicing a sorrow we can ne'er express,<br/>
Here in the Farness where we few have room<br/>
Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,<br/>
<br/>
Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more,<br/>
That song of sadness and of motherland;<br/>
And, stretched in deathless love to England's shore,<br/>
Some day she'll hearken and she'll understand.)<br/>
<br/>
A prima-donna in the shining past,<br/>
But now a mother growing old and gray,<br/>
She thinks of how she held a people fast<br/>
In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.<br/>
<br/>
She sees a sea of faces like a dream;<br/>
She sees herself a queen of song once more;<br/>
She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam;<br/>
She sings as never once she sang before.<br/>
<br/>
She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain,<br/>
The added pain of life that transcends art —<br/>
A song of home, a deep, celestial strain,<br/>
The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.<br/>
<br/>
A lame tramp comes along the railway track,<br/>
A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done;<br/>
He passes, pauses, then comes slowly back<br/>
And listens there — an audience of one.<br/>
<br/>
She sings — her golden voice is passion-fraught,<br/>
As when she charmed a thousand eager ears;<br/>
He listens trembling, and she knows it not,<br/>
And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.<br/>
<br/>
She ceases and is still, as if to pray;<br/>
There is no sound, the stars are all alight —<br/>
Only a wretch who stumbles on his way,<br/>
Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.<br/></p>
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