THE CONVICTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.
ONCE more to daily toil, once more to wear The livery of shame, once more to search With miserable task this savage shore! Oh Thou, who mountest so triumphantly In yonder heaven, beginning thy career Of glory, Oh thou blessed Sun! thy beams Fall on me with the same benignant light Here, at the furthest limits of the world, And blasted as I am with infamy, As when in better years poor Elinor Gazed on thy glad uprise with eye undimmed By guilt and sorrow, and the opening morn Woke her from quiet sleep to days of peace. In other occupation then I trod
The beach at eve; and then, when I beheld The billows as they rolled before the storm Burst on the rock and rage, my timid soul Shrunk at the perils of the boundless deep, And heaved a sigh for suffering mariners. Ah! little thinking I myself was doomed To tempt the perils of the boundless deep, An outcast, unbeloved and unbewailed.
Still will thou haunt me, memory! still present The fields of England to my exiled eyes,
The joys which once were mine! Even now I see The lowly lovely dwelling! even now
Behold the woodbine clasping its white walls, Where fearlessly the red-breasts chirp around To ask their morning meal: and where at eve I loved to sit and watch the rook sail by, And hear his hollow croak, what time he sought The church-yard elm, that with its ancient boughs Full-foliaged, half concealed the house of God: That holy house, where I so oft have heard My father's voice explain the wondrous works Of heaven to sinful man. Ah! little deemed His virtuous bosom that his shameless child So soon should spurn the lesson! sink, the slave Of vice and infamy! the hireling prey Of brutal appetite! At length, worn out With famine, and the avenging scourge of guilt, Should dare dishonesty-yet dread to die!
Welcome, ye savage lands, ye barbarous climes, Where angry England sends her outcast sons, I hail your joyless shores! My weary bark, Long tempest-tost on life's inclement sea, Here hails her haven! welcomes the drear scene, The marshy plain, the brier-entangled wood, And all the perils of a world unknown,- For Elinor has nothing new to fear
From fickle fortune! All her rankling shafts Barbed with disgrace, and venomed with disease, Have pierced my bosom, and the dart of death Has lost its terrors to a wretch like me.
Welcome, ye marshy heaths! ye pathless woods, Where the rude native rests his wearied frame, Beneath the sheltering shade; where, when the storm, As rough and bleak it rolls along the sky, Benumbs his naked limbs, he flies to seek The dripping shelter. Welcome, ye wild plains Unbroken by the plough, undelved by hand Of patient rustic; where, for lowing herds, And for the music of the bleating flocks, Alone is heard the kangaroo's sad note
Deepening in distance. Welcome, ye rude climes, The realm of Nature! For-as yet unknown The crimes and comforts of luxurious life- Nature benignly gives to all enough, Denies to all a superfluity.
What though the garb of infamy I wear, Though day by day along the echoing beach I cull the wave-worn shells; yet day by day I earn in honesty my frugal food,
And lay me down at night to calm repose, No more condemned the mercenary tool Of brutal lust, while heaves the indignant heart With virtue's stifled sigh, to fold my arms Round the rank felon, and for daily bread To hug contagion to my poisoned breast; On these wild shores repentance' saviour hand Shall probe my secret soul; shall cleanse its wounds, And fit the faithful penitent for heaven.
SEE'ST thou not, William, that the scorching sun By this time half his daily race has run ? The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore, And hurries homeward with his fishy store. Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil, To eat our dinner and to rest from toil.
Agreed. Yon tree, whose purple gum bestows A ready medicine for the sick man's woes, Forms with its shadowy boughs a cool retreat To shield us from the noontide's sultry heat. Ah, Humphrey! now, upon old England's shore, The weary labourer's 's morning work is o'er:
The woodman now rests from his measured stroke, Flings down his axe and sits beneath the oak. Savoured with hunger there he eats his food, There drinks the cooling streamlet of the wood. To us no cooling streamlet winds its way, No joys domestic crown for us the day. The felon's name, the outcast's garb we wear, Toil all the day, and all the night despair.
Ah, William! labouring up the furrowed ground, I used to love the village clock's dull sound, Rejoice to hear my morning toil was done, And trudge it homewards when the clock went one. "T was ere I turned a soldier and a sinner! Pshaw! curse this whining-let us fall to dinner.
I, too, have loved this hour, nor yet forgot Each joy domestic of my little cot. For at this hour my wife, with watchful care, Was wont each humbler dainty to prepare; The keenest sauce by hunger was supplied, And my poor children prattled at my side. Methinks I see the old oak table spread,
The clean white trencher and the good brown bread, The cheese my daily food which Mary made, For Mary knew full well the housewife's trade: The jug of cider-cider I could make- And then the knives-I won 'em at the wake. Another has them now! I, toiling here, Look backward like a child, and drop a tear.
I love a dismal story: tell me thine, Meantime, good Will, I'll listen as I dine. I, too, my friend, can tell a piteous story- When I turned hero how I purchased glory.
But, Humphrey, sure thou never canst have known The comforts of a little home thine own:
A home so snug, so cheerful, too, as mine; 'Twas always clean, and we could make it fine;
For there King Charles's golden rules were seen, And there-God bless 'em both-the king and queen. The pewter plates, our garnished chimney's grace, So nicely scoured, you might have seen your face; And over all, to frighten thieves, was hung, Well cleaned although but seldom used, my gun. Ah! that damned gun! I took it down one morn- A desperate deal of harm they did my corn! Our testy squire too loved to save the breed, So covey upon covey ate my seed.
I marked the mischievous rogues, and took my aim; I fired, they fell, and-up the keeper came.
That cursed morning brought on my undoing;
I went to prison, and my farm to ruin.
Poor Mary! for her grave the parish paid,
No tombstone tells where her cold corpse is laid! My children-my dear boys-
HUMPHREY.
Come grief is dry.
You to your dinner-to my story I.
To you, my friend, who happier days have known, And each calm comfort of a home your own,
This is bad living: I have spent my life
In hardest toil and unavailing strife, And here (from forest ambush safe at least) To me this scanty pittance seems a feast. I was a plough-boy once; as free from woes And blithesome as the lark with whom I rose. Each evening at return a meal I found;
And, though my bed was hard, my sleep was sound. One Whitsuntide, to go to fair, I drest
Like a great bumpkin, in my Sunday's best; A primrose posey in my hat I stuck,
And to the revel went to try my luck,
From show to show, from booth to booth I stray, See, stare, and wonder, all the live-long day. A serjeant to the fair recruiting came, Skilled in man-catching, to beat up for game; Our booth he entered and sat down by me;- Methinks even now the very scene I see! The canvass roof, the hogshead's running store, The old blind fiddler seated next the door,
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