Leaves from Australian Forests (1869). Campaspe
Turn from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name— She is fairer than flowers of the fire— she is brighter than brightness of flame. As a song that strikes swift to the heart with the beat of the blood of the South, And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth. Her eyes are as splendours that break in the rain at the set of the sun, But turn from the steps of Campaspe—a Woman to look at and shun! Dost thou know of the cunning of Beauty? Take heed to thyself and beware Of the trap in the droop in the raiment—the snare in the folds of the hair! She is fulgent in flashes of pearl, the breeze with her breathing is sweet, But fly from the face of the girl—there is death in the fall of her feet! Is she maiden or marvel of marble? Oh, rather a tigress at wait To pounce on thy soul for her pastime—a leopard for love or for hate. Woman of shadow and furnace! She biteth her lips to restrain Speech that springs out when she sleepeth, by the stirs and the starts of her pain. As music half-shapen of sorrow, with its wants and its infinite wail, Is the voice of Campaspe, the beauty at bay with her passion dead-pale. Go out from the courts of her loving, nor tempt the fierce dance of desire Where thy life would be shrivelled like stubble in the stress and the fervour of fire! I know of one, gentle as moonlight—she is sad as the shine of the moon, But touching the ways of her eyes are: she comes to my soul like a tune— Like a tune that is filled with faint voices of the loved and the lost and the lone, Doth this stranger abide with my silence: like a tune with a tremulous tone. The leopard, we call her, Campaspe! I pluck at a rose and I stir To think of this sweet-hearted maiden—what name is too tender for her?
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
