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Bushed

Edward S. Sorenson

The night has passed, again I wake to find
    I’ve been the victim of delusive dreams;
Still am I tantalised by Fate unkind,
    Decoying whither dazzling sunlight gleams
        Ne’er on clear limpid streams.

With trembling, feeble fingers yestermorn
    Upon a giant gum I carved my name,
Thence wandered on for water wan and worn;
    Yet at the fall of night back to the same
        Initialled tree I came.

No progress had I made the whole day long,
    But circuits traced in search of pond or creek;
With greedy eyes I watched each bird of song,
    As on I toiled with tongue that could not speak,
        Dry lips and sunken cheek.

And here I dreamt I viewed a sparkling spring.
    Its waters saw like liquid silver glide,
Where, soft as velvet, green as emerald, cling
    Cool mountain moss the jutting rocks to hide
        Upon a green hillside.

I tottered to the brink, with gloating eyes
    Espied a pool, from which deep draughts I drank;
I scorned the summer sun, the stinging flies;
    I bathed and laughed, and on the shaded bank
        In sweet contentment sank.

And there came one whose face was wondrous fair,
    A sylvan idyll in the shadeland dim;
I trembled at the touch of her gold hair,
    And thought as sweet as that of Seraphim
        The voice that called me “Jim.”

Alas! the wak’ning comes, the pangs of thirst
    Are more acute, the heat is more severe;
The birds sit listless in this land accurst,
    Whose forests vast the myalls did revere
        Who sleep by Bendimere.

Canst they, departed hence for evermore,
    To shrines of grandeur lit with glittering sheen,
See far below the nimbus of that shore
    One stricken more than birds that cannot preen
        Their feathers in the green?

If it be true that from that realm of bliss
    The spirits still can see and understand
The trials and wrongs that daily hap on this,
    Then is there for this unit of a band
        Hope on the burning sand.

So, aided by that spark that flickers yet,
    And guided by the sunblaze in the east,
Again I’ll strive, and ere that orb has set,
    May fathom why ‘tis e’er for man and beast
        A famine or a feast.

Ah, once I basked in plenty, never knew
    What ‘twas to want a crust, or aught to cool
My lips, till cast where living things are few,
    Nor tutored in the broad Arcadian school,
        In vain I seek their pool.

I circle when my course seems passing straight,
    Direct I travel when I seem to turn;
O’er yonder is the tree discerned at eight,
    Immutable it stands, with power to spurn
        Fierce rays that blind and burn.

But now the sun has shifted to the left,
    A dark, intricate jungle looms before;
Of knowledge of locality bereft,
    With dread I’m seized, and every moment more
        My fading sight deplore.

There is a sameness in this wilderness,
    I ween, would task a calmer brain than mine;
This seems familiar, yet my foot’s impress
    Is nowhere seen; nor by that stalwart pine
        I viewed the browsing kine.

The blazing sand dunes by yon myall scrub
    Meseems I struggled over yesternoon;
But in the centre is a screening shrub,
    Beyond, a bog, where once a wide lagoon
        Gleamed ‘neath the silvery moon.

And onward still I struggle, still am sane,
    Though drier seems the land at every mile;
Mid desert horrors Hope begins to wane,
    The fiends of drought surround with hellish smile,
        Life mocking all the while.

Loved scenes of home still bid me forward toil
    Through swelt’ring bush; and, as an infant trips,
I falter oft and tighten thus the coil
    That’s crushing last my feeble being, and nips
        The prayer upon my lips.

Afar off gleams a mirage on the plain.
    And blurred beyond a belt of timber green;
There in the lowland waits the weary swain
    A purling stream that courts a leafy screen
        From the surrounding sheen?

Vain hope! ‘Tis as the desert parched and hot.
    All now is o’er—ambition, love, and pride!
Soon pain will pass, these terrors be forgot,
    The spirit quit the bush and desert wide,
       And e’er in peace abide.

I hear the carrion crows call overhead,
    Hard by the prowling dingoes yap and whine;
God grant at least they’ll wait until I’m dead . . .
    The sky assumes the tint of blood-red wine . . .
        I’m done . . . Oh, mother mine!

A ringing shout disturbed the settling crows,
    As riders from the hill discovered him,
And raced to save—well, every bushman knows;
    And ‘mong them two blue eyes were wet and dim,
        As some one called him “Jim.”

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