The Domain

The bulging cloud mounts lazily     In shade where sunlight glances through,     And sweeping lightly from the tree     Melts indolently in the blue.     The scanty grass-blades yonder shake,     A tremulous flurry takes the smoke,     And ancient memories start awake     At pungent scent of fig and oak.     For here of old an urchin strayed     And gloomed in lonely pride the while,     An outlaw in a forest glade     Or pirate on a tropic isle.     Here where a staid policeman strolls     Ned Kelly in his armour stood,     And underneath the roadway rolls     The river of the Haunted Wood.     And yonder, couched in phantom fern,     Not far from Nelsons rolling ship,     I spied the antlerd head of Herne     And saw the startled rabbit skip.     And Will Wing shook in desperate strife     Defiantly his bloody hand,     And heard the waves of daily life     Drone on the reef-ring, far from land.     Not Robin, clad in verdant baize,     Nor Britains silver-plated king,     Was master of the winning ways     That drew me to the flag of Wing.     He sauntered on the southern isle     In garments of eccentric cut,     And, with his grim sardonic smile,     Would masticate his coco-nut.     Within his cave, upon a heap     Of Spanish coin and rubies red,     Ive seen him lying half-asleep     And dreaming of the blood hed shed.     The gold-dust, spilled about the ground,     Made common dirt a treasure rare,     And if you fingered it you found     The flashing jewels buried there.     The seabird, sweeping free and far     On wings of wonder, will not see     That green isle and its coral bar,     That corsair and his mystery.     As when a lump of sugar shrinks,     When coffee waves about it glide,     Crumbles and topples, melts and sinks,     And mingles with the sombre tide,     So is the islet vanished; yet     As now I gulp a bitter draught     The sweetness lingers. Up, and set     The canvas of the rakish craft!