820 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 



A clear assurance that no doubts eclipse. 



And if the common things of nature now 

 Are like old faces flushed with new delight, 



Much more the consciousness of that rich vow 

 Deepens the Ijeauteous, and refines the bright, 

 While throned I seem on love's divinest height, 



Mid all the glories glowing round its brow. 



Charles Harpur's best effort in the direction of local poetry 

 is to be found in his " Creek of the Four Graves," which is on 

 the whole the finest piece of blank verse written in Australia. 

 His ballad of " Ned Connor " is a strong and surprising piece 

 of work ; once read it is not soon forgotten, 



Harpur lived a truly pioneer life. He apologizes for his 

 verses in lines which thus begin : — 



And wonder ye not if his speech be uncouth, 

 Nor look ye much for his rhymes to be smooth. 

 Nor that the flight should be lofty and free 

 Of one with so little of learning as he. 

 For all of his aptest years were past 

 In primal solitudes, wild and vast. 



In the last of his sonnets he tell us that he has no care for 

 gold, nor any strong desire for honors. He feels that he does 

 not write in any hope of fame. 



But in retirement, where the muses dwell, 

 That his life's legacy might be — a well 

 Pierian, in a wide and thirsty land. 



Is he not therefore one worthy of our warm regard as a 

 pioneer of higher aspirations in Australia ? 



One last name and I have finished. It is that of James 

 Lionel Michael, a contemporary of Harpur's, and a genuine 

 Australian, though born and educated in England. He was 

 a solicitor practising in Grafton, on the Clarence River. A 

 man of quiet tastes, after losing his wife he dropped into 

 semi-recluse habits ; devoted himself wholly to his library, 

 and consoled his leisure with the writing of poetry, much of 

 it very poor, but with here and there a piece of almost 

 inspiration to redeem the whole from barrenness. As he says 



himself, 



'Tis bad enough 

 And yet, among its jingling rhymes, 



There is a little sterling stuff, 

 That reads like poetry sometimes. 



His first venture was a volume called " Songs without 

 Music," published in Sydney in 1852 ; it consists of a collection 

 of lyrics, sweet and musical, somewhat vapid as a rule, but 

 now e^ncl again stirred witli something that touches t\ne rea,der^ 



