Peter 'Possum's Portfolio
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Peter 'Possum's Portfolio Rowe, Richard (1828-79) A digital text sponsored by Australian Literature Electronic Gateway University of Sydney Library Sydney 2000 http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit © University of Sydney Library. The texts and Images are not to be used for commercial purposes without permission Source Text: Prepared from the print edition published by J. R. Clarke, Sydney 1858 All quotation marks are retained as data. First Published: 1858 Languages: Australian Etexts criticism essays 1840-1869 prose nonfiction Peter 'Possum's Portfolio Sydney J. R. Clarke 1858 TO NICOL DRYSDALE STENHOUSE, ESQ., M.A., ETC., ETC., ETC., THE FAITHFUL FRIEND OF THE UNFORTUNATE, WHO VISITED ME WHEN I WAS A STRANGER, SICK, AND IN PRISON, AND WHOSE KINDNESS NEVER SINCE HAS FAILED, I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK: AS A SINCERE, ALTHOUGH SORRY, TOKEN OF MY GRATEFUL AFFECTION, COUPLED WITH THE WARMEST ADMIRATION OF HIS MENTAL GIFTS AND SCHOLARLY ATTAINMENTS. P.'P. Preface. I CANNOT plead, according to the approved mock-modest formula of incipient authors, “the importunities of, perhaps, too partial friends,” as my excuse for rushing into authorship. I am urged by a far more genuine, and disagreeable motive. My purse, like Falstaff's, has long suffered from atrophy. “I can get no remedy,” says the fat knight, “against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.” The malady, however, may be alleviated; and it is in the hope of escaping, for a time, from the pangs of this detestable impecuniosity that I publish my tiny volume. It consists of prose and verse—often recast—that I have contributed to various English and colonial periodicals, supplemented with a little matter that I have not previously printed. I now hand over my fasciculus nugarum to a public that has always been too indulgent to my scattered trifles; and gladly seize this opportunity of expressing my gratitude for that kindness. Contents. PAGE DEDICATION iii. PREFACE v. CONTENTS vii. ARTHUR OWEN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 THE PIRATES 81 A TRIP UP THE HUNTER 85 CONFESSIONS OF AN AUSTRALIAN BRANDY DRINKER 101 JOHNSON'S CHAMBERS 108 ABSENT FRIENDS: A CHRISTMAS BALLAD 114 “THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON” 117 A HOT WIND 120 EASTER 123 MY PIPE 125 QUEER DORMITORIES 131 AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN 136 SUNDAY AFTERNOON 139 AT MEETING 143 FRIAR BEN 148 MEMORIALS OF COCKBURN 151 FAREWELL TO THE KORE: AN AUTUMN SONG 164 GLAUCUS 165 RHOECUS'S BEE 166 SOUL FERRY 168 THE SPECTRE COACH: AN ESSEX LEGEND 169 A SONG 170 A BALLAD 170 SEPULCHRA SEPULTA 171 LET US BE MERRY—JUST TO-NIGHT 172 THE ANGEL OF LIFE 173 PAGE SUPERSTITES ROSÆ 174 THE STARS ABOVE THE CEDAR TREE 174 THIS YEAR'S HONEYSUCKLE 175 DON FRANCIA 175 THE DEAD 176 TRANSLATIONS:— EURIPIDES (Chorus, Medea, vv. 820–61.) 177 THEOCRITUS (Adoniazusae) 178 THEOCRITUS (The Little Heracles) 184 GREEK ANTHOLOGY (“Danaë” from Simonides) 190 “The Swallow and Cicada,” from Evenus 191 “Philaenis,” from Maecius 191 “The World's Wealth,” from Lueillius 192 “The Garland,” from Rufinus 192 “Love Among the Roses,” from Julian, the Prefect 192 “Theodorias,” from Paulus Silentiarius 192 “On a Statue of Victory” 192 “Human Joy” 193 “World Weary” 193 “The Undiscovered Country” 193 “The Better Land” 193 HORACE: “To Pyrrha” (Carm. I., 5.) 193 “To Chloe” (Carm. I., 23.) 194 “Horace and Lydia (Carm. III., 9.) 195 PRUDENTIUS: “Hymn at Cockcrow” 195 HILDEBERT: “A Hymn” 198 A. W. SCHLEGEL: “Arion” 199 TIECK: “An Autumn Song” 203 UHLAND: “The Minstrel's Malison” 204 HARALD 206 THE NUN 207 THE CASTLE BY THE SEA 208 THE HOSTESS' LITTLE DAUGHTER 208 SPECIMENS OF PERSIAN POETRY 209 SPECIMENS OF NORTHERN POETRY 212 ODDS AND ENDS 216 Peter 'Possum's Portfolio. Arthur Owen: An Autobiography Chapter 1. * IAM deformed. A hideous dwarf, you may call me, if you like. The name would n't cut into my heart now. I have heard it too often—seen it too often,—in glances of half-loathing compassion and contemptuous disgust. Even wired cats, they say, don't hurt much after the first dozen lashes. It takes a longer time to get used to wired words, lacerating looks; but, thank Heaven! one does get accustomed—callous—even to these, at last. Yes, I am a hideous dwarf. I mention the fact thus early, because I learnt it early. My proud mother's mortification cropping out ever and anon through her sorrowful tenderness, like a dry, jagged rock through dewy greensward; my beautiful sisters' careful fondness; my bonny brother's condescending kindness — condescending, though the imp was two years younger than myself; the way in which my father, usually so taciturn and stiff, unbent and talked to me—all taught me my lesson at home, as faithfully as the pointed fingers and protruded tongues and whispers and shudderings of the people out-of- doors—and even more painfully, because I could not resent the teaching. Remembering what I am, bear with me whilst I chronicle my life. Mind, I don't ask you for your pity—I've had enough of that. The word sickens me. Chapter II. MY father was the curate of Pwldhi, a village in South Wales. It is a lonely spot. Even in these days of newspapers and railroads, the roar of the busy world reaches the hamlet only like the dull sound of billows breaking miles away. The pedlar's tidings, a month old, are considered “latest intelligence” in Pwldhi. A stranger's visit is pabulum for talk for half-a- year. It is a lovely spot, too. Dearly do I love Nature, for she is the only beautiful one I ever dared to look upon without apology and shame, the only one I never caused to frown or sigh. She always had a smile for me, though I was hateful to behold, and unveiled her loveliness before me as solace, and not insult. On the left, as you face the Bay, a green, broad-backed mountain meets the sky. In fine weather you can see the dun wild cattle roaming on the mountain-side, and here and there a flock of sheep nibbling the fragrant thyme, or far, far up, a line of shaggy kids playing at follow-my-leader along the jutting blocks of lichen-mottled limestone. In stormy weather, the clouds rest damp and dreary on the top, and spot the swelling hill-slopes with straggling patches of wind-tost vapour, looking like columns of ascending smoke. Just where the mountain begins to melt into the plain, there is a dense mass of dark foliage, above which tower the ragged, ivy-clad, weed- stream-ered, jay-and-jackdaw-haunted ruins of a castle, and between which you catch glimpses of an old-fashioned red brick mansion, with white stone piers and coping: the park and residence of the Lord of the Manor. Towards the sea, the hill-range ends in a long rank of stern, gray crags, over the outermost of which the waves, rolling on and on for ever from the far-off west, break, with perpetual thunder, in seething curls of snowy foam; bronzing the turf that caps the cliffs, and drenching their gay garlands of golden-blossomed gorse, with ever-drifting showers of salt spray. On the other side of the Bay, a wooded declivity dips its feet in the blue waters, looking over at its grim vis-a-vis as a gentle sister might gaze, half proudly and half fearfully, at a brave brother in fierce combat. Another castle, shattered by Cromwell's cannon, crowns this hill. At its foot nestles the Parsonage, blotched by the sea-breeze. A path fringed with the periwinkle and wild rose leads, just above the rocks, to the church-yard; where the village dead sleep, not beneath green mounds, as in English graveyards, but underneath a coverlet of flowers. A little garden, box- bordered, or with a tiny white-washed wall, watched lovingly throughout the year, and weeded by fond fingers, and watered by regretful tears, at Easter and at Whitsuntide, blooms fair and fragrant above each dear, departed one—a sweeter tomb than the unvisited mausoleum with its marble symbols of a stony grief, and virtues—not cherished in the memory of survivors, but chronicled or created, for stranger eyes, in characters of gold. The present church is old enough to have the cross-legged effigy of a Crusader in its chancel. I used to marvel why he didn't scour the verdigris from his armour,—the damp had made the monument so green. I really thought, when quite a child, that it was a living knight, who lay there studying the Ten Commandments in the Two Tables over the Altar, and that the sexton fed him secretly with what remained of the sacramental bread and wine. There is, however, an older church beneath the waves. When the sea is calm, you can see the broken arches, covered with limpets and swathed in many-coloured tangle, the ribbed sand heaped high round the thick pillars, and shoals of fish, now bright now shadowy, gliding silently up the watery aisles. The old parsonage was swept away with the old church, but part of the old garden-wall remains—a tottering mass of rubble at the water-side, with a silver birch trembling, like a warrior's plume, upon the top. My childish fancy likened the pile, I remember, to a warrior left behind by his comrades, and grown grey in gazing for the ship that nevermore returned. The garden, also, remains, grass-grown and rubbish-strewn, and dotted in Spring with a few tufts of pale, sad, lonely-looking daffodils.