An Aboriginal Mother?s Lament 
Charles Harpur 


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[About the year 1842 a party of stockmen, several of whom were afterwards hanged for the crime, made a wholesale slaughter of a small tribe of defenceless blacks; one woman only, with her infant, escaped from the murderers.] 

Still farther would I fly, my child, 
 To make thee safer yet, 
From the unsparing white man, 
 With his dread hand murder-wet! 
I?ll bear thee on as I have borne 
 With stealthy steps wind-fleet, 
But the dark night shrouds the forest, 
 And thorns are in my feet. 
 O moan not! I would give this braid? 
 Thy father?s gift to me? 
 But for a single palmful 
 Of water now for thee. 

Ah! Spring not to his name?no more 
 To glad us may he come! 
He is smouldering into ashes 
 Beneath the blasted gum! 
All charred and blasted by the fire 
 The white man kindled there, 
And fed with our slaughtered kindred 
 Till heaven-high went its glare! 

 O moan not! I would give this braid? 
 Thy father?s gift to me? 
 For but a single palmful 
 Of water now for thee. 

And but for thee, I would their fire 
 Had eaten me as fast! 
Hark! Hark! I hear his death-cry 
 Yet lengthening up the blast! 
But no?when that we should fly, 
 On the roaring pyre flung bleeding? 
I saw thy father die! 

 O moan not! I would give this braid? 
 Thy father?s gift to me? 
 For but a single palmful 
 Of water now for thee. 

No more shall his loud tomahawk 
 Be plied to win our cheer, 
Or the shining fish-pools darken 
 Beneath his shadowing spear; 
The fading tracks of his fleet foot 
 Shall guide not as before, 
And the mountain-spirits mimic 
 His hunting call no more! 

 O moan not! I would give this braid? 
 Thy father?s gift to me? 
 For but a single palmful 
 Of water now for thee.