Robert Crawford
Years of life
Place of Birth
Place of death
Residence
Publication languages
About the poet
Robert Crawford was an Australian poet.
Crawford was born in Doonside, New South Wales, the son of Robert Crawford senior, and was educated at The King's School, Parramatta, and the University of Sydney. Crawford settled on a farm as his forefathers had done, but not being successful, became a clerk in Sydney and afterwards had a typewriting business. Some of Crawford's poems were published in The Bulletin and other periodicals. Crawford is believed to have been the first prize-winning haiku poet published in Australia, in The Bulletin on 12 August 1899. In 1904 a small collection, Lyric Moods:Various Verses, was published in Sydney. An enlarged edition was later published in Melbourne retitled simply Lyric Moods (1909). In 1921 another volume, Leafy Bliss, was published, and an enlarged edition appeared three years later. Crawford died suddenly at Lindfield, Sydney, on 13 January 1930.
Not a great deal is known about Crawford; he was short of stature, poetical in spirit. He mixed little in literary circles and seems to be forgotten a few years after his death. The statement that he was educated at The King's School originally appeared in the Bookfellow, and may have come direct from Crawford. If so there is no reason to doubt it, yet in the records of The King's School of his period the only R. Crawford is listed as Richard Crawford. It was also not possible to identify him positively with the Robert James G. W. Crawford who graduated B.A. at the University of Sydney in 1912, when the poet was about 44 years of age. Crawford is represented in some of the anthologies, and A. G. Stephens thought highly of his work. His work has a delicate charm and, though at times one fears it will not rise above merely pretty verse, in some of his quatrains and lyrics Crawford does succeed in writing poetry of importance. Perhaps, as Stephens once suggested, he may be better appreciated in the 21st century.
Poems by Crawford Robert
Climbing high into the sun
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder
At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun!
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under
Off with one helluva roar...
And quaint as things that long had seasoned here
When that he came — a too true vintage of
The lateness of the brewing blood and brain;
Even as in their whims and ways he had
Existed, an imaginary thing...
And from a bough above the wild dove's coo
Steals on the ear like a dream-dewy word,
Or the voice of one of a faery crew.
The warmth within the azure of the hills
Breathes like the picture of a perfect thing...
As the old Jew who, by Beth-Peor, had
God for a sexton
'Tis possible; else all thy worth is his
Whose maybe paltry payment scarce serves to
The base sufficing of thy bed and board:
And all thy days to this sad use are given,
Till age or sickness shall subdue thy pith...
Ay, prodigal of kindness, yet is he
A very Shylock in his bargaining.
Those soft, mild eyes of his grow hard as iron
To gauge the too, too little or too much,
When commerce puts his temper to the touch
Should teach us that our passing's but a sleep,
Which we beyond the body's shadow may,
Even as a garment of the day we doff,
Put off for ever, being then no more
Nor less, indeed, than we have been before
Should teach us that our passing's but a sleep,
Which we beyond the body's shadow may,
Even as a garment of the day we doff,
Put off for ever, being then no more
Nor less, indeed, than we have been before
As if it were a trancéd thing,
Or as if under thought's control
All things were chaunting in my soul.
I was the centre of the sphere,
And made the imaginary year...
For such a grey old fellow. Life's still good,
And he at many points is yet in touch
With the material; and what if now
He has not the old energy to sling
The passion of his nature off, he can...
Or Man may pass ere it comes here.
There may be nothing but weeds and flowers
Over the Earth in her dying hours;
Men, beasts and birds may all be gone
Ere the world's disaster shall come on...
Ofttimes the thread of reason, and the fume
Of thought, until its urgency subsides,
So cloudeth counsel, that on a debate
Time should avail for meditation ere
The matter comes to judgment
It seemed as I were hurled
Through aeons like an atom dark
Beyond the flaming world:
From void to void without a breath,
As in a weird unknown...
Among these hills, a mystic crowd
Whose thunder rolled
When they speak loud
Still shocks the sea: here thy hair grew
Long as a cloud whose shadow drew...
Sad as a sigh, for then the day is dead
And the young morrow doth his course begin,
Sowing new dreams in many a dreamer's head.
And there are two have waked in one dark bed
Just as the last stroke fades in lonely air...
Like a weird thing she needs must know,
While all her fears and fancies stir
As in a death-dream long ago.
She has passed from her youth to this —
A woman grown with misty eyes...
And vain all counsel to assuage a tear!
A light affliction it may medicine;
But when deep Nature groans all words are air,
And, like the aboriginal instrument,
Return on the comforter. 'Tis but a wind...
She falls asleep,
Ever, like Antony, to rest
While Nile shall keep
Its course, and Egypt be a name
Whose utterance stirs...
Has hushed the sounds upon the shore;
There is a silence evermore
That with the heart is so in tune
That ear and eye their senses steep
As if within a dreamy dew...
Should teach us that our passing's but a sleep,
Which we beyond the body's shadow may,
Even as a garment of the day we doff,
Put off for ever, being then no more
Nor less, indeed, than we have been before