Arrow
Author Photo

Robert Crawford

Years of life

1868 - 13 January 1930

Place of Birth

Australia

Place of death

Not filled

Residence

Australia

Publication languages

English

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.

ity of Sydney. Crawford settled on a farm as his forefathers had done, but not being successful, bec
Show full text

Poems by Crawford Robert


Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
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...
He was born old; they who got him were grey,
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...
The light is silent on the greeny sward,
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...
No Christian burial? Ah, he'll sleep as sound
As the old Jew who, by Beth-Peor, had
God for a sexton
For thyself work, not for another, so
'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...
He'll have his all; and though his heart is great,
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
The natural death we each night undergo
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
The natural death we each night undergo
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
I heard the Earth within me sing
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...
The old man is not miserable, nay, cheery
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...
The last great Day it may be near,
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...
Within the mist of argument men lose
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
A trance upon my spirit fell;
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...
Here, Echo, was thy reign of old,
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...
There is a breath at midnight that comes in
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...
She feels the world, it touches her
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...
How poor is comfort when the loss is great,
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...
The asp, her baby, on her breast,
She falls asleep,
Ever, like Antony, to rest
While Nile shall keep
Its course, and Egypt be a name
Whose utterance stirs...
The heat is on the sea, and Noon
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...
The natural death we each night undergo
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
Show 20 more works