Manning Valley Historical Society

  "The Beautiful Manning"
        by Henry Kendall

Henry Kendall moved to Cundletown in January 1881, with his wife and children.  He had been living at Camden Haven for the previous five years.

His third book of poetry was released - most of which had been written at Camden Haven - and he wrote a number of poems about the Manning. Unfortunately he died the next year of consumption, at the age of 43.

  The Beautiful Manning
      by Henry Kendall

This poem, published in March 1881,  starts with the surf at the mouth of the River and then moves upstream through the marshy swamps of the delta, to the villages of Taree and Wingham, to the hills beyond and finally to its source in the mountains. 

A bleak black cape where, in the moaning cave,

A blind cold water cries with all its storm

Through all the night, stands stark against the South.

And in the North gaunt jaws of bitter reef

Wait, white with menace, for the wind-whipped ship.

Here, midway, where the great gold morning makes

A path of majesty across the sea,

There lies a space nigh stricken unto death

By gusts of gale that scourge with salt and scurf

And biting brine and shard of sterile wave.

Here is the sick wan marsh where ever blows

A breeze whose breath is full of barrenness -

A ghost of land chained back by crags where faints

The pale salt blossom smitten with the harsh

Wild-flying spears of surf. Here ever sound

The great strange speeches of the strong sad sea -

The words whose high dark majesty has awed

All men through all the years of all the world!

But in the west, behind the hopeless sphere

Of gray dumb swamp, there lies a shining tract

Of hill and plain and water. Everywhere

The eye is soothed by gracious colours. Here

Are fair green lawns that flash and fall away

To banks of singing river. In this zone

Grave August sets her first of flowers; and through

Deep woods of emerald sunshine, where the rain

Is as tender dew, October sings

Her sweetest song, what time her yellow hair

Is blown about by fragrant western winds,

And bright light feet are tangled in the leaves.

Here, where the myrtle hides the shy blue bird

That loves the water, and the wailing oak -

That wild strange cithern of Australian woods -

Is hardly heard, the mild mute morning comes

With soft serene surprises of the sun

And flying waves of shade. Yea, on these tracts

The white noon of high heaven wears a robe

Of golden green; and where by herby banks

The hermit hornet hums in day’s full life,

The quiet evening hears the slow sad song

Of far off ocean and the deepening tones

Of torrent music in the nearest glens.

Back in the west the blue magnificence

Of marshalled mountains in a lordly land

Completes the noble picture. Royal hills

That hold a high companionship with clouds

And are the towers of tempest - peaks that know

Large lordship of the morning, and the light

And breadth and strength of blue mid-heaven, form

A background of exalted grandeur! Lo,

These peers of flying planets tower above

Green gradual slopes of hiss and singing dells

And lawns of grace - these see the rose-red first

Of radiant morning, and they wear the rich

Apparel of the sunset with the green

Above the glowing gold and crimson. Here

The marvelous power and beauty of the world

Exalt the soul like some majestic strain

Of slow cathedral music; and it hears

In every voice of every wind and stream,

In every song that lives within the hill,

In every anthem from the far off sea

An utterance like the very voice of God.

 

          Taree 
by Henry Kendall

Here, where the silver stream of Manning strays,

By folded hills and great green gracious ways,

Where, when the autumn’s last by June is met,

Some pure, sweet blossom keeps its colour yet.

I speak this song, we children meet tonight,

To offer you our first fair flowers of light,

What though these feeble efforts that you see

Are poor and pale beginnings, trust that we

Will, in the fuller life, present some sign

Of natural gifts that in your eyes will shine.

For in this land of beauty, where the sun

Is ever soft on all it looks upon,

Will dawn when all the words of all I say

Be sure that bright results will come. The day

Will prove a splendid prophecy. So take

With love these primal efforts that we make.

 

This is the house in Cundletown where Henry Kendall lived.  It was situated near the present-day Cundletown Post Office, but on the opposite side of the road.