An Aboriginal Mother's Lament single work   poetry   "Still farther would I fly, my child, to make thee safer yet"
  • Author:agent Charles Harpur http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/harpur-charles
Issue Details: First known date: 1845... 1845 An Aboriginal Mother's Lament
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'On the Myall Creek massacre.' (Webby)

Notes

  • Author's note: It will be remembered that, a few years back, a party of stockmen (several of whom were afterwards executed for the crime) made wholesale massacre of a small tribe of defenceless Blacks, to the number, it is believed, of more than a score, heaping their bodies as they slaughtered them, upon a large fire kindled for the purpose. Of this doomed tribe, one woman only, with her infant, as it appeared subsequently on evidence, escaped the Whiteman's vengeance. And this woman, after having fled to a considerable distance from the scene of the massacre, and when wearied and overtaken by the night is supposed to make the following lament.

    (This note is from the Weekly Register. It appears, with slight variations, in The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853) and in The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur (1984).)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: A Wail from the Bush
First line of verse: "Oh, I would further fly my child"
Notes:
Originally published under the title 'A Wail from the Bush'; more familiarly known as 'An Aboriginal Mother's Lament'.
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Weekly Register of Politics, Facts and General Literature vol. 5 no. 105 26 July 1845 Z1673056 1845 newspaper issue 1845 pg. 41
    Note:
    • With title: A Wail from the Bush
    • With first line: Oh, I would further fly my child
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems Charles Harpur , Sydney : W. R. Piddington , 1853 Z100447 1853 selected work poetry drama Sydney : W. R. Piddington , 1853 pg. 113-114
    Note: With first line: O I would further fly, my child, to make thee safer yet
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Poems Charles Harpur , Melbourne : George Robertson , 1883 Z139167 1883 selected work poetry Melbourne : George Robertson , 1883 pg. 100-102
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Ballads and Rhymes : Poems Inspired by Life and Scenery in Australia and New Zealand Douglas Sladen (editor), London : Walter Scott Publishers , 1888 Z178621 1888 anthology poetry London : Walter Scott Publishers , 1888 pg. 91-92
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Treasury of Colonial Poetry Milsons Point : Currawong , 1982 Z363730 1982 anthology poetry Milsons Point : Currawong , 1982 pg. 162-163
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur Charles Harpur , Elizabeth Perkins (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 Z459555 1984 selected work poetry satire 'This collection represents one version of almost every poem written by Charles Harpur, with the omission of some translations and paraphrases. The verse drama, "Stalwart the Bushranger", and the fragments of the dramatic poem "King Saul" are not included. ... The collection is edited from Harpur's manuscript poems held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and from printed copies in colonial newspapers when no manuscript version existed.' (Preface) Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1984 pg. 369-370
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Family Ties : Australian Poems of the Family Jennifer Strauss (editor), South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 Z115299 1998 anthology poetry South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 pg. 6-7
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Poetry Library APRIL; APL; The Australian Poetry Resources Internet Library John Tranter , Sydney : 2004- Z1368099 2004- website

    'The Australian Poetry Library (APL) aims to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of Australian poetry by providing access to a wide range of poetic texts as well as to critical and contextual material relating to them, including interviews, photographs and audio/visual recordings.

    This website currently contains over 42,000 poems, representing the work of more than 170 Australian poets. All the poems are fully searchable, and may be accessed and read freely on the World Wide Web. Readers wishing to download and print poems may do so for a small fee, part of which is returned to the poets via CAL, the Copyright Agency Limited. Teachers, students and readers of Australian poetry can also create personalised anthologies, which can be purchased and downloaded. Print on demand versions will be availabe from Sydney University Press in the near future.

    It is hoped that the APL will encourage teachers to use more Australian material in their English classes, as well as making Australian poetry much more available to readers in remote and regional areas and overseas. It will also help Australian poets, not only by developing new audiences for their work but by allowing them to receive payment for material still in copyright, thus solving the major problem associated with making this material accessible on the Internet.

    The Australian Poetry Library is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Begun in 2004 with a prototype site developed by leading Australian poet John Tranter, the project has been funded by a major Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC), CAL and the University of Sydney Library. A team of researchers from the University of Sydney, led by Professor Elizabeth Webby and John Tranter, in association with CAL, have developed the Australian Poetry Library as a permanent and wide-ranging Internet archive of Australian poetry resources.' Source: www.poetrylibrary.edu.au (Sighted 30/05/2011).

         Sydney : 2004-
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Related Works

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Works about this Work

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop's 'The Aboriginal Mother' : Romanticism, Anti Slavery and Imperial Feminism in the Nineteenth Century Katrina Hansord , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-12) 'This paper positions the work of colonial poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop amongst international Romantic poetry of the period, and argues that Dunlop's poetry reflects a transposition of Romantic women's poetry to Australia. Dunlop's poetry, such as 'The Aboriginal Mother', demonstrates the relationship of Romantic women's poetry to early feminism and Social Reform. As with the work of Felicia Hemans, Dunlop was interested in the role of women, and the 'domestic' as they related to broader national and political concerns. Dunlop seems to have been consciously applying the tropes, such as that of the mother, of anti slavery poetry found within American, British, and international poetic traditions to the Australian aboriginal context. Themes of indigenous motherhood, and also of Sati or widow burning in India, and human rights had been favored by early women's rights campaigners in Britain from the 1820s, focusing on abolition of slavery through the identification of white women with the Negro mother. Dunlop's comparative sympathy for the situation of aboriginals in Australia has been given critical attention as the aspect which makes her work valuable. However, in this essay I hope to outline how Dunlop's poetry fits in to the international context of the engagement of Romantic women poets with Western Imperialist models and colonial Others.' (Author's abstract)
Sense and Nonsense J. J. Healy , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature and the Aborigine in Australia 1770- 1975 1989; (p. 91-112)
Eliza Hamilton Dunlop's 'The Aboriginal Mother' : Romanticism, Anti Slavery and Imperial Feminism in the Nineteenth Century Katrina Hansord , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-12) 'This paper positions the work of colonial poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop amongst international Romantic poetry of the period, and argues that Dunlop's poetry reflects a transposition of Romantic women's poetry to Australia. Dunlop's poetry, such as 'The Aboriginal Mother', demonstrates the relationship of Romantic women's poetry to early feminism and Social Reform. As with the work of Felicia Hemans, Dunlop was interested in the role of women, and the 'domestic' as they related to broader national and political concerns. Dunlop seems to have been consciously applying the tropes, such as that of the mother, of anti slavery poetry found within American, British, and international poetic traditions to the Australian aboriginal context. Themes of indigenous motherhood, and also of Sati or widow burning in India, and human rights had been favored by early women's rights campaigners in Britain from the 1820s, focusing on abolition of slavery through the identification of white women with the Negro mother. Dunlop's comparative sympathy for the situation of aboriginals in Australia has been given critical attention as the aspect which makes her work valuable. However, in this essay I hope to outline how Dunlop's poetry fits in to the international context of the engagement of Romantic women poets with Western Imperialist models and colonial Others.' (Author's abstract)
Sense and Nonsense J. J. Healy , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature and the Aborigine in Australia 1770- 1975 1989; (p. 91-112)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (2)
Last amended 22 Nov 2013 09:52:23
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