Through the generosity of the late Professor Benedict Anderson and Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri, the Thammasat University Library has newly acquired some important books of interest for students of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) studies, political science, sociology, and related fields.
They are part of a special bequest of over 2800 books from the personal scholarly library of Professor Benedict Anderson at Cornell University, in addition to the previous donation of books from the library of Professor Anderson at his home in Bangkok. These newly available items will be on the TU Library shelves for the benefit of our students and ajarns. They are shelved in the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.
Among them is a newly acquired book that should be useful to TU students who are interested in literature, cultural studies, Australian history, sociology, agriculture, and related subjects.
Collected Poems by David Campbell is a book by a noted poet who worked for most of his life as a grazier or rancher, someone who grazes cattle or sheep.
The TU Library collection includes several other books on different aspects of Australian literature.
Campbell was a grazier in the Monaro, a region in the south of New South Wales, Australia.
The Monaro region is characterised by rolling hills that rise to rugged peaks and shallow valleys.
One biographer wrote of Campbell:
He was handsome, warm, personable, confident, charming, gregarious, easy going in his manner. He was an inspiration to fellow poets. He had an independence of mind and spirit, could be belligerent, especially when drunk […] He was ‘a lion of a man’, and is remembered still, over 30 years after his death, with a rare and intense affection.
When he was not farming, he was an avid rugby player, another theme that appeared in his poetry.
Here are some poems by David Campbell that have been posted online:
*
HARES
There is a stranger on the stock route.
See his red beard and eyes of flame!
The sky’s his swag; the magpies shout
Across a continent his name:
It is the sun! It is the morn!
Bless the day that I was born.
There are two boxers through the gumtrees;
Their shadows spar on the far hill,
Counter and close. What giants are these?
Surprised, a pair of hares stand still.
It’s a fine thing at your front gate
To see such angry lovers mate.
Bill is out on the red stallion;
His piebald mob crops blades of fire.
Trees burn, leaves melt, in conflagration.
The big buck hare has his desire
On the red ridge by the white tree.
Jugged, he would do Bill for his tea.
*
I HEARD THE POSSUM CRY
I
Where a twisted tree
Split the rough sandstone
I stood at night and heard
A possum scold the moon.
I listened for the cock
Who would call my dead
Grandfather from his grave
To my grandmother’s bed.
I waited for the magpie
One hour before the dawn
To sing “Tan-tara, boys!”
On old John Bax’s horn.
I lifted up my hand
And made my ear a cup ;
The skewbald dingo slept
At Brigalow Gap.
The only sounds I heard
That hour before the light
Were the tide in the leaves,
The possum’s cry to the night.
II
I heard the possum cry
Beneath the yellow moon.
I said “That moon was made
From this same sandstone.”
The moon looked through the trees
And where her shadows stood
Blackmen sprang upright;
They filled the ancient wood.
A tide ran through the leaves;
Otherwise a still
Hush lay on the bush
Where the shadows fell.
Like a lubra, the land
Lay quiet, indifferent;
The shadows stole to the trees
At the moon’s ascent.
*
LET EACH RIPEN
Where the horse and horseman go
Iron is clamorous on stone,
Spark and heavenly bluebell grow.
World enough for flesh and bone.
The black mare in the blue pool
Stamps her image and is still.
Where the tree would spread her bough
Cloud masses fill the chart;
There the skilled explorer now
Satisfies and steels the heart.
The aircraft sings in the thinning air,
Climbs the still momentous stair.
Let the living horseman ride:
Sweet and sensuous is earth’s breath;
Scorned by the pilot in his pride.
It will open at his death.
Before his final bed is made
Let each ripen in his trade.
*
WINDY GAP
As I was going through Windy Gap
A hawk and a cloud hung over the map.
The land lay bare and the wind blew loud
And the hawk cried out from the heart of the cloud.
Before I fold my wings in sleep
I’ll pick the bones of your travelling sheep,
For the leaves blow back and the wintry sun
Shows the tree’s white skeleton.
A magpie sat in the tree’s high top
Singing a song on Windy Gap
That streamed far down to the plain below
Like a shaft of light from a high window.
From the bending tree he sang aloud,
And the sun shone out of the heart of the cloud
And it seemed to me as we travelled through
That my sheep were the notes that trumpet blew.
And so I sing this song of praise
For travelling sheep and blowing days.
*
IN SUMMER’S TREE
In summer’s yellow tree
The bird sings low;
There my thoughts are leaves
But he sings from the shadow.
Under thought he sings
And he locks the hot summer
Like a spring’s reflections
In his words of amber.
One world is of time
And the other of vision.
And the magpie’s song
Brings peace and fusion.
For now the sharp leaves
On the tree are still
And the great blond paddocks
Come down from the hill.
*
LOVE WHO POINTS THE SWALLOW HOME
Love who points the swallow home
And scarves the russet at his throat,
Dreaming in the needle’s eye,
Guide us through the maze of glass
Where the bulldozer cannot pass,
With your silent clarity.
There where blood and sap are one,
Thrush’s heart and daisy’s root
Keep the measure of the dance
Though within their cage of bone
Griefs and tigers stalk alone
Locked in private arrogance.
Lay the shadows of our fear
With the brilliance of your light,
Naked we can meet the storm.
Travellers who journeyed far
To find you at our own front door,
O love who points the swallow home.
*
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)