When you arrive at Sydney, sailing upThe harbour, a small central isle you’ll see;With two or three low huts, but not a tree,Nor blade of grass,-upon’t; and, on the top,A score of men, in coarse habiliments,Hewing the rock away. You may remember,Among the many evil-traced eventsOf a town life, some robbery, when DecemberBrought on the…
Her gentle face was ever brightWith noble thought and purpose proud.Dreamt ye that those divine blue eyes,That beauty free from pride or blame,Were fashion’d but to terrorizeO’er Despot’s power of sword and flame?Beware! Those beauteous lineamentsOf girlhood shrine a force sublime,Which moulds to fearful use events,And dares arraign Imperial crime.A fear was in the peasants’…
‘Mong the red flags which gleam through mastsand sparsCrowded in gay magnificence, to-day,Where three score years ago, none found their way,Of all the ships which left old England’s shore:Up goes the starry flag, on waves which layIn undiscover’d solitude, when o’erAmerica those stars first glanc’d from fields of gore!In friendly beauty floats that free-fix’d flag‘Gainst…
Thoughts that like a scimitarSmite us fainting at the goal.Weary of the joys that pain—Dead sea fruits whose ashes fall,Drying up the summer’s rain—Charnel dust in cups of gall!Weary of the hopes that fail,Leading from the narrow way,Tempting strength to actions frail—Hand to err, and foot to stray.Weary of the battling throng,False and true in…
Of the mountain streams that play,Each adown its tortuous way;When the dewy-fingered evenVeils the narrowed glimpse of heaven,Where the morning re-illumesGullies full of ferny plumes,And the roof of radiance weavesThrough high-hanging vault of leaves;There ’mid giant turpentines,Groups of climbing, clustering vines,Rocks that stand like sentinelsGuarding native citadels,Lowly flowering shrubs that graceWith their beauty all the…
They brought the Lawyer-Statesman home:They laid him with the gather’d dead,Where rich and poor like brothers come.How bravely did the stripling climb,From step to step the rugged hill:His gaze thro’ that benighted timeFix’d on the far-off beacon still.He faced the storm that o’er him burst,With pride to match the proudest born:He bore unblench’d Detraction’s worst,…
Of queenly maids and heroes grand,Of equal laws,—our Fatherland!Though born beneath a brighter sun,Shall we forget the marvels done,By soul outspoken, blood outpoured,By bard and patriot, song and sword?Forget how firm and true our sires,Still lighted by their battle-fires,’Gainst kingly power and kingly crime,Long struggled in the darkened time?How in a rolling sea they stood,Where…
Is that no sense of being disappearsOr fails; I see the signal, hear the call,Can calmly estimate the rise and fallOf moth-like mortals in this ‘vale of tears’;And all His glorious works–the heavenly spheres,The ocean, and the earth’s unending wall–Remain, for thought and wonder! MarvellousIs God’s creation, with its endless spaceAnd those inhabited bright worlds…
