TO THE ROSE.
Goddess of beauty: at thy magic breath
My spirit turneth from the gate of death,
And in thy deep red heart would find repose
And dreams of Arcady: thou queenly rose.
This morn I deemed that happiness had flown,
For all the world to me had colder grown.
But lo! The angel of the flowers hath kissed
Thy petals with the dew of morning mist.
The fragrant violet, in its mossy shrine,
Hath not the blushing loveliness of thine;
And though within thy silky stem a dart
Doth lurk, pray do not pierce my heart.
In all my garden, in its beauty set,
With waxen lilies and with mignonette,
And pansies purple with sweet amber eyes—
The charm of Flora’s glory with thee lies.
IN MEMORIAM.
CAPTAIN SCOTT AND COMRADES WHO PERISHED IN ANTARCTICA.
Not in mausoleum built of carven stone
Sleep Britain’s heroes, but they lie alone
In temple grand as human heart could crave
Scott and his comrades in their mighty grave.
The ice their couch, with pure white snow for shroud.
Oh! Avalanche of woe: earth weeps aloud:
The star-fringed sky their pall. No mournful bell,
Or loving voice to breathe farewell: farewell.
No muffled drum, nor flag to drape their bier;
No shot was heard, nor fell one human tear.
But where dark Erebus her vigil lone doth keep,
Our heroes sleep serene their long last sleep.
Their names are written in the Terrene sod:
Their spirits are immortal with their God.
AUSTRAL’S HEROES.
We praise the deeds of ancient heroes bred
Beneath Olympus’ venerable head,
Or proud Parnassus’ patriarchal crown
And victors’ wreaths which sons of Hellas won.
Of Solon, whose impassioned lips once poured
From the great Pynx his eloquence of word;
And mighty Hector, and Astyanax, his boy,
At once the idol and the pride of Troy.
These vanished heroes, and the temples of the plain
Though voiceless, ever deathless will remain;
For though her brilliant Sun has long since set
The spell of Hellas lingers o’er us yet.
But we, as thus we sing of Greece and Rome,
Have heroes such as they, and nearer home;
The sons of sires who through the ages fought
Like Trojans, fired with all the deeds they wrought;
Our pioneers who delved the virgin soil
In this new land with patient endless toil;
In the primeval forest with companions few
The more they toiled, their minds the greater grew.
For they through long and dreary, lonely hours
Wrestled with all the dim remorseless powers
Of doubt, distress, and solitude and fear,
While grim despair stood ever hovering near.
Yet they with ever glowing fierce desire
Of a consuming, and a never dying fire,
Which latent in the human breast doth ever lie,
Potent in hidden power and vast immensity
Pressed bravely onward while they hewed the track,
From death and danger never turning back;
But through the bush bizarre and gorge they strode
Their watchword ringing “On and clear the road.”
And lo! Upon the pathless waste of desert plain
Stood hunger, thirst, disease, and all their train,
Marshalled like hosts of old to smite and slay
The unhappy victims as they fainting lay:
But like the Greeks they fought, and would not yield
Until their bones lay stretched upon the field.
While Drought the King, as Agamemnon great,
Stretched forth his Sceptre o’er his mighty State.
Then Oh! Forget not, we who live in ease to-day,
That great Australian heroes paved the way
To present greatness; noble souls as these
Of this reincarnated Greece of Southern seas:
And Austral’s Sons, should swords they ever wield,
Must die like heroes, or return with shield
Emblazoned with the motto, “Macte Animo,”
With ideals high, and breasts with love aglow
For God and duty: thus each name a gem
Shall gleam in Austral’s peerless diadem.