And hoary Kosciusko in dim distance gleams,
So not alone in thy most awful pride
Art thou great Austral Alps, whose purling streams
Gush from the fissures in thy wounded side.
What buried secrets doth thy caverns hold
Of aeons marked by time’s unerring hand?
What mystic rites were held by warriors bold,
The dusky children of an almost vanished band?
Perchance they crept within thy strongholds grim,
Hiding, as erst cave dwellers once had done
In old Europa—fearful lest limb from limb
They should be torn by some great mastodon.
Mayhap from giddy height they gazed with awe
Upon thy ever-changing billowy cloud,
Deeming the “Eagle Rock” and “Bear” they saw
Gods to which they in adoration bowed.
Oh! lo we bend to Him who fashioned thee
From chaos at His own almighty word—
Creation’s wonderland of moving mystery,
When seas and winds alone His voice had heard.
So wildly beautiful art thou, the spirit fails
To utterly describe thy variant mood.
The mantled velvet of thy mossy, vernal vales
And magic falls, which flash in foaming flood;
Ye tree-crowned hills! With leafy branches spread,
Ye scented pines! Whose odorous breath is flung,
Wafted from “Govett’s Leap” and fen and glade,
From aerial censer by wood-spirits swung.
And when the orb of day in splendour dies,
And trailing flambent clouds thy peaks enlace,
The opalescent tints of western skies
Reveal the enchantments of thy dwelling-place.
Or when our lady of the night, so fair,
Silvers thy forests in translucent showers,
Deftly the sylvan poet thrills the air
With murmuring symphony from wind-wooed bowers.
Gorges and canyon, clefts and ravines deep,
And fairy grotts with starry flowerets set,
Where water-lilies pale on green pool sleep;
Lo! Nature’s masterpiece, her grand magnificat.