Life’s pageantry is o’er; nor pomp, nor cavalcades disturb him more.
The King is dead!
Upon that stately bier reposeth now
All that remains so dear, whom millions knew.
The King is dead!
O Angels, waft him home!
O Lord of Life and Death,
Thy will be done!
The King is dead!
And yet, he lives again! his son doth
Him succeed!
God bless his reign!
TO AUSTRALIA.
Stella Australis! who with matchless grace
Riseth like Aphrodité from the ocean’s foam,
With dawn resplendent in thy smiling face
And tresses flung to the wild breezes of thy home.
Brilliant the gems thy bosom fair adorning,
Rich run thy veins with golden treasure down;
Thy girdle formed of pearls fair, as the morning,
The starry Southern Cross thy peerless crown.
The silver rills thy rocky slopes o’erflowing,
The thunders of thy falls go rushing o’er
To join the tree-fringed rivers in their going
Down to the briny deep of Neptune’s floor.
And Kosciusko towers in mighty solitude,
Poising her regal head toward the sky,
And ’mid the vast silence of her altitude
Views undisturbed the storm clouds passing by.
Thy subterranean rivers are unsounded,
The golden corn is quivering on thy plain,
Thy depths are stored with mineral wealth unbounded,
The fame of which hath crossed the sounding main.