On a pebbled strand it grateth, ghastly cliffs around it loom,
Thin and melancholy voices faintly murmur through the gloom;
Voices only, lipless voices, and the fisherman turns pale,
As the mother greets her children, sisters landing brothers hail.
Lightened of its unseen burden, cork-like rides the rocking bark,
Fast the fisherman flies homewards o'er the billows deep and dark;
THAT boat needs no mortal's mooring — sad at heart he seeks his bed,
For his life henceforth is clouded — he hath piloted the Dead!
Sir Henry Parkes.
The Buried Chief
(November 6th, 1886)
With speechless lips and solemn tread
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 time
Fix'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, —
Paid blow for blow, and scorn for scorn.
He scaled the summit while the sun
Yet shone upon his conquer'd track:
Nor falter'd till the goal was won,
Nor struggling upward, once look'd back.
But what avails the "pride of place",
Or winged chariot rolling past?
He heeds not now who wins the race,
Alike to him the first or last.