Surely within thy fastness, Aphrodite,
She of the sea-ways, fallen from above,
Wandered beneath thy canopy of blossom,
Nothing disdainful of a mortal's love.
Aye, and Her sweet breath lingers on the wattle,
Aye, and Her myrtle dominates the glade,
And with a deep and perilous enchantment
Melts in the heart of lover and of maid.
The Australian Sunrise
The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea,
And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free,
The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night,
Waned in the gray awakening that heralded the light;
Still in the dying darkness, still in the forest dim
The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb,
Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist,
And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed;
Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard,
And the wind in the she-oak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred,
The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast,
The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest,
And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow gray
And burnt with cloudy crimson at dawning of the day.
John Farrell.
Australia to England
June 22nd, 1897
What of the years of Englishmen?
What have they brought of growth and grace
Since mud-built London by its fen
Became the Briton's breeding-place?
What of the Village, where our blood
Was brewed by sires, half man, half brute,
In vessels of wild womanhood,
From blood of Saxon, Celt and Jute?
What are its gifts, this Harvest Home
Of English tilth and English cost,
Where fell the hamlet won by Rome
And rose the city that she lost?
O! terrible and grand and strange
Beyond all phantasy that gleams
When Hope, asleep, sees radiant Change
Come to her through the halls of dreams!
A heaving sea of life, that beats
Like England's heart of pride to-day,
And up from roaring miles of streets
Flings on the roofs its human spray;
And fluttering miles of flags aflow,
And cannon's voice, and boom of bell,
And seas of fire to-night, as though
A hundred cities flamed and fell;