"Is it the moaning of the Earth?
Dark Rider, answer me!"
"It is the cry of life at birth"
He answered quietly:
"But thou canst turn a face of cheer
To good days still in store;
Thou needst not care for Pain or Fear —
They cannot harm thee more."
Yet I rode on with sullen heart,
And said with breaking breath,
"If thou art he I think thou art,
Then slay me now, O Death!"
The veil was from my eyesight drawn —
"Thou knowest now," said he:
"I am the Angel of the Dawn!
Ride back, and wait for me."
So I rode back at morning light,
And there, beside my bed,
Fear had become a lily white
And Pain a rose of red.
Alice Werner.
Bannerman of the Dandenong
I rode through the Bush in the burning noon,
Over the hills to my bride, —
The track was rough and the way was long,
And Bannerman of the Dandenong,
He rode along by my side.
A day's march off my Beautiful dwelt,
By the Murray streams in the West; —
Lightly lilting a gay love-song
Rode Bannerman of the Dandenong,
With a blood-red rose on his breast.
"Red, red rose of the Western streams"
Was the song he sang that day —
Truest comrade in hour of need, —
Bay Mathinna his peerless steed —
I had my own good grey.