THE MARTYR.
By Victor J. Daley.
(From "At Dawn and Dusk" poems, by kind permission of Angus and Robertson, Publishers, Sydney and Melbourne.)
Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world's sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.
A woman lay in a hovel
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;
One friend alone was beside her:
The name of him was—Death.
For the sake of her orphan children,
For money to buy them food,
She had slaved in the dismal hovel
And wasted her womanhood.
Winter and spring and summer
Came each with a load of cares;
And autumn to her brought only
A harvest of grey hairs.
Far out in the blessèd country,
Beyond the smoky town,
The winds of God were blowing
Evermore up and down;
The trees were waving signals
Of joy from the bush beyond;
The gum its blue-green banner,
The fern its dark-green frond;