The Fate of Bass
On the snow-line of the summit stood the Spaniard's English slave;
And the frighted condor westward flew afar---
Where the torch of Cotopaxi lit the wide Pacific wave,
And the tender moon embraced a new-born star.
Blanched the cheek that Austral breezes off Van Diemen's coast had tanned,
Bent the form that on the deck stood stalwart there;
Slim and pallid as a woman's was the sailor's sunburnt hand,
And untimely silver streaked the strong man's hair.
From the forest far beneath him came the baffled bloodhound's bay,
From the gusty slope the camp-fire's fitful glow;
But the pass the Indian told of o'er the cliff beside him lay,
And beyond---The Mighty River's easward flow.
"Mine the secret of the Incas; to the tyrants never told;
Mine the Cloven Rock; the league long Sculptured Way!
Ere the weary scouts awaken, ere the embers are grown cold---
Ere the dogs in dreams their quarry seize and slay!"
Freedom's threshold!---yet he tarries---gazes seaward, southward still,
Past the gulfs where fainting chain-gangs toil entombed,
And the furnace of the smelter taints the winds of every hill
With the fumes that swathe the dying and the doomed.
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poem by Mary Hannay Foott
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Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant
The coup d'etat is blotted out
With fresher blood, with blacker crime,
As midnight horrors put to rout
The vaguer ghosts of twilight-time.
“Greeting from those who are to die!
Hail Caesar!” Draw the curtains round.
In vain! That mournful mocking cry
Pierces the purple with its sound.
And they who raise it enter too,
With spectral looks and noiseless tread,
Unbidden, hold their dread review,
Beside the Emperor's very bed.
They sought in his deserted tent;
They found him in the German camp.
They tarry till the oil be spent
That feeds his life's poor flickering lamp.
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poem by Mary Hannay Foott
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The Magi to the Star
I. Thanksgiving.
Star, on thy Heaven-returning way,
Our message of thanksgiving bear;
To Him who answered with thy ray
The priestless Gentiles' trembling prayer.
When songs of revel shook the roof,
God, Thou didst cheer the joyless course,
Where we, like Vashti, walked aloof,
Braving the world's unjust divorce.
How rate we now all griefs and scorn
That filled our youth with bitterness!
We had not known the Christ is born
But that we sought for One to bless!
II. Prayer.
Fence Thou Thy Child, O Merciful,
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poem by Mary Hannay Foott
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David's Lament for Jonathan
Thou wast hard pressed, yet God concealed this thing
From me; and thou wast wounded very sore,
And beaten down, O son of Israel's king,
Like wheat on threshing-flour.
Thou, that from courtly and from wise for friend
Didst choose me, and in spite of ban and sneer,
Rebuke and ridicule, until the end
Didst ever hold me dear!
All night thy body on the mountain lay:
At morn the heathen nailed thee to their wall.
Surely their deaf gods hear the songs to-day
O'er the slain House of Saul!
Oh! if that witch were here thy father sought,
Methinks I e'en could call thee from thy place,
To shift thy mangled image from my thought,
Seeing thy soul's calm face.
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Wentworth
'Tis a new thing for Australia that the waters to her bear
One who seeks not strength of sunshine, or the breath of healing air;
One who reeks not of her riches, nor remembers she is fair;
One who land and houses, henceforth, holdeth not, for evermore;
Coming for such narrow dwelling as the dead need, to the shore
Named aforetime by the spirit to receive the garb it wore.
'Tis a strange thing for Australia that her name should be the name
Breathed ere death by one who loved her, claiming, with a patriot's claim,
Earth of her as chosen grave-place; rather than the lands of fame;
Rather than the Sacred City where a sepulchre was sought
For the noblest hearts of Europe; rather than the Country fraught
With the incense of the altars whence our household gods were brought.
'Tis a proud thing for Australia, while the funeral-prayers are said,
To remember loving service, frankly rendered by the dead;
How he strove, amid the nations, evermore to raise her head.
How in youth he sang her glory, as it is, and is to be,
Called her “Empress,” while they held her yet as base-born, over sea,
Owned her “Mother,” when her children scarce were counted with the free!
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To the Virgin Mary
Mother of Him we call the Christ,
No halo round thy brows we paint,
Incense and prayer we offer not,
Nor mind to title thee as saint.
And yet, no woman's name, of all
With honour from the ages sent,
Mary, is aureoled like thine,
With love and grief and glory blent!
Oh wisely was it that He chose,
Who the unwritten future reads,
To teach the after-world, through thee,
What cherishers Messiah needs.
Thou heard'st the angel's prophecy,
The tidings which the shepherds brought,
Anna and Simeon praising God,
And saw'st that star the Wise Men sought!
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Nearing Port
A blue line to the westward that surely is not cloud;
A green tinge in the waters; a clamorous bird-crowd;
Then far-off foamy edges, and hill-tops timber fringed;
And, perched aloft, a light-house, o'er grey cliffs golden-tinged.
O watchers leaning landward, know ye of nothing more?
And hear ye but the sea-birds? and see ye but the shore?
Nay, look awhile, and listen who bids you welcome there;
The great seas kiss her sandals, the high stars gem her hair!
Behold her in the gateway! high-held in either hand
A blazing beacon, lighted to lead you to the land.
“Now welcome, kindly welcome, who come to me for cheer!
My forts may frown on others, but ye have nought to fear.
The cannon's flash and thunder are all for joy to-day,
No murmurs meet your coming, none wish to bar your way.”
O, later called to labour, shall we who toiled at morn
Remember, as against you, the heat and burthen borne?
No, verily, we shall not! We pray the labourer's Lord
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The Massacre of the Bards
The sunlight from the sky is swept,
But, over Snowdon's summit kept,
One brand of cloud yet burns,
By ghostly hands far out of sight,
Held, glowing, in the even-light,
As Fate still keeps the weapon bright
That lingers and returns.
- - - - - -
O day of slaughter! Day of woe!
But once, a thousand years ago,
Such day has Britain seen;
When blushed her hoary hills with shame
At Mona's sacrifice of flame;
While shrieks from out the burning came
Across the strait between.
Death-helping day! That couldst not find
One weeping cloud to hide behind!
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The Future of Australia
Sing us the Land of the Southern Sea,
The land we have called our own;
Tell us what harvest there shall be
From the seed that we have sown.
We love the legends of olden days,
The songs of the wind and wave;
And border ballads and minstrel lays,
And the poems Shakespeare gave,
The fireside carols and battle rhymes,
And romaunt of the knightly ring;
And the chant with hint of cathedral chimes,
Of him “made blind to sing.”
The tears they tell of our brethren wept,
Their praise is our fathers' fame;
They sing of the seas our navies swept,
Of the shrines that lent us flame.
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At the Fords of Jordan
A little way farther to guide thee I go
Where the footing is firm and the waters are low;
Then we part, O my King, thou once more to thy throne,
I to dwell, in the house of my fathers, alone.
Yet think not, O David, one pang of regret
Would tempt the recall of the youth I have set
In thy presence; the strong-armed, the true-hearted one,
Last gift of my loyalty, even my son.
Ere my hand to the husbandman's toil had been trained,
Or my foot to the slow-moving flocks had been chained,
I, too, would have marched in the long line of spears,
With the youthful, the courtly, the brave for my peers.
The days when I dreamt but of battle! The lamp
Which all night I kept burning, that if from the camp
One straggler should come, I might, hang up his sword
And hearken how prospered the cause of the Lord!
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