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;
While, under many a fair festoon
And flowering crescent, set ablaze
With all the dyes that English June
Can lend to deck a day of days,
And past where mart and palace rise,
And shrine and temple lift their spears,
Below five million misted eyes
Goes a grey Queen of Sixty Years --
Go lords, and servants of the lords
Of earth, with homage on their lips,
And kinsmen carrying English swords,
And offering England battle-ships;
And tribute-payers, on whose hands
Their English fetters scarce appear;
And gathered round from utmost lands
Ambassadors of Love and Fear!
Dim signs of greeting waved afar,
Far trumpets blown and flags unfurled,
And England's name an Avatar
Of light and sound throughout the world --
Hailed Empress among nations, Queen
Enthroned in solemn majesty,
On splendid proofs of what has been,
And presages of what will be!
For this your sons, foreseeing not
Or heeding not, the aftermath,
Because their strenuous hearts were hot
Went first on many a cruel path,
And, trusting first and last to blows,
Fed death with such as would gainsay
Their instant passing, or oppose
With talk of Right strength's right of way!
For this their names are on the stone
Of mountain spires, and carven trees
That stand in flickering wastes unknown
Wait with their dying messages;
When fire blasts dance with desert drifts
The English bones show white below,
And, not so white, when summer lifts
The counterpane of Yukon's snow.
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