Classic Poem

Land of my birth! though now, alas! no more
Musing I wonder on thy sea-girt shore,
Or climb with eager haste thy barrier cliff
To catch a glimmer of the distant skiff
That ever and anon breaks into light
And then again eludes the aching sight
Till nearer seen she bends her foaming way
Majestic onward to yon placid bay
Where Sydney's infant turrets proudly rise,
The new-born glory of the southern skies--
Dear Australasia, can I e'er forget
Thee, Mother Earth? Ah no, my heart e'en yet
With filial fondness loves to call to view
Scenes which, though oft remember'd, still are new.

And shall I now; by Cam's old classic stream,
Forbear to sing, and thou proposed the theme?
The native bard, though on a foreign strand,
Shall I be mute, and see a stranger's hand
Attune the lyre, and prescient of thy fame
Foretell the glories that shall grace thy name?
Forbid it, all ye Nine! 'twere shame to thee,
My Austral parent--greater shame to me.

Hail mighty ridge! that from thy azure brow
Survey'st these fertile plains, that stretch below,
And look'st with careless, unobservant eye
As round thy waist the forked lightnings ply
And the loud thunders spring with hoarse rebound
From peak to peak, and fill the welkin round
With deaf'ning voice, till with their boist'rous play
Fatigued in mutt'ring peals they stalk away;
Parent of this deep stream, this awful flood,
That at thy feet its tributary mud,
Like the famed Indian or Egyptian tide,
Doth pay, but direful scatters woe beside;
Vast Austral Giant of these rugged steeps,
Within those secret cells rich glitt'ring heaps
Thick piled are doom'd to sleep, till some one spy
The hidden key that opes the treasury:
How mute, how desolate thy stunted woods,
How dread thy chasms, where many an eagle broods,
How dark thy caves, how lone thy torrents' roar,
As down thy cliffs precipitous they pour,
Broke on our hearts, when first with vent'rous tread
We dared to rouse thee from thy mountain bed!
Till gain'd with toilsome step thy topmost heath,
We spied the cheering smokes ascend beneath,
And, as a meteor shoots athwart the night,
The boundless champaign burst upon our sight,
Till nearer seen the beauteous landscape grew,
Op'ning like Canaan on rapt Israel's view.

Ah! no 'tis slav'ry's badge, the felon's shame
That stills thy voice and clouds thy op'ning fame;
'Tis this that makes thy sorrowing Judah weep,
Restrains her song, and hangs her harp to sleep.
Land of my hope! soon may this early blot,
Amid thy growing honours, be forgot;
Soon may a freeman's soul, a freeman's blade,
Nerve ev'ry arm, and gleam thro' ev'ry glade;
Nor more the outcast convicts' clanking chains
Deform thy wilds, and stigmatize thy plains.
And th' the fathers--these--of thy new race,
From whom each glorious feat, each deathless grace,
Must yet proceed, by whom each radiant gem
Be won--to deck thy future diadem--
Did not of old th' Imperial Eagle rise,
Unfurl his pinions, and astound the skies?
Hatch'd in an aerie fouler far than thine,
Did he not dart from Tiber to the Rhine?

Celestial poesy! whose genial sway
Earth's furthest habitable shores obey;
Whose inspirations shed their sacred light
Far as the regions of the arctic night,
And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam
Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam--
Descend thou also on my native land
And on some mountain summit take thy stand;
Thence issuing soon a purer fount be seen,
Than charm'd Castalia or famed Hippocrene;
And there a richer, nobler fane arise
Than on Parnassus met th' adoring eyes.
And though, bright goddess, on those far blue hills
That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills
Where Warragumba's rage has rent in twain
Opposing mountains, thund'ring to the plain,
No child of song has yet invoked thy aid
'Neath their primeval solitary shade--
Still, gracious pow'r, some kindling soul inspire,
To wake to life my country's unknown lyre,
That from creation's date has slumb'ring lain,
Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain;
And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song
Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along;
An Austral Shakspere rise, whose living page
To nature true may charm in ev'ry age;
And that an Austral Pindar daring soar
Where not the Theban Eagle reach'd before.
And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride
Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide;
Should thy tamed Lion--spent his former might--
No longer roar the terror of the fight;
Should e'er arrive that dark disastrous hour
When bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r;
When thou, no longer freest of the free,
To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee--
May all thy glories in another sphere
Relume, and shine more brightly still than here;
May this, thy last-born infant, then arise,
To glad thy heart and greet thy parent eyes;
And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd,
A new Britannia in another world.