Page:Australian and Other Poems.djvu/19

14 No more I'm like a blooming bride, who waits, 'mid bright array, For the coming of the bridegroom, whom Death struck on the way.

No more I'm like a matron lone, whose husband and whose sons Lie slain where through the battle-throng the rude Destroyer runs. To-day bold suitors come in crowds, to-day I'm wooed and won, To-day the long-expected ones have found their gladdened home.

To-day the founders of a race shall fill my broad domains, Shall wake the silence of my woods, shall swarm upon my plains, Have come, and shall not welcome meet, and shall not guerdon high Good greeting to their advent give, repay each toil-wrung sigh?