Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/71

Rh And a flag, red-crossed, says the patch of sand Is a recognized part of the wide domain That is blessed with the peace of Victoria's reign. But behind the lighthouse the land's the same, And it bears grim proof of the white man's shame; For the miniature vales that the island owns Have a horrible harvest of human bones!

And how did they come there? that's the word; And I'll answer it now with the tale I heard From the lips of a man who was there, and saw The bad end of man's greed and of colony law.

Many years ago, when the white man first Set his foot on the coast, and was hated and cursed By the native, who had not yet learned to fear The dark wrath of the stranger, but drove his spear With a freeman's force and a bushman's yell At the white invader, it then befell That so many were killed and cooked and eaten, There was risk of the whites in the end being beaten