Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/385



Where now a radiant city stands,

The dark oak used to wave,

The elfin harp of lonely lands

Above the wild man's grave;

Through windless woods, one clear, sweet stream

(Sing soft and very low)

Stole like the river of a dream

A hundred years ago.

Upon the hills that blaze to-day

With splendid dome and spire,

The naked hunter tracked his prey,

And slumbered by his fire.

Within the sound of shipless seas

The wild rose used to blow

About the feet of royal trees,

A hundred years ago.

Ah! haply on some mossy slope,

Against the shining springs,

In those old days the angel Hope

Sat down with folded wings;

Perhaps she touched in dreams sublime,

In glory and in glow,

The skirts of this resplendent time,

A hundred years ago.

A gracious morning on the hills of wet

And wind and mist her glittering feet has set;

The life and heat of light have chased away

Australia's dark, mysterious yesterday.

A great, glad glory now flows down and shines

On gold-green lands where waved funereal pines.