Voice of Conscience


 * Suddenly he starts, arising from the dead
 * The ghost of Yagan stands, without a head!
 * And thus addressed him in a guttural note,
 * His voice proceeding from this severed throat:
 * "Squatter! What brought thee here?
 * Did hapless woe, or vile ambition teach
 * Thy steps to rove? Or worse than these
 * The cursed love of gold, alike the idol of the young and old,
 * That crowns the sovereign, forms the noble star,
 * Gilds the child's gingerbread, and glittering far
 * Controls each circumstance of peace and war,
 * And adorns the trappings of the bold hussar,
 * Send thee, a sordid wanderer to a barren land
 * Of rock and stone, or iron-stone and sand?
 * On the Swan's banks shall rise no future home
 * Nor these light sands support one splendid dome,
 * On our rude mountains little else appears,
 * Than man, and wood, the native and his spears."