Early Poems (1859-70). Australia Vindex
This were written for “Prince Alfred’s Wreath”, published in Sydney in 1868. While in Sydney, the Prince was shot at by a fanatic and slightly injured.Who cometh from fields of the south With raiment of weeping and woe, And a cry of the heart in her mouth, And a step that is muffled and slow? Her paths are the paths of the sun; Her house is a beautiful light; But she boweth her head, and is one With the daughters of dolour and night. She is fairer than flowers of love; She is fiercer than wind-driven flame; And God from His thunders above Hath smitten the soul of her shame. She saith to the bloody one curst With the fever of evil, she saith "My sorrow shall strangle thee first With an agony wilder than death! "My sorrow shall hack at thy life! Thou shalt wrestle with wraiths of thy sin, And sleep on a pillow of strife With demons without and within!" She whispers, "He came to the land A lord and a lover of me— A son of the waves with a hand As fearless and frank as the sea. "On the shores of the stranger he stood With the sweetness of youth on his face; Till there started a fiend from the wood, Who stabbed at the peace of the place! "Because of the dastardly thing Thou hast done in the sight of the day, All horrors that sicken and sting Shall make thee for ever their prey. "Because of the beautiful trust Destroyed by a devil like thee, Thy bed shall be low in the dust And my heel as a shackle shall be! "Because" (and she mutters it deep Who curseth the coward in chains) "Thou hast stricken and murdered our sleep, Thy sleep shall be perished with pains; "Thy sleep shall be broken and sharp And filled with fierce spasms and dreams, And shadow shall haunt thee and harp On hellish and horrible themes! "I will set my right hand on thy neck And my foot on thy body, nor bate, Till thy name shall become as a wreck And a byword for hisses and hate!"
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
